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!

2 Amy's Pizza

Alright, I know there are probably a million other blog posts about 2 Amy's pizzas out there. We've heard it all; it's either the best Neapolitan pizza in the area (or the country), or it's an overrated, crowded and expensive pizza restaurant for yuppy people who live in the area.

Here's my take: 2 Amy's is definitely my type of pizza. If you're looking for an all-American huge ass pizza with a million toppings on it, well this is definitely not the place for you. But if you're in the mood for a pizza that is simple, this is the place. I find that a lot of times, it is harder to make something that seems easy taste good. Let's take their famous margherita pizza for example. It consist of the following ingredients: tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella cheese, basil, and olive oil. Not one ingredient should be overwhelming. Since the ingredients are so simple, it means that it must be of great quality. This is what 2 Amys does well. For people who aren't used to a Neapolitan pizza, when the pizza first comes out, it might be a bit surprising to see how few toppings there are. But the crust is baked just right, and the sauce and the ingredients complement each other. It's better to cut the pizza as you eat it rather than precutting it, since it does get a bit watery in the middle.

We started off the meal with an order of bruschetta and potato frittata. The frittata wasn't as good as I hoped since it was served cold, however the tomato on the side did make up for the lack of taste in the frittata.
We also ordered a stuffed pizza with ricotta and Mozzarella cheese, a Caprese pizza with olives, anchovies and mozzarella cheese, and a pizza with salami and bell peppers.
The stuffed pizza was to die for. The pizza came and it looked like the cheese was about to burst, and once you cut into it, all of the yummy ricotta comes oozing out. It was excellent! My favorite pizza of the night was the Caprese! The Olives and anchovies went really well together!
I didn't feel like the prices at 2 Amy's were that over-priced. At the last restaurant I worked at, they charged $14 for a Margherita pizza, and let's just say the taste does NOT even compare!
But again, 2 Amy's pizza probably isn't for everybody. Some people like the New York Style, others like the deep dish Chicago pizza. I'm definitely more of a Neapolitan fan!!