Week 1: Gluten Free Pantry Pizza

As previously promised here, 52 week homemade pizza challenge, we are starting week 1 of the challenge with a Gluten Free Pantry Pizza. We wanted to start out simple and give ourselves a good solid base to grow from. 

We started with a Glutino gluten free pizza dough mix. We chose this brand because we found during our (almost) year gluten free, that they have some of the best products and Jackie is obsessed with their pretzels. We prepared the dough according to the directions on the back.

Crust:
Entire bag of Glutino Pizza Crust mix
Enclosed packet of yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
1 3/4 cups lukewarm water or milk (used 1/2 and 1/2 almond milk and water)
1 tsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs plus 1 egg white

Once we had the crust mixed up, we smoothed it into a pan. The directions say that it makes 2-12 inch pizzas, but since we freeze a lot of our meals for later use we decided to just do 1 big pizza and freeze the leftovers.

(It spread and looked like frosting)

We let it rise a little bit while we prepped the veggies and sauce.

(look at my good little food chopper!)

We used broccoli, cauliflower, tri-color peppers, onions, zucchini, tomatoes and kale.

Some of our favorite vegetables, including some leftover from the last batch of homemade dog food. (and yes, these hippies make their own human grade dog food)

We spread 1 jar of Meijer Naturals pizza sauce and seasoned with basil, and Italian seasonings.

Next, came spreading the beautiful kale.

And then, tomatoes and the rest of the veggies quickly followed.

It looks beautiful just as it is, BUT the reason we are vegetarians instead of vegans is CHEESE!

We baked at 450°, for 10 minutes, checked it, added more CHEESE! and turned the pan. Then baked it for another 15 minutes or so until the cheese was a nice golden brown.

We let it cool about 2-3 minutes in the pan, before cutting (per the dough instructions)

We ended up with 16 good sized rectangle slices, and decided to freeze 8 of them.

Then, served it up!

Delicious!

Our reviews:

The crust was fluffy, but it did not get super crispy like we like. If we use this crust again, we will par-bake it before adding ingredients. When we reheat it, we will crisp it up on the pizzazz. The crust was pretty flavorless, we would probably add some herbs to the dough as well. 

As far as gluten free goes, in our experience, it was a good texture and held up well. It also served it's purpose in getting all of those delicious vegetables into our mouths.

The pizza sauce was good with our added spices, but our next endeavor will definitely be making our own sauce.

Overall thoughts:

Minus a little bit of a flimsy crust, you really can't beat a simple homemade pizza full of your favorite vegetables and CHEESE!