Just about any Italian tomato based sauce will consist of a few ingredients:
Tomato (I use crushed tomatoes rather than tomato sauce, the texture is much better)
garlic
onion
My basic tomato sauce goes like this:
-28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
-2 cloves of garlic
-half a white onion (if you don't like onions, leeks are a pretty good sub)
-1 tablespoon each of dried oregano and dried parsley
-1 bay leaf
-teaspoon of sugar
-salt and pepper to taste
-start off with some evoo in a medium sized pan, then add the garlic and onions.
-once they are translucent, add the parsley and oregano
-stir around so that the clumps form within the dried herbs.
-add the tomato sauce, salt, and pepper, and mix well.
-drop in the bay leaf
-cover and let simmer for 15-20 minutes
From this basic sauce you can make more types...arrabbiata (which means angry), all you do is add red chili pepper to the garlic, onion, evoo mixture at the beginning.
Ragu: add diced carrots and celery, to the garlic/onion/evoo mixture, then ground beef an red wine (this takes longer as the beef needs to cook down with the sauce so that it is almost paste-like).
Pesto: Pretty simple...In a food processor add parsley, basil, pine nuts, salt, and pepper...pulse for about 10-15 seconds then drizzle in extra virgin olive oil so that it becomes emulsified into a good sauce.
As far as my pizza dough recipe:
1 3/4 cups of warm (100-110 F) water
1 tbsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
2-3 tbsp evoo
3 cups bread flour (bread flour has a higher protein content than all purpose flour, thus it cooks crispier in the oven)
-add the water, yeast, sugar, and salt into a mixing bowl, let mixture sit for 5 minutes so that bubbles form (this activates the yeast)
-add flour and evoo and mix will (5-7 minutes)
-if the dough is sticky, or stickier than you think it should be, then add more flour
-if the dough is too dry, add more water/oil*
-after mixing, roll out onto a floured work surface and knead. For a basic kneading tutorial, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BhVPgllLW8 (the part about what your dough should look like starts at 8:17, but the entire video is pretty helpful for the entire process).
-once you knead the dough, oil a large bowl and place the dough in.
-cover with plastic wrap and a towel, let sit for 2 hours.
...
-after 2 hours, roll out onto floured work surface and divide in half.
-roll the pieces into balls and let sit for 20 minutes.
-after that you are ready to roll the dough into a pizza dough. I use a french roller because it gives me a lot more flexibility.
-You can roll as thin or as thick as you want (I generally do it paper-thin, one time I put mozzarella sticks on the edge of the dough and rolled it inside...brilliant).
-About the time you roll the doughs into balls, start the oven on as hot as it can bake (545), put a pizza stone in when you do the same.
-When the oven is ready, throw some corn meal on the stone and put the dough...just the dough...into the oven. Let the dough cook just to the point so that it will begin to harden, then take back out and add to whatever pizza recipe you want to do.**
-The pizza should be cooked hot and quick, no more than 5 minutes. It's actually supposed to be cooked in an oven at 1000 degrees or more, so if you can cook on a grill then do it.
*as with all baking, conditions such as humidity, altitude, and temperature can change the ratio of dry:wet ingredients. You will have to do a lot of this by site and sense, so experiment a little bit. Fortunately flour is not exorbitantly expensive.
**I know that seems unorthodox, but I have found that the dough is cooked more completely without burning the toppings and cheese by cooking the dough right before you add the toppings.
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Homemade cooking
