Pizza Eggs and Red Sauce

I make at least one batch of tomato sauce each week - I'm like a little red sauce machine.

I keep it simple and affordable, especially during the winter when fresh tomatoes are a joke - but have been known to peel and seed 10 pounds of 'maters in the summer for the same recipe (and as you can imagine, it's super delish, but time consuming).

I digress.

So, red sauce obviously has a place in a gazillion dishes - lasagna, pizza, pasta and (lentil, soy, reg) meatballs, stuffed shells...

I love making those little stuffed pockets of amazingness. I only do the one layer of sauce, a lot of it at casserole bottom, and float the shells atop it, all covered in cheese, islands of gooey, cheesy awesome. But the thing I'm eating most often with ze Red Sauce lately is pizza eggs. Because breadcrumbs + eggs are a really neat textural trick, and I can't get enough.

So for the Sauce, here we go: (makes 3.5-4 cups)

2 large cans crushed tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 small red onion, diced
1/2 handful fresh or frozen basil leaves, chopped
1 tsp dried Oregano
1/2 cup bitey red wine
10 garlic cloves, crushed and minced
1.5 tsp sugar
1.5 tablespoons sea salt (varies based on what brand of tomato you're using - I use only the no-added-salt variety
2 tablespoons olive oil

Heat the olive oil over medium heat and saute onion and garlic 4 minutes, until onion is translucent. Add wine and boil a bit, to release alcohol - then add remaining ingredients MINUS tomato paste, stir, cover and simmer 40-50 minutes, until tomatoes have liquified, or are close. Stir often.

I keep the paste out of the pot until the end because it thickens the sauce enough to make it cook more slowly - the wetter the liquid around your crushed maters, the quicker they'll turn to mush, which is what we want.

Add your paste and thoroughly mix. Taste for sweet/salt and adjust as needed. For pizza and pizza eggs, you want a thick sauce, but for pasta and lasagna, slightly thinner - so don't be afraid to add a teeny bit of water if you're making the latter.

The eggs are fairly easy - you'll need:

1/2 cup red sauce
1/4 cup breadcrumbs, mixed with 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 cup freshly grated mozz
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese
1/2-1 tablespoon butter, depending on how well-seasoned your skillet is
2 eggs

In a cast-iron skillet, melt your butter over medium-high heat. Turn your broiler on High.

Crack the eggs into the skillet, letting them collect into palm-sized pools (I do this by tipping the skillet ever so slightly, the wall helps). After the bottoms have turned to white, break the yolks, once, with the edge of your spatula. Spoon sauce over the middles of the eggs, spreading gently, and cover with mozz and parm, leaving a small edge of egg between the sauce, cheese, and pan, so you don't get spill over. Quickly dust with breadcrumbs and stick the skillet under the broiler for 45-60 seconds, until the mozz has melted a bit and just started to brown.

Carefully slide them onto a plate and serve with more garlic powder and red pepper, as needed. Hella awesome breakfast and super quick! If you kept the yolks runny enough, these babies would be heavenly over pasta, methinks.