Heartwarming Pizza with Italian Sausage Red Onions and Mushrooms

The weather is turning colder where we live which has inspired me to work on a number of hearty, filling suppers including stew, baked potatoes, roasts and casseroles. Above all though, we seem to be on a pizza kick at our house – enraptured by crispy thick crust pizza topped with flowing cheese, lots of veggies and even various meats. Pizza turns out to be the perfect way to lure my children into eating organic vegetables and protein... and since it is such a simple, fast meal to create, I highly recommend homemade pizza for gluten free families everywhere!

This week’s creation involves mushrooms, red onions, hot Italian sausage, fresh mozzarella cheese and an optional handful of sun dried tomatoes. I can imagine that it would be just as good if you added some sautéd asparagus too!

We hope that your family is keeping warm and well-fed now that Fall has begun, and that you will be as comforted by this tasty pizza as we were last night.


Heartwarming Pizza with Italian Sausage, Red Onions and Mushrooms

What You’ll Need:

4 – 6 Seven inch Kinnikinnick Frozen Pizza Crusts
Olive Oil
15 oz can or jar of gluten free marinara sauce (or tomato sauce)
2 large hot Italian sausage links
1 medium size red onion, sliced into thin rounds
8 oz Crimini mushrooms, sliced or quartered according to preference
Parmesan cheese for grating (a few oz)
Fresh mozzarella cheese (approx 8 oz)
Crushed red pepper
2 -3 sprigs of rosemary
Fresh ground black pepper
Sea salt

Optional: a handful of finely chopped sun dried tomatoes in oil


How It Works:

I am a big believer that getting your prep out of the way first makes cooking a lot simpler. So, after you preheat your oven to 450 degrees F and grease two baking sheets with butter, start working on getting your meats and vegetables ready. One side note is that within your oven you should place racks in the top and bottom thirds of your oven before you start the preheating process.

Pour a nice sized glug of olive oil into a heavy frying pan and heat it to medium. Add the sausage (casings removed) and break into small bits with your stirring spoon. You want to brown it well, but not burned. When it is finished, set the meat aside and use the pan for your onions and mushrooms.

The onions should be sliced into thin rounds which do break apart nicely. Saute them in the sausage drippings and olive oil for a few minutes until they are browned (caramelized) but not crispy.


Remove the onions from the pan, set aside, and then add the mushrooms and a bit more olive oil. Saute the mushrooms well, stirring frequently, until they are soft and their flesh has darkened.

If you are using the optional sun dried tomatoes, now is the time to drain them of their olive oil and chop them up. Slice up your fresh mozzarella cheese into thin strips (or crumble it up with your hands – whatever works best for you.)

Once all of your ingredients are prepared, putting the pizzas together is fast and easy. First, place four to six Kinnikinnick pizza crusts on top of the buttered baking trays.


Next, grate fresh parmesan cheese onto the tops of each of them. Sprinkle them lightly with fresh ground black pepper and sea salt, and dust them a bit more heavily with crushed red pepper flakes.

Spoon a bit of marinara sauce into the center of each crust and smooth it gently over the spice mix. Top it with thin slices of fresh mozzarella, then the crumbled sausage, next the sautéd onions and last but not least, the sautéd mushrooms. If you are using sun dried tomatoes, add them to the mix between the sausage and onion layers. Top the whole thing with a sprinkling of fresh rosemary leaves (removed from sprigs) and grate more fresh Parmesan cheese over the top of your lovely pizzas.


After admiring your handiwork, place one tray of pizzas on the top rack of your oven and the other on the bottom rack. Cook each tray for 5 – 8 minutes (check to make sure it isn’t burning) and then switch trays from one rack to the other. Finished pizzas should be crispy on all sides (but not burnt) with lovely melted mozzarella cheese bubbling in the center.

Remove and serve promptly!

Serves 4 – 6.

Pizza Fusion

In her excellent blog Mari Made, my new gluten free friend (and talented chef) Rachel Marie highly recommended a pizza joint that I’d never heard of before... Pizza Fusion. Not only did she describe it as her 'new favorite restaurant' but she also specifically mentioned their excellent gluten free, dairy free pizza crust. It sounded too good to be true, so my husband and I decided to investigate further.

If you read this blog often you know already that in terms of cooking pizza at home, my heart belongs to Kinnikinnick. I’ve already posted several pizza recipes using their delicious crusts, the most recent of which - Italian sausage, red onion and mushroom - can be viewed here later this week.

That said, it has been almost a year since I’ve been able to walk into a restaurant of any kind and order a slice! Many, many times I have jealously watched my husband H sink his teeth into an enormous, gorgeous greasy piece of pepperoni and cheese pie and found myself thinking – "Grrrrrrr... Some people have all the luck!"

Which may explain why eating at Pizza Fusion this past weekend was genuinely an emotional experience for me. From the moment we walked in, I could tell we were going to have a good experience. The Pizza Fusion menu is extremely gluten free friendly, with a wide range of salads and pizzas that can all be created gluten free. A rarity: our server was actually knowledgeable about Celiac and gluten intolerance, and she was able to describe exactly which items on the menu I could not order (e.g. the sausage) thanks to their potential gluten contamination.


The Pizza Fusion House Mix salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing was extremely delicious and filled with fresh organic produce including cucumber, tomatoes, black olives and greens. H and I split a full size Build Your Own pizza with prosciutto, tri-color peppers, natural mozzarella and a gluten free 'thin' crust (pictured above). As you will clearly see, this pizza was dreamy! I ate four slices in one sitting, and felt great all night afterward. H was also very happy about the beer menu (offering both regular and gluten free beer) and treated himself to a nice cold brew.


In short, we loved our meal.

It turns out that Pizza fusion is much more than just another pizza joint. First, the restaurant chain supports organic agriculture – most items on the menu are organic. 100% of the energy used in creating your dinner will be offset by the purchase of renewable wind energy certificates. Food is delivered to customers using company owned hybrid vehicles, and you will even get a discount on your next order if you bring back your pizza boxes to recycle! Best of all, all plastic-like containers and silverware are made from materials that will decompose in 50 days in a landfill. I could go on and on... there are a million reasons why Pizza Fusion is a dedicated earth-friendly company - probably why they were recognized in this month’s PLENTY Magazine as one of the 20 businesses that will change our world.


Luckily for Celiac lovers of pizza, wherever you may live and thrive, Pizza Fusion franchises are about to open up all over the country. Next time you feel a hankering for your favorite slice of heaven, do yourself (and our planet) a huge favor and head straight to your nearest Pizza Fusion restaurant.

Note: In addition to its gluten free menu items, this restaurant also offers many tasty meals for diners with vegan, vegetarian and lactose free dietary restrictions. Your wheat eating friends will definitely enjoy the organic white crust pizzas and many sandwich options.

Garlicky Goat Cheese Pizza with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Basil

Ever since I posted my Calm That Pizza Craving recipe on this blog a month ago, I have been yearning to experiment further and improve upon it.

Here are three reasons why I love pizza:

(a) It's quick to make -- a real bonus when cooking for hungry children,
(b) Pizza is physically and emotionally satisfying to eat... and,
(c) You can eat it with your hands!

With such delicious crusts from Kinnikinnick to work with, I plan to create a whole variety of pizza recipes to satisfy everyone in my family. For example, my husband is a huge pepperoni pizza lover while our children prefer straight cheese... and I myself have been hankering for a vegetarian pizza to love. I think I’ve found it!

The secret to the seasoning here is: light on the tomato sauce, fresh with the greens. Unfortunately, canned spinach and dry basil just aren’t going to give you the same incredible taste.

Before making this pizza recipe you should know that it is deliciously rich, thanks to the goat cheese and fresh mozzarella. If you are preparing it as a main course, I would suggest complementing each pizza with a fresh green salad on the side and perhaps offering your guests a light sorbet for dessert.


Garlicky Goat Cheese Pizza with Sun Dried Tomatoes and Basil


What You’ll Need:

Two 7-inch Kinnikinnick pizza crusts
1 cup fresh baby spinach leaves, minced
½ cup sun dried tomatoes, minced
2 fresh vine ripened tomatoes (medium size)
2 oz fresh mozzarella
4 – 5 oz fresh goat cheese
10 fresh basil leaves (mince 8 of them)
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon oregano
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 – 4 tbsp olive oil
4 oz tomato sauce
Salt and fresh ground black pepper



How It Works:

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

In a small sauté pan, heat 1-2 tbsp olive oil at medium temperature until hot but not smoking. Add minced garlic and sauté for 1 - 2 minutes until fragrant but not browned. Set aside.

Using a sharp knife or small food processor, mince your spinach, sun dried tomatoes and basil – but do each separately so that they are not all in the processor at the same time. Once these ingredients are very finely chopped, pour them all into a large mixing bowl. Add sautéed garlic and mix with a wooden spoon or fork.

Next, add your goat cheese to the mixture and blend it all together very thoroughly. The end result will be a paste that is slightly funny looking – a bit brownish and greenish, but oh my goodness it is delicious! (Once the pizza cooks, these ingredients will once again look lovely.)

In the same pan you used for the garlic warm the tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and oregano at low medium temperature until it begins to bubble like this:


Place your Kinnikinnick pizza crusts on a stainless steel baking tray and douse each one with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Using a butter knife, spread the olive oil evenly across the top of the crust.


Then with the same knife, spread a thin layer of your goat cheese mixture evenly across each pizza. Keep in mind that the thicker you make this layer of cheese, the richer your pizza will be.

Spoon half of your warm tomato sauce into the center of each pizza. Then, as shown in this picture (below) add several small slices of fresh mozzarella in the center of each pizza, so that it begins to resemble the center of a flower:



Slice your fresh tomatoes into thin round slices and then cut each one in half lengthwise. Arrange the slices around your pizza so that they look like the petals of the flower:


Dust with salt and fresh ground black pepper according to your own preference.

Place pizzas on tray in your preheated oven and bake for approx 10 – 12 minutes (checking to make sure it does not burn) until the mozzarella in the center is fully melted and the pizza crust is crispy but not overly browned.

Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as an appetizer.

Calm That Craving Pizza

In the past I've thought product placement (like Coca Cola) in movies and television shows was ultra-cheesy, ultra sell-out. The funny thing is, now that I eat a gluten free diet and know how difficult it is to find delicious gluten free products, I have a lot more appreciation for companies that manufacture food and beverages.

As anyone who lives a gluten free lifestyle can tell you, all flours are not created equally. Flour mixtures are even more unpredictable. Gluten free baking mixes, brownie mixes and pancake mixes vary widely. Two different mixes for pie dough may contain a bewilderingly different mix of flours (sorghum, chickpea, potato, corn, rice, etc.) in different proportions. I have tried mixing flours and xanthan gum myself, and it is hard to do well. It really is a nifty trick to find a balance of gluten free flours that can not only hold together like regular wheat flour AND also taste good.

That is why I now feel so enthusiastic about product placement in this blog... because even though it may be a little cheesy, you may actually really want to know about outstanding gluten free products that I run across.

Tonight's company is called Kinnikinnick, and you can find them on the web here. They create a wide variety of baked goods that you can pick up in the freezer section of most Whole Foods type stores.
I have enjoyed their Tapioca Rice Bread and White Sandwich bread for quite a while. However, the product that has me dancing is their 7-inch Pizza Crusts which come in bags of four.

We threw a huge picnic this past weekend for my sons' birthdays and ordered three 28-inch pizzas - cheese and pepperoni - to feed our guests. It isn't often these days that I really yearn for foods that I can't have... but I will admit that I was really jealous of the three year olds eating slice after slice of greasy cheese and pepperoni pizza. It looked and smelled amazing.

Later in the day, I decided to try and sate my craving the best way I could... so I went on a field trip and discovered these fantastic gluten free pizza crusts at my local market:



Once I returned home the entire process of putting the pizza together and cooking it (start to finish) took less than 30 minutes... and the results themselves were not only delicious, they were heart warming.

The pizza crust itself turns out to be light and soft, crisping nicely on the outside but retaining tenderness on the inside and under the sauce. I highly recommend them! (For one of my new pizza recipes using Kinnikinnick crusts, click here!)


Calm That Craving Pizza

What you need:

To make one individual pizza... (multiply proportionally to make more)

1 7-inch Kinnikinnick Pizza Crust
1/4 cup Fresh crushed tomatoes (blended in Cuisinart)
1/4 cup gluten free tomato sauce or marinara sauce
1/4 cup fresh mozzarella, shredded or ground
1/2 cup fresh spinach leaves, washed and separated from stems
2 minced garlic cloves
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 tsp black pepper
olive oil
parmesan cheese to taste

Optional: 4 thin slices of salami or sausage, or 1/4 cup sauteed ground beef

How it works:

Preheat conventional oven to 375 degrees F. Place frozen pizza crust on stainless steel cookie sheet. In a small saucepan, pour approximately a tablespoon of olive oil and let heat at medium temperature until warm but not smoking. Add minced garlic cloves and sautee until the aroma begins to exude - but do not let it turn brown. Turn down to medium low. Add fresh blended tomatoes and marinara sauce, Italian seasoning and pepper. Sautee for approximately 2 minutes, stirring frequently - do not let boil.

With a wooden spoon, pour sauce on pizza crust. This should be to your personal taste - some people enjoy a lot of sauce, others do not. Next, rip up fresh spinach leaves and scatter them on top of the spicy tomato sauce. Sprinkle fresh mozzarella cheese liberally across pizza (again to taste). With your fingers, scatter the black pepper evenly on top of the mozzarella. Finish preparation by grating a small amount of parmesan cheese on top of the entire concoction.

If you are a meat lover, add your salami, sausage or sauteed ground beef between the sauce and spinach layers.

Bake in oven 10 - 15 minutes, until cheese is well melted and crust begins to brown slightly. Let sit for a minute outside the oven before slicing and serving.



Delicious!!!