Practice Makes Perfect: Pizza, lol

I've been practicing my pizza skills lately. Above, one of my better efforts from a few days ago—a cheese-only tomato pie with homemade Marinara sauce, recipe below.

I bought this non-stick pizza pan a few weeks ago at a local discount store. I think it was $2.00! I originally bought it to use in my new art projects, as a stencil. The evenly spaced circular holes were too graphic to pass up. But before I could paint with it, I thought I'd try it for its actual purpose, and was really pleased with how it crisped the bottom pizza dough and allowed the pie to cook evenly. I've since bought a second pan to use for art!

The uncooked pizza just looked so perfect, I had to get my camera, lol. I used grated Romano and shredded part-skim Mozzarella on top of my quick homemade marinara sauce.

Quick Marinara Sauce from Canned Tomatoes

• 1 28 oz can of whole, peeled Italian tomatoes
• 1 6 oz can of tomato paste
• 1/2 large yellow Spanish onion
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 tablespoons basil pesto
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (give or take a bit)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt/pepper to taste

1. Roughly dice the onion and sauté over medium heat in the olive oil until soft
2. Add the can of tomato paste into the onion and stir well. Cook for about a minute until well blended. Add the 1/2 cup of water and mix well. A dry white wine could be substituted for the water
3. Add the large can of whole, peeled tomatoes and stir. 
4. Add the pesto, brown sugar, oregano and salt/pepper. Stir well and cover the sauce pan. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to a simmer.
5. Cook approximately 20 minutes to half an hour, stirring every few minutes

Now at this point, the sauce is "done" for most cooks, especially those Food Networkies! I don't really like my sauce chunky though, so flying the face of current convention, at this point in the cooking, I run my sauce through my food mill. This takes a couple of minutes of going back and forth in the mill, but the result is a very smooth Marinara, and any seeds and skin that might have been left in the canned tomatoes are taken out by this step. I really think the flavors are blended better if you do this step, but by all means, leave it chunky (and pretty) if you prefer!

Bonus Photo:

Once again, I've found a gorgeous rose blooming in town. Even with our early snowstorm, and with November's almost-freezing evening temperatures, this beautiful pink rose has decided to put out another bloom.