Homemade pizza sauce for Mini-Pizza night!

So here's the truth behind the kitchen equipment posts....

I've been away from my kitchen for 5 weeks. Yes, five weeks. I got a great new job, but to be trained properly, I was sent to Stamford, CT for a full five weeks. They did bring me home for Easter, so I got to spend time with the family. And having a laptop on the road makes it easier to communicate, thanks to Google's video call feature. If you are ever on the road, try it out. It has very little lag time, it lets you see your loved ones instead of just hearing them on the phone... and it's FREE!!!!

The bad news; during that five weeks, I had no real access to my, or any, kitchen. For someone who likes to cook, that's a lifetime. Five weeks of eating out, five weeks of everything from fast food to "high dining", five weeks of continuous continental breakfasts. While some of it was really good, there are problems with eating out every day. First, you're eating many more calories than you normally do, which means you have to work out every day, just to maintain your current weight. I walked 24 miles in 9 days and GAINED a pound. It's just not fair. Second, you eat MUCH more salt than you're used to. I drank three quarts of water a day, just to flush the extra sodium out of my system and to combat the bloated feeling. Third, you are limited to what you can eat. There was a small food section at the local Target, but there wasn't a real grocery store within a two mile radius. So if you were craving something, you needed to plan out a trip to that real grocery store and find a way to keep the food fresh. We were lucky in the second stretch of the trip to have a fridge in the room, but you have no way to prepare what you really want to eat. So being home with a full kitchen at my disposal is a godsend. I appreciate it more than ever.

So while I was away from home and I have a multitude of time on my hands, I start brainstorming some food ideas. I literally came up with another 30 posts ideas for the blog, which will appear over the next year. But the one thing I wanted to do more than ever is to spend some quality time with the family.  It's amazing how much the little ones change in a month.  Sawyer's bigger and is playing soccer on the weekends.  Wyatt's speaking much more and has learned a number of new words.  So to spend some quality time with the kids, we did a little activity in the kitchen, Mini-pizza night.

This tradition began with my mom.  When dad would go out of town during hunting season, we'd normally go out to eat for dinner.  But once a hunting season, we'd create our own mini-pizzas.  Mom would pound out little pizza crusts and let us fill them with whatever toppings we wanted.  They could be just cheese, or they could be massively overflowing with whatever toppings we wished.  She'd pop them in the over and we'd snack on them as we'd watch a VHS tape on the front room TV.  It was great!

We've done this a few times at family gatherings as well, filling up over 4 dozen crusts and taking turns waiting for them to cook.  Now when there's 20+ people around, the whole process can take a while.  But when there's only 4 of us, we can cook them up in about 20 minutes.  The kids have a great time making them and they love to see their handiwork when they emerge from the oven. 

It's extremely easy to do, and you REALLY want the kids to be involved.  We use frozen roll dough to make the crust for convenience's sake, but if you want to use actual pizza dough, you can.  The pizza sauce can be just canned spaghetti sauce, you can make your own, or use my recipe for Pizza Sauce.  And as for toppings, anything goes.  Be creative.  Add anything you'd like.  Just prepare the topping ahead of time, place them in a bowl and let the kids dump on as much as you want. 

Pizza Sauce
Makes enough for 1 14" pizza, 12 mini pizzas or 4 calzones (with extra for dipping)

1 14 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 6 oz can tomato paste

2 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp Italian seasoning

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Combine all of the items in a small saucepan.  Stir, then heat until boiling.  Back off the heat to low and let it simmer for 15 minutes, stirring every so often some some of the liquid cooks out.  Remove from heat and spread onto pizza whenever you're ready.

Mini-Pizzas
Serves 4-6

12 frozen thaw and serve rolls
Your favorinte Spaghetti sauce or Pizza Sauce
Toppings of your choice (Pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, green peppers, onions, etc)
2 lbs grated mozzerella cheese

Thaw the rolls according to the instructions on the package.  Once raised take a roll, smash it flat and place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with non-sick spray.  Spread a layer of pizza sauce onto the crust, followed by a small sprinkling of cheese.  Add all the toppings you desire, followed by more cheese.  If you want to turn them int calzones, fold it over on itself and pinch the edges shut.  Fill the cookie sheet, allowing an inch of space between each pizza.  Place them in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until the crust becomes golden brown. Serve while still warm.

This is a great activity to get your kids to enjoying cooking.  You can let them do every step of the process.  If they want to throw the crust in the air and spin it, let them... just make sure you thaw out a few extra rolls.  There's no right or wrong to it, just let them have a good time.

So try this out this week and have a great time with the family, especially if you haven't seen them for a long, long time.