Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Pizza Sauce

We always make our own sauce for the pizza - you can find the dough recipe here.  This way we know exactly what's in the sauce and we can tailor it to suit.  It's a really easy sauce to make, and you can use it for other dishes like a base for the spaghetti sauce.

We all love anchovies, you can leave these out if you wish but they do add a  nice salty twist to the sauce - and if you don't tell them its in it, they will never know....(unless there's an anchovy allergy...)


  • 2 sachets of tomato paste
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1 teaspoon chilli sauce
  • 2 tablespoons of capers
  • 6-8 anchovies
  • fresh herbs (basil or oregano - use dried if not available)
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
Chop up the capers and anchovies until they are fine and make a paste. 

In a small saucepan over low-medium heat, add the capers, anchovies, garlic and chilli, along with some olive oil or anchovy oil. Stir until it all starts to reduce. Add tomato paste, sugar and fresh herbs. Add water to make a sauce.  Bring to boil - set aside until needed.

Cashing in on the Dough - Bellissimo!

There's nothing quite like home made pizza dough - light, fluffy, and delicious - forget about the store bought cardboard - make your own!!

We have experimented with heaps of different doughs - we started making dough when we had a bread machine - one hour later, and not enough dough quickly changed that idea - it just didn't cope and I was spending hours just making dough.

So we switched to doing it by hand - it takes about 20-30 minutes to make the dough - while its rising, we heat up the oven and get ready to start building pizza. To make the dough rise quicker, we have found that if we separate the dough into portions before leaving it to rise, that it actually rises quicker. For this recipe, we divide it up into 8 equal portions - we use 25cm pizza trays as these fit in the oven much better (4 at a time) - but use whatever trays you have (they don't have to be round - your house, your rules!!)



  • 600 g strong bakers flour
  • 400g semolina
  • 10ml olive oil
  • 10g salt
  • 10g sugar
  • 20g dry yeast
  • 650ml water (warm)


Mix dry ingredients, add water and oil. Knead on floured surface until dough is soft and pliable. Divide equally into 8 portions of 200g each. Place on tray - use baking paper or sprinkle the bottom of the tray with flour or semolina to stop sticking - and cover with a clean tea towel in warm draft free space until dough rises (about 20 mins depending on room temperature).


Building Pizzas
Roll out your dough portions - sprinkle some semolina flour on your workspace before rolling. The semolina will stop the pizza sticking from the tray - be generous with the semolina on the bottom of the pizza, it does not affect flavour and is a blessing when it comes to sliding off the tray.  

Put your rolled out dough onto the tray. Spread a spoonful of sauce over the pizza base. Sprinkle with a cheese mixture (I use 50/50 cheddar and mozzarella cheeses). Then put your toppings on top with a very light sprinkle of cheese if needed (most do not need more cheese. 

We roll out all our dough first, then we spoon sauce over them all (to make sure evenly shared among pizzas), then we do cheese on them all. Once that has been done, then we do the toppings.



Bake hot oven until crisp on base and cheese has melted (about 15 mins).

Freeze: yes.  When we freeze the bases, we also put on the sauce and cheese.  We freeze on the tray, and once frozen then we wrap (and free up the tray).

My Ultimate Tips on Storing Mince - You're Welcome!!

Looking for tips on how to store mince? Here's my ultimate guide....

Well, there is a better way, and here are my best tips for freezing mince:

I buy in bulk - wherever is the cheapest at the time - check the use by dates if its prepackaged - mince can be temperamental if its really close to its use by date.

  1. divide it up - we freeze it in portions of about 250g - this is enough for spaghetti, nachos, etc for 4 people.
  2. Get a vacuum sealer machine - if you don't want to go to the expense (it's worth it) - then there is a trick you can use with an iron (if you hate ironing clothes, you might like ironing food???). If you don't want to go to any effort at all, use freezer bags or zip lock bags (large).
  3. Roll out your mince to about 2-3mm thick - spreading it into the corners of the bag so that you can eliminate the air easier.  If you don't have a rolling pin, use a flat sided drinking glass.
  4. Seal the bag.
  5. Freeze - make sure it's flat in the freezer! this will save you space.  If you are just using freezer bags, place some paper towel or newspaper between each layer of mince to stop it all sticking together - this only seems to happen with the thinner plastic bags.
  6. To defrost, either take out a few hours before you need it and defrost in the fridge; or if you are in a hurry put the frozen mince (inside the bag) in the sink with some cold (not hot) water while you prep the rest of your meal.