A long roast on tomatoes, even out of season, makes a sweet + robust pizza sauce that is perfect for pizza-ing.

There really is nothing like a fresh, ripe, perfectly plump sweet, summer tomato, am I right? So in the winter months, I long for a tomato that doesn’t taste like a mushy, grainy glob of nothingness. Enter my friends at Avrom Farm! They’ve added Mighty Vine tomatoes to their online shop, and they are a dream. Grown right here in my home state of Illinois, they’ve added a lot of greenhouses, just to offer these fab tomatoes year round. I believe you can get these yummy ‘maters across the country in a variety of grocery stores, so if you’re able to find them, they’re what I used in the pizza sauce recipe below (in February)!

I used the same method to coax flavor and sweetness out of the tomatoes that is done in one of my all time favorite recipes – Nick & Toni’s Penne Alla Vecchia Bettola – where you roast the tomatoes with seasoning and olive oil for a good long while. Oooohhhhh do they come out looking and smelling oh-so-good!

After the roasting is done, all you do is blend the mixture until you get your desired texture. The sauce ends up being just slightly sweet with a hint of spice and some earthiness from the oregano and soy sauce. Easy and delicious, my favorite combo. Another plus is that this pizza sauce freezes up perfectly. So you can make one batch and get plenty of pizzas all dressed up without needing to make more. Swish.

Other building blocks of our fave pizzas

It’s no secret that Dave and I LOVE pizza. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad piece of pizza. Even those wax high school luncheon rectangles have their place, even if it is just nostalgia I’m tasting. So we have pizza nights at least twice a month. Dave makes his dough in advance and he swears by this recipe from Feeling Foodish. It’s best cooked up 48-72 hours after making the dough as it ferments longer and becomes more flavorful. Of course you can use store bough crust. But man, there is nothing like a homemade fresh out of the oven, crispy and slightly chewy pizza crust.

We often experiment with toppings, but we also like the classics too. With this last round of sauce we made one pie with spicy Italian sausage, green pepper, red onion, caramelized mushrooms and shredded mozzarella. This combo is always killer.

The next one we made was Dave’s favorite of the night. This pizza sauce, red onion, spicy sliced capicola, shredded mozzarella and fresh mozzarella. Talk about a knock-out. Fabulous, all around.

Our last pizza of the night (and yes we made three for just us) was absolutely stellar. It was a ‘white’ pizza, so we didn’t use any sauce. We just drizzled the dough with olive oil, some chopped garlic and topped with shredded mozzarella, chopped dates, prosciutto and burrata. The creamy, salt, sweet combo here made this a new absolute favorite.

You know I can’t wrap up this blog without a nod to my Pizza King, Dave. Cheers, babe!