I love pizza. The hot oozing melted cheese, the run-down-your-face spicy meat juices, the yummy crust – it is all good. I have one problem though – my body does not like pizza ingredients. The essence of pizza is bread dough and cheese. Everything else is flexible. And it is precisely the bread dough and the cheese that my body will not tolerate. I, like about a third of all the rest of you, am gluten intolerant. Gluten intolerant also means casein (cheese protein) intolerant. So the only way I can eat pizza is without the crust and without the cheese!
I actually tried to do that one time. I ordered a pizza with a gluten free crust and without the cheese. It was terrible.
In my quest for pizza I could eat, I created a cheese replacement that is actually quite good. It looks like Velveeta cheese in as much as we try to believe Velveeta is cheese. It tastes like a tangy imported cheese, and it melts nicely. But like Velveeta, it does not grate easily. It is soft and gums up the grater.
Fortunately a few years ago a really good cheese replacement came out on the market named Diaya. They actually have a great mozzarella cheese replacement already grated and ready to go. It has more carbs than my cheese, but not an unbearable amount.
Last week Ellen, being a brat and knowing my frustration of life without pizza, demanded pizza for dinner. She knew she was being a brat, so I took up the challenge just to match her brattiness with creative genius. I went to the store with an idea in mind – I needed a crust that had zero carbs, but would still hold together in thin sheets. This said to me that we needed a protein paté that was not crumbly when cooked. I decided to try a combination of ground turkey and sweet Italian sausage combined. I decided to add almond flour to make the crust not feel as heavy as what would otherwise amount to a turkey sausage burger the size of a pizza.
Interestingly the store had a ground turkey that was Italian seasoned. This is relevant because when I recreated the recipe for the newsletter they did not have seasoned turkey and the second recipe felt like it was not as good. So if Italian seasoned ground turkey is not available, then add Italian seasoning to plain ground turkey, along with a tablespoon of fish sauce.
To make things simple I bought a good quality pre-made pizza sauce in a jar. Good quality means no corn syrup or sugar or preservatives – just simple, recognizable ingredients I would use at home to make my own sauce.
Once I got home, I took the turkey and sausage – a pound of each – and plopped them into a large mixing bowl and started mashing the two together. Once they were well-blended, I added 2 cups of almond flour and blended that in as well. I then lined a baking sheet pan with parchment paper and placed the meat on it. The idea was to spread the meat mixture evenly over the pan’s interior. I grabbed some plastic wrap and covered the meat and pan with it. Then using a rolling pin I rolled out the meat mixture to an even quarter inch thickness. The plastic wrap kept the rolling pin nice and clean and allowed the meat to smooth out nicely.
After removing the plastic wrap, I popped the pan into a 400-degree oven for 10 minutes. The sheet of meat shrank about half an inch on all sides. At this point I took out the sheet and started and to put the toppings on it. I spread the pizza sauce on first and put a layer of mozzarella Diaya cheese over it. I then put on the yellow peppers, sliced olives, cooked mushrooms, and of course gluten free pepperoni. Be careful adding prepared meats as many of them have gluten in various forms. Be sure it clearly states that it is gluten free. I then put on a layer of Diaya cheddar cheese shreds and the pizza was ready for the oven.
Oven temperatures are rarely the temperature it says on the oven setting dial, so I always cook until the cheese starts to bubble – 15 to 20 minutes. When I cook gluten free breads, I use an electronic thermometer to make sure the interior of the bread is to the right temp before I take the bread out of the oven. Once the pizza was done I took it out to cool for a couple minutes, then cut it with my pizza rolling cutter and served it up.
It was fabulous. The meat crust held together wonderfully, however because it was rather hot we ate our pizza with forks. This was not necessary the next day when we reheated the pizza. Usually I will eat 3 or 4 slices of normal pizza, but the meat crust made this pizza very filling and two slices was quite enough to fill me up.
Score a big win on the low carb, gluten free, grain free, dairy free score card. Now pizza and I no longer have to be strangers. Life is good once again. What’s next?