Spicy Pizza Sauce

I made this delicious spicy pizza sauce from scratch for Brandon's birthday pizza.  I kinda just went for it and it turned out really good... I don't have exact measurements of what I put in... but I will list the ingredients and basic idea... Next time I might add some tomato paste but I didn't have any on hand so I just used canned diced tomatoes...

First, I heated some oil and butter and added some diced up anchovies (only 3 or so) which I mashed up with a wooden spoon to form a kind of paste...

OK that is a kinda nasty looking picture... but it is also cool looking... very rustic country kitchen, no?  I promise... it will get prettier after this...

Then I diced up some onion, celery, and some Anaheim chili that I had on hand (a relatively mild chili - a jalepeno would be good too...)

I sauted those until soft and then added the diced tomatoes (I drained the juice and reserved it)

Then I added some sweet paprika, garlic powder, dried basil, salt and pepper, a generous amount of hot pepper flakes, and a bay leaf.  I let it simmer over very low heat for about an hour and a half, occasionally adding some of the reserved juice from the tomatoes, and when that ran out, some water, as the tomatoes cooked down.  When it tasted good and ready I pureed it in the food processor.  YUM!

Spred it on your favorite pizza dough, top with cheese and any other toppings.  I used a great dough recipe - you can find it here.

Here is the pizza after it came out of the oven:

Delish!