Pizza 4 Ways and How to Make Pizza Sauce, Mozzarella & Italian Sausage

Pizzas range from Chicago-style deep-dish to the authentic Italian Neapolitan thin-crusts. Depending on what part of the country you're from you can find every topping and style imaginable, including sauce on the bottom, on the top and no sauce at all. Without a doubt though, the best pizzas around, no matter the style, are the ones made by hand using only the freshest ingredients. Below I've included four of my favorite styles of pizzas. Of course I can't stop at just sharing recipes for making your own crusts, so I've also included how to make your own whole-milk mozzarella, red pizza sauce and sweet Italian sausage. 

Coconut Flour Pizza Crust

With my last post I mentioned that I tried two new gluten and grain free pizza recipes. Here's number two. This one takes advantage of coconut flour. Are you familiar with this great flour? It's much higher in fiber than traditional flour with gluten and it "contains over 19% non-gluten protein." If you have grain issues this may be a great alternative flour for you. I use Tropical Traditions coconut flour. I also usually buy my organic coconut oil from them too. Their Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil has wonderful flavor and is excellent for cooking and baking with.

This gluten free pizza crust cooks up very similarly to a regular wheat/white flour crust, which is surprising when you look at the list of ingredients and see only 2 tbsp. of flour in it. The main difference in my opinion is it doesn't get quite as crispy as a traditional pizza crust and it will absorb some of  the pizza sauce you put on it.  It reheats very well or in our house we've been eating leftovers cold because of it being so hot out. Either way it tastes great! This recipe is from Tropical Traditions, they also have a video demonstration of how to make it, you can check it out here: http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/recipe_Gluten-Free_Pizza_Crust.htm


What You'll Need: for 1 small to medium pizza, serves 2-3
For the crust

• 2 cups organic, whole milk mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 2 large organic eggs
• 2 tablespoons flax meal
• 2 tablespoons coconut flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder 

For the pizza sauce  - This is the same sauce I used for the recipe I posted Tuesday.

• 15 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 small onion diced
• Olive oil
• Oregano - around a 1/4 - 1/2 tsp. 
• 3 cloves garlic smashed and chopped
• 1+ tbsp. sugar - optional
• Sea salt

For the topping 

• 3/4 - 1lb shredded, whole milk mozzarella
• ~1lb sweet Italian sausage
• Dried oregano to sprinkle on top of the pizza

Getting Started:
For the crust
1.  First preheat your oven to 350º, then put all of your crust ingredients into a medium size bowl and mix until you have a sticky dough. It works well to start by mixing with a spoon and then your hands. A small note, I didn't have flax meal on hand when I made this recipe, so instead I used an extra 2 tbsp. of coconut flour and it worked great.

2. Spread or roll the dough out on a parchment lined cookie sheet to about 1/4" thick. 

3. Bake in your preheated 350º oven for 15 minutes, then pull the crust from the oven and flip it to it's other side. You can either use a spatula to do this or pick-up the parchment paper and flip the crust onto another piece of parchment.

4. Put crust back into the oven and bake for another 15 minutes. 

5. Pull the crust from the oven and allow to cool before putting your toppings on it. This only takes about 15 min. or so. 

For the Sauce:
1. To make your pizza sauce, first cook your onion until softened in a little bit of olive oil in a medium pot.

2. Add your crushed tomatoes, chopped garlic, oregano (start with 1/4 tsp. and add more later if it needs it, sorry I never measure and just go my taste) and a pinch of sea salt. Simmer for 15+ minutes, occasionally stirring.

3. Blend your sauce with a submersion blender until smooth, then do a taste test. Add more oregano, salt and/or a bit of sugar if it needs it.  I use sugar if my tomatoes don't have any sweetness. I think it adds a nice bit of extra flavor to a pizza sauce, but by no means do you need it. After adding extra seasoning, allow to simmer for an additional 5 - 10 minutes, then set aside

For the toppings
1.  Slice, or form into small chunks, your Italian sausage and cook it in a medium size pan. The pizza will only be placed under a broiler for a couple of minutes once assembled and not baked, so cook your sausage a step further then just simply browning it. Once it's done, drain any extra fat off of it by placing the sausage on some paper towel.

2. Spread your pizza sauce on your crust and then top with your toppings. I always like to sprinkle a little dried oregano on the pizza once it's assembled, makes the pizza just that much more tasty! 

3. Place pizza (on a cookie sheet of course) under your oven's broiler until cheese has melted. This won't take long so don't get distracted and forget it's in there. I"m terrible about forgetting things under the broiler, it's one of those mistakes that happens when I try to multitask in the kitchen! :-)

Serve the pizza immediately. Enjoy!!!

Zucchini Crust "Pizza" - A must try, it's so good!!!!!

Over the last several months we've been slowly removing gluten and/or wheat from our family's diet. Our son has shown some issues with it. It's seems that every time or at least more often then not he becomes hyper, more aggressive and won't sleep when he's eaten wheat or other glutenous foods. One of the foods we miss eating as of late is pizza. It's easily my husbands favorite food and my son is always thrilled to have it. So what do you do when you can't have wheat... Well this last weekend I tried two new grain free pizza recipes and both where wonderful. The first was the zucchini crust pizza and the second was a coconut flour crust one. Today I'll share with you the zucchini recipe. I found this recipe on Nourishing Days website. If you aren't familiar with this site, it's a must to check out. Shannon (the site owner) always has wonderful recipes that incorporate traditional, organic, made from scratch dishes. Plus lots of great useful information.

I did make a couple tweaks to the recipe she shared going off of one of her readers comments. The reader suggested grating the zucchini instead of slicing and cooking it and then putting it in a towel and squeezing all of it's liquid out. This worked great.  I baked my pizza in a spring form pan that I placed on top of pan with a rack on it. This allowed any extra liquid from the zucchini to run out. You could also cook it in a pie pan, it would just be a little thicker or on a rimmed pizza sheet. The only other thing I did was make a pizza sauce versus seasoning my zucchini with oregano, hot pepper flakes, garlic powder and sea salt. This was mostly because I was making pizza sauce for another pizza so I used it for both. Do check out how Shannon does her recipe if you'd rather nix the red sauce and instead top with crushed tomatoes.

I topped my pizza with homemade red sauce, mozzarella cheese, pine nuts and pancetta. Yum, yum, yum, yum!!!!! That's all I can say! : D If you are vegetarian you could easily omit the meat and add another veggie or just leave it as a cheese pizza.


What You'll Need: for 1 medium pizza
For the "crust"

• 3 medium zucchini shredded - for me this was around 3 cups. I'd recommend shredding it by hand vs. using a food processor. I think it will be a finer shred and you'll be able to squeeze more of the zucchini's liquid out.
• 3 tbsp. coconut or olive oil
• 1 egg
• Sea salt

For the pizza sauce 

• 15 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 small onion diced
• Olive oil
• Oregano - around a 1/4 - 1/2 tsp. 
• 3 cloves garlic smashed and chopped
• 1+ tbsp. sugar - optional
• Sea salt

For the topping 

• 3/4 - 1lb shredded, whole milk mozzarella
• 4 oz. of pancetta
• A couple tbsp. pine nuts

Getting Started
For the Sauce:
1. First make your pizza sauce by cooking your onion in a little bit of olive oil in a medium pot. Cook until onion begins to soften.

2. Add your crushed tomatoes, chopped garlic, oregano (start with 1/4 tsp. and add more later if it needs it, sorry I never measure and just go my taste) and a pinch of sea salt. Simmer for 15+ minutes, occasionally stirring.

3. Blend your sauce with a submersion blender until smooth, then do a taste test. Add more oregano, salt and/or a bit of sugar if it needs it.  I use sugar if my tomatoes don't have any sweetness. I think it adds a nice bit of extra flavor to a pizza sauce, but by no means do you need it. After adding extra seasoning, allow to simmer for an additional 5 - 10 minutes, then set aside

For the zucchini crust: 

1. Place shredded zucchini into a clean towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. I think I squeeze out close to 5-6 tbsp. 
 

2. In a medium bowl combine your zucchini, oil, egg and a couple pinches of sea salt. Mix well.

3. Spread a small amount of oil in your pizza pan, spring form pan or pie dish and then press your zucchini crust into it.

Note: If you use a spring form pan you must put a pan under it to catch any liquid that may run out of the zucchini!

3. Spread your sauce over your crust, then top with your shredded mozzarella, pancetta and pine nuts.

4. Bake in a preheated 400º oven for around 25 - 30 minutes or until your cheese is melted and bubbly.

5. Remove pizza from the oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.

 If you have leftovers, this pizza does reheats very well. Perfect for lunch the next day!