Sequins and Sass: Valentine's day and amazing home-made pizza sauce!

Valentine's Day: The one holiday you really want to say "whatever, it's just a Hallmark holiday, no big deal" but secretly hope that your significant other does something really special. Disappointment ensues. I blame my mother. She still sends me Valentine's Day gifts.

Boyfriend took me to dinner over the weekend and actually volunteered to go see The Vow (I kinda loved it, not gonna lie), But I decided to make the plans for actual V-day this year and picked something ~~a little weird~~ unique: Church bingo!! I didn't tell Tom where we were going, just picked him up, parked in front of a church, and walked in to the school gym. We were surrounded by very passionate seniors, who had their lucky daubers lined up in a row and about 20 bingo boards in front of them. After purchasing one packet of boards for each of us (with only 6 boards per game, such amateurs), we figured out the rules (with a little help from people around us), and conquered that Bingo Night. Ok, so we only won $5 in a raffle, but we were SO close to getting Bingo many, many times. With the game, making art with the daubers and the treats I brought, we had an awesome time.

Wine in a water bottle, straight class.

In addition to wine in a water bottle, my other treat for Bingo was a home-made version of Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuit. Tom and I have discussed going to Red Lobster lately, mainly because of these biscuits, and one day the recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything randomly popped up on my Pinterest. Well these ended up being DIVINE. They taste just like the restaurant's biscuits but without the embarrassment of telling your friends that you drove 15 miles to go to Red Lobster. I suggest attempting this recipe. My note would be that they are pretty hard to mix, and even after mixing for a while, the batter doesn't look right, but it is! The recipe warns against over-mixing, so even though I was worried about their look, I put them in the oven anyway and they turned out great! The dozen that came out of the batch is already gone.

After Bingo I took Tom back to my place, where I made him a heart-shaped pizza, as I have previously revealed his addiction/obsession. It turned out very good and the best part was this home-made sauce that I want to tell you about.

After deciding the plan for Feb 14th about a week ago, I searched the internet for the "best" home-made pizza sauce recipe. Well, there sure is a lot of different advice floating around out there. I told my friend Sam about my quest and, being an Italian New Yorker with a father who knows what's what with pizza, she told me to ignore everything I had read thus far and follow her families extremely simple recipe. It called for little more than tomato sauce, olive oil and italian seasoning.

"No fennel seeds?" I asked her. "There are a few recipes that insisted that you use fennel seeds."

"Those things are gross," she snorted.

"But every recipe I've looked at either calls for sugar or honey."

"These are exactly the type of things Americans like to add to their sauce that my family laughs at them for."

"Fine."

So respecting her advice, I basically followed her family recipe, with a few embellishments that I thought would help. And they really really did. Also, the most important part of this sauce turning out so well was storing it overnight, It made the sauce flavorful and rich, but not over-powering. Here's a run down:

2 8oz cans tomato sauce (I tend to buy store-brand stuff, but this time I spent a little more on nicer tomatoes and I think it paid off)

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp Oregano

1tsp Basil

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Onion Powder

Sprinkling of Red Pepper Flakes (per your spicy preference)

1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese

1Tbsp white wine (I used Savignon Blanc)

1Tbsp olive oil

You simply toss all of those ingredients in to a tupperwear container, shake, and throw in the fridge for 24 hours.

After arriving home from bingo, I just rolled out the pizza dough (using my usual garlic and herb crust from Trader Joe's), carefully placed it in my greased heart-shaped pan, brushed some olive oil over the whole crust and popped it in the oven for about 8 minutes. The next tip Sam's dad gave me was, before putting down the sauce, toss some mozzarella around that pizza. I complied. I also got a little fancy and included some goat cheese along with the standard mozzarella.

After baking this bad boy for about 10 minutes, we then took it out of the pan and placed it directly on the rack, to ensure the crust cooked fully. And then we ate our hearts out (Ehoh!)!