does anyone have some good recipes for pasta and a good recipe for pizza sauce? we eat a lot of pasta but the pasta sauce is very simple it doesnt taste bad but it could be better.

i also like to make pizza. the sauce i use is pretty simple also so i wondered if anyone has a good pizza sauce recipe and perhaps also a pizza dough recipe?

and please i would appreciate it if you guys didnt gave me recipes wich include pork.

I make pizza at home. For the sauce: Pour a teaspoon of olive oil in a small saucepan, put it on low heat, and then finely mince two cloves of garlic. Fry the garlic till it just starts to turn brown. Remove from heat. Then pour a ~8oz. can of peeled tomatoes into the saucepan. Mash them up in the saucepan so you get mostly sauce but with some (small) chunks--makes a nice difference from just-plain tomato sauce. Put back on medium heat and add a half bayleaf, and a couple of pinches each of oregano, Italian seasoning and basil.Then add about 2 oz of red wine and, if you have it, 2 oz of a sweet dessert wine like Marsala or Sherry. Mix everything up thoroughly and simmer (very low heat), covered, for about an hour.

For the dough: Put two cups of flour in a big mixing bowl. Add 1 teaspoon each sugar and salt, one 1/4-oz package of activated dry yeast, and one tablespoon of olive oil. Mix thoroughly. Put 6 oz of warm water in the measuring cup and gradually sprinkle the water over the mixture, kneading it by hand as you go. If you need more water, wet your fingers under the tap and keep on. DON'T use too much water! When the consistency is right (no dry spots, dough very sticky to your fingers), heat your oven for one minute, shut it off, then cover the mixing bowl with a dishtowel and let the dough rise for at least an hour.

Word to the wise: you can't get a really crispy crust using those cheap aluminum pizza pans. You need a baking stone. Call a local tile store and ask if they have a Saltillo stone (unglazed) that can fit on a shelf in your oven--14" - 16" square should do it. Will cost you about $3. NEVER USE A GLAZED TILE--THEY GIVE OFF TOXIC STUFF! You'll pay a whole lot more for a commercial baking stone online. Before using the stone, wash it in plain water (no soap, ever!), drain it, and sit it in the oven at about 200 degrees for several hours. When ready to bake pizza, put the stone in the oven at 500 degrees for an hour before you put the pizza on it.

Or you could buy a Tombstone frozen pizza.

It sure does look good but , on this one I am going to have to go with you SC. I would mess this up but good . I can do meat, pasta but when it comes to baking whoops .

Forget the pizza dough (unless you buy it from a pizzeria). At least unless you have the patience/skill for it (I don't). Get a Boboli crust - it's premade (thin or thicker crust), and delicious. I don't like a lot of sauce on mine (right, SC? ) so just get a can of "pizza sauce" (unless I have leftover sauce from something else) and load up my toppings. 8-10 minutes in the oven and you're done.

However, there are plenty of recipes online for pizza sauce and pizza dough if you want to putz around with it.

If you wanna do it yourself, getting a pizza peel will make life easier to get the pizza in and out of the oven. Be sure to sprinkle cornmeal on it first, before putting the pizza together, so the pizza dough slides right on/off it.

There's another option, for those who don't feel comfortable mixing up their own pizza dough:

I know that Gold Medal (the flour company) makes a pizza dough mix where all you add is water and follow the directions on the packet. Should be pretty straightforward. (I confess I've had a couple of those packets in my refrigerator for a year or so, but still haven't used them.) Also, depending on where you live, you might be able to find pizza dough in the refrigerated or frozen section of your supermarket.

Signor V.

Well, for those who really want to do it themselves, here's another tip:

The trickiest part of making pizza is rolling out the dough and getting it onto the stone without destroying it. Here's my method:

You can pay a lot of money (plus big shipping) for one of those long-handled wood or aluminum pizza sliders. Or, you can go to Walmart and get a rectangular cookie sheet (~16"x14") with three flat sides and one raised side like a handle. Costs about $8. Also pick up an inexpensive rolling pin (<$5), and a box of corn meal (not corn starch).

First, shred your cheese and prepare your other toppings. Spread flour over a counter surface. Punch down the risen dough into a ball, let it rest for a couple of minutes. Then spread flour all over it. Roll it out with the pin on the counter in a rectangular shape to roughly match the cookie sheet. Spread corn meal over the cookie sheet, especially at the front edge--corn meal is like ball bearings for the dough. Lift the dough onto the cookie sheet. Use a gravy or soup ladle to lightly spread the sauce over the dough. Then add toppings. Next, open the oven door and CAREFULLY place the front edge of the cookie sheet on the rear edge of the stone you've been heating, trying to keep the sheet as level as possible with the stone. GENTLY shake the sheet so that the pizza slides easily onto the stone. Close the door and turn the stone 90 degrees every three minutes, for 15-18 minutes. Guaranteed crisp crust!

We have a local bread factory that sells pizza dough. It's very good. However, I'm with JG. I started using Boboli a year or so ago, and it's great. I like the thin crust, but my daughters like the original, so I usually get both. I tend to make it when I have leftover sauce, and love to make some plain cheese, others with meatballs or sausage. YUM.

As for pasta, depends on what you want. Here's my Penne Vodka recipe.


Penne with Vodka Sauce

2 tbsp. butter
½ onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tbsp. flour
2 cups cream
¼ cup vodka
¼ cup tomato paste
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
Sprinkle of basil
1 cup grated cheese

• Melt butter in a pot
• Sautee the onion and garlic over a low flame. Do not allow garlic to brown
• Add flour and thicken
• Add the cream, vodka and tomato paste
• Stirring constantly, bring slowly to a boil. Sauce will thicken slightly
• Add the seasonings
• Add grated cheese, stirring constantly, until completely melted and blended
• Serve over one pound of cooked penne pasta

Tried it. Couldn't roll it out properly, so wasn't worth it...

I like Babes recipe....maybe it's something to do with the vodka

How did I know it would appeal to my good friend Yogi?

Try it, though. It's quite simple, and I get tons of compliments whenever I make it.

Great advice, Geoffy.

My mother and my grandmothers always made their own dough, but it's really kind of crazy to do so in this day and age. Local pizzerias are usually happy to sell you a few doughs at a time. And if you're lucky enough to live near a bakery that makes their own bread, you're really blessed. My wife and I have been buying pizza doughs from Addeo in the Bronx for over twenty years. They're great.

We love the Boboli crusts in the summer, when we can place them on the barbecue. Just use the cool side of the grill, close the cover, and bake it as you usually would in a regular oven. It's like having a brick oven in your backyard.

I think I will skip the dough but get into the vodka, I will have better luck. I tried making some easy biscut's that were extremely easy. Ya Right ! They turned out like Rocks , warm and hard you would think I made them with Viagra ,come to think about it I am missing a bottle.

turnbull thanks but is it possible to replace the wine with something else that contains no alcohol.


also thanks but i cant use the vodka im not allowed to drink alcohol or eat food that contains alcohol. is there anything to replace it or do you have any other recipes? im muslim so thats the reason i cant eat pork and drink alcohol.

thanks all apreciate the help.

Sorry I'm late in replying:

Adding wine to the sauce is strictly optional. You can add small amounts of sugar to offset the somewhat bitter taste of the sauce--if it tastes bitter to you. If you used too much sugar, you can add a little garlic powder.

You can get a very well made wooden Pizza Peel for anywhere between $7 - $20


I highly recommend getting one if you plan on making pizza often.

As for pizza dough, as many said here you can go with fresh dough but you will have to let it rise and then roll it out. Another option is purchasing Longo's Tavern style Pizza Crusts, I used to roll out my own dough but found that Longo's may be one of the best pizza crusts on the market. They make both Square and Round crusts.



now as far as tomato sauce, I use canned Tuttorosso with Basil.



I slice and dice some onion...very small, then some fresh garlic..also very small. Pour some olive oil into a lightly pre-heated pot. Throw in your onion and garlic and stir until golden brown. Add in appropriate amount of canned Tuttorosso sauce and stir. Keep flame on low. Add some parsley, oregano, fresh basil, salt, pepper and stir. Then add in a desried amount of imported grated cheese and fold into the sauce with stirrer. Lastly add a small amount of sugar and also fold it with stirrer into the sauce. Cook your sauce on low with cover HALF on the pot.

As far as topping goes, it all depends on the type of pizza you are looking to make. I make several varieties:

Pour some olive oil on your pizza dough and rub it around the entire surface, especially concentrating around the boarder/ends of the dough.

Sicilian Style Grandma ; Place square slices of Mozzarella covering the top of the pizza dough, leaving the very edges of the dough uncovered. Pour a desired amount of sauce covering all of the sliced Mozzarella. Then take fresh imported grated cheese and sprinkle a generous amount over the entire pizza.

Round White Pie : Cover pie, again leaving edges uncovered, with shredded Mozzarella. Then take a teaspoon and scoop out some ricotta and plop lumps of the Ricotta on various parts of the pie.


Fresh Round Pie : Cover Pie, again leaving edges uncovered, first with sauce, and then with FRESH sliced Mozzarella, and then place a couple of fresh basil leaves around various parts of the pie.

Regular Round Pie ; Same as above, using shredded mozzarella. And you can add whatever additional toppings, such as diced grilled or fried chicken or whatever your heart desires.

I also always sprinkle some olive oil on my pizzas right before I place them in a pre-heated to 425 - 450 oven.

When rolling out dough, flour the surface liberally, however, once rolled, I recommend using semolina to dust whatever you're preparing the pizza itself on - preferably a wooden spatula. Slides off easier, doesn't give the pizza an overly floury flavour.

Above recipes for sauce cover just about everything, however, I can highly recommend this brand for canned tomatoes, easily the best I've come across in Australia:



For a brilliant pizza, anchovies are your friends. Hollywood & poor use has taught the world that anchovies are evil. This is all due to crap pizzerias and restaurants serving the little bastards on pizzas in disgusting chunks the size of large marbles. As a result, one bite gives anyone an intense, concentrated taste of salty, oily fish with more salt on top.

One large anchovy fillet will do one medium sized pizza, all you have to do is tear or slice it into the thinnest strips possible and scatter it around. It'll practically melt once cooked, and will be barely noticeable taste-wise, while giving the pizza a very subtle extra saltiness.

Great cooking tips. My personal favorite pizza sauce is made with San Marzano tomatoes (a type of plum tomato). The ones imported from Naples are supposed to be the best, if you can find them. One of my favorites, Patsy's in East Harlem uses San Marzano tomatoes.

I don't have recipes, but you may want to try fried spaghetti or spaghetti on a stick. Apparently, they acrually exist and there are recipes for them. I thought they were a joke. Madonne!

Hard to beat fried spaghetti the next day, nice and crispy and oily. Fantastic

In a perfect world, I would have one of those brick oven jobs in my back yard. A giant, wood-burning behemoth that puts out about twelve hundred degrees of blistering, pizza making juju. I love planning out pizza in advance if I can. For me that means putting together the dough about thirty hours in advance, holding it in the fridge overnight so it develops that nutty, complex taste, and making the sauce in advance.

I can take the sauce any number of ways. In season, I like going to the farmers market and picking up some tomatoes. If they are ripe, no sugar needed, just a little olive oil, garlic, basil and salt. Out of season, canned Tuttorosso is great also.

I like salami and love peperoni, but anything other than pineapple and chicken are pretty cool with me. Fresh mozzarella is way better than the packaged stuff, and either is better than that canned “parmesan.”

There’s a great forum for pizza fanatics at pizzamaking.com, and a cool page at Serious Eats called Slice. In a pinch, though, some canned sauce on a Boboli or even a frozen Totino’s is comfort food. I’ll even take pizza rolls!

Mostly though, like Mel Brooks says, “Pizza is like sex. Even when it’s bad, it is still pretty good.”