Pizza sauce

A good pizza sauce is a vital ingredient for any good pizza. A robust sauce, few toppings and lots and lots of cheese is the way pizza has been popularized throughout the US. I usually like my pizzas with a good helping of pizza sauce and lots of vegetables, but tend to go easy on the cheese. Here is how I make my pizza sauce.

What you need:
Garlic - 3 cloves, minced
Oil - 2 tbsp.
Tomato - 5 or 6 large, juicy ones, chopped
Basil - a handful, chopped (I used fresh basil. It can be substituted with dried basil)
Italian seasoning - a few generous sprinkles
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Red chilli flakes - to taste

Heat oil. Saute garlic in it. Then add in the rest of the ingredients. Mix well and cook covered over a low flame until the tomatoes are well cooked and mushy and the sauce reaches the desired thickness. You can choose to blend the sauce if you like it smooth. I like mine chunky and have left it as it is.
Once completely cooled, this can be refrigerated and will stay good for up to a week.
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Cooking with kids - pizza

A while back, I posted a simple pizza sauce recipe. The pizza that I made using that sauce never got posted. Like I have said in the pizza sauce post, the inspiration for the sauce came from a book that the little girl and I read. After making the sauce, I cut up some of her favourite veggies and gave her free rein in assembling everything on a ready made pizza base. A few minutes in the oven - and we had a healthy and colourful pizza ready.

What you need:
Pizza base - 1
Pizza sauce (recipe here)
Veggies of your choice - sliced and lightly steam cooked (I have used sprouts, baby corn and capsicum)
Grated cheese - for topping

Spread the pizza sauce evenly and generously on the base. Arrange the sliced veggies on top of that in a single layer. The veggies should be cooked but still crunchy. Top with grated cheese. Cook in the microwave at 80% power for 8-10 minutes or until the grated cheese melts.

This is my second post for this week's blogging marathon themed on Kids' delight - Evening snacks.
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 17 
This post goes to Radhika's Let's cook - Kid's special

Simple pizza sauce

The little girl and I both love to read.....we often go to a library nearby where we take ages trying to decide which books to take back home with us. On the last visit, LG picked up this book called Golgappu makes pizza which tells a story about a little boy who, with the help of his mother, makes pizzas for a pizza party with his friends. Soon after reading this book, she wanted to make pizza. So we did and here's the simple tomato based pizza sauce that we made.

What you need:
Tomato - 4 large, juicy ones
Onion - 1, chopped fine
Garlic - a few cloves
Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt - to taste
Sugar - a little

Heat oil in a pan. On a low flame, saute the onions until pink. Crush the garlic slightly and stir it in. Add chopped tomatoes, cover and cook for 8-10 minutes on low flame. Crush the tomatoes with a ladle. Add salt, sugar and a cup of water. Let it simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
This is the sauce that we used on our pizza. We kept it simple and non-spicy because that's how my daughter prefers it. However, this can be spiced up with some chillies or chilli powder. You could also add your favorite herbs to make it more flavorful.