Tis the season for homemade pizza!

With the abundance of locally grown produce such as tomatoes, onions, squash, eggplants, etc. during the summer season, it is the perfect time to jazz it up in the kitchen with some homemde pizza. It is a fun activity to do with friends, kids, or by yourself! There are endless possibilities as far as toppings go. To start all you need is pizza dough and tomato sauce.

If you don't want to make either of those by yourself, you can always get store-bought pizza dough, as well as jarred marinara sauce. To me, that takes half of the fun away.

I start out with a dough that is meant to serve 4 people and cut them up into 4 single servings. I put the rest that I don't need now in the freezer and it will keep fresh for months. When ready to use, simply defrost in the refridgerator overnight.

My homemade pizza tomato sauce:

Ingredients:

- 1 onion

- 4 to 6 tomatoes depending on size

- 2 TBSP olive oil (plus more to drizzle on top of the pizza)

- 8-10 basil leaves (chopped coarsely)

- 1 or 2 garlic cloves (I tend to like things very garlicky)

- Salt and pepper to taste

- hot pepper flakes to taste

Directions:

- Sautee onions, garlic, and olive oil for abot 10 minutes.

- Dice up the tomatoes and add to the pan. The juice of the tomatoes will start to come out.

- Cook down the sauce for about 20-30 minutes for it to thicken up.

- Add salt, pepper, and chili flakes.

- Add the basil in the very end so it doesn't lose it's flavor.

Pizza:

Add the sauce to the flattened out pizza dough and bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes.

Take it out, add your toppings and then bake it for another 10 minutes.

With mine I added bell peppers, anchovies, and Olives. But like I said there are a million possibilities.

Take advantage of all the fresh local vegetables in the summer season while you still can!