Homemade Pizza Sauce

We just had dinner and I'm going to say that the sauce was worth the little extra effort it required. Since I had all of the ingredients to double it, I just went ahead and doubled it. Doubling it really just means opening up two more cans. Carly is my assistant in the kitchen. I have some mini-pizza pans, so we make two little pizzas and one big one. Carly pats out the dough and does all of the assembly on the small pizzas. I hope that she'll always be interested in helping out in the kitchen. I enjoy having her in there.

Here's the recipe. If you have a mini food chopper, I thought it was handy for cutting up the onion and celery very fine. I didn't measure out those two ingredients, I just guestimated.

Homemade Pizza Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup celery, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 small bay leaf

1. In a large skillet, melt butter with the oil. Add the onion, celery and garlic and saute until soft and transparent.

2. Add tomato sauce and tomato paste and stir until smooth.

3. Add remaining ingredients and bring to slow simmer.

4. Simmer for 30-60 minutes (or not at all depending on your taste and time frame).

5. Remove the bay leaf and spread the sauce on your prepared pizza dough.