I had to visit this thread because I'm making pizza tonight- sausage with sautéed pepper and onion. Along with a pepperoni stromboli for superbowl snacks.

I use (blasphemy again) canned, plain, crushed tomatoes instead of sauce. A nice, clean tasting backdrop for whatever toppings I'm using. And whenever we don't finish the tomatoes I make a pot of vegetarian chili in the next day or so.

For tomato paste I buy one of those tubes of tomato paste and keep them in the spice cabinet. Pricier than cans but so useful when I only need a tablespoon or so for a recipe.

We use the Pomi strained tomatoes in a box (think a puree) as a base for the sauce- it doesn't have added water or salt like most other purees do. Then the spousal unit adds a little bit of Penzey's dried garlic/oregano/basil and a bit of salt & sugar to it.

I also use the tubes of paste as needed instead of canned tomato paste.

I once was witness to a food horror show. I was at a party once with a make your own pizza station. It consisted of pita bread for the crust, ketchup for the sauce, shredded "Mexican" cheese, canned black olives, canned mushrooms, and pepperoni. If there was ever a crime against food...

This is why we never visit Florida

Be careful ! otherwise uk1 just might get you arrested for
blasphemy !

Had some chicken tikka, red pepper, red onion, mushroom and mozzarella on my tomato base this evening and it was magic. And my friend liked it as well. It was shared ......

I have been experimenting. My constant mission to create that illusive perfect pizza continues with trying different ideas.

I'm trying to achieve an even thinner topping but with more flavour. So I made a large quantity of chopped smoky bacon with slowly braised red onion, and mushroom mixed with my famous tomato base which includes tomato (obviously), oregano, sugar, course back pepper, garlic salt, celery salt and a dot or two of chilli - all mixed and concentrated by evaporating off all moisture. And it has the advantage of being really suitable for bulk freezing so any "I fancy a pizza" moments means there is always some great prepared topping in the freezer ... and there's always mozzarella and dough balls in the fridge.

It was really good. Lovely crust using 7 day dough and 90 seconds at just under 1000F brought a decent Neapolitan.

My wife makes a killer fig vinaigrette pizza