Pizza with Hearts and Homemade Cherry No.9 Fall in Love Again® Sauce
Ingredients
- Homemade Sauce:
- 2 and a ½ pints Cherry No.9 Fall in Love Again® tomatoes
- 8 cloves garlic (peeled)
- 1 small red bell pepper
- 2 tbsp plain tomato paste
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 and a ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 2 tsp dried parsley
- 4 tsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
- 1 tbsp butter
- Homemade Pizza:
- Pre-made pizza crusts, naan bread, etc. - use whatever you would usually use (I used a combo)
- Rainbow colored toppings (I used additional cherry no. 9 fall in love again® tomatoes - halved, orange, yellow and green bell peppers - cut using mini heart shaped cookie cutters, yellow corn, broccoli and purple onion - diced)
- Shredded cheese for topping - use whatever you would usually use (I used a dairy-free cheese option for these)
Instructions
- To make sauce: Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
- Remove stems from tomatoes and rinse. Then, cut bell pepper into strips.
- In a large bowl, add all of your sauce ingredients (minus the salt and pepper and 1 half of the olive oil - 2 tsp). Coat all ingredients well - ensuring that the tomatoes and pepper pieces are covered on all sides.
- Transfer coated mixture to an oven safe dish and cook in oven until tomatoes and peppers are softened and mixture is fragrant and bubbly.
- Remove from the oven (but keep oven on) and allow mixture to cool just slightly, then transfer to a high-powered blender (I used a Vitamix) and blend until smooth.
- Next, in a sauce pan, add the remaining 2 tsp oi and heat. Then add sauce to pan and add in butter, mixing until worked into sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Remove from heat and use as you start making pizzas (See below), or store in a jar in the refrigerator for up to one week. *Please note: this recipe yielded approximately 18 ounces of sauce, which was enough for 3 pizzas and additional sauce to store for use later.
- To make pizzas: Smooth sauce over your pizza crusts or bread.
- Then, top pizzas with toppings. As mentioned above, we used mini cookie cutters in the shapes of hearts to cut out different size heart peppers to top ours with. Going from red to purple (if desired) arrange veggies on top of crust/ bread.
- Finish off by topping with cheese of choice.
- Cook for approx. 12 - 15 min., or per crust’s instructions.
- Enjoy immediately! Now THAT is a pizza with heart!