Sausage and Cheese Rollups

The concept of sausage and cheese and onions “IN”  a bun  haunts me.  I once went to a restaurant where all they served was “stufffed sandwiches” and salads. It was great.  Super delicious, but then I wasn’t worried about gluten or cross contamination either.

Fast forward to me not having any fun food, or  party food to eat due to extreme allergies.. and we end up with a level of quirky, creative desperation.  Here’s today’s edition of quirky lunch. Wow! they were good.

Roly-Poly Lunch Rolls

• Brown  sausage with chopped onion.
• Make one recipe of the wonder dough.     Roll it out into a rectangle. Use a little potato starch to keep it from sticking  to everything too much. I rolled mine out on parchment paper sprinkled with potato starch.
• Spread the cooled sausage and onion mixture.
• Sprinkle it with shredded mozzerella cheese. Add a sprinkle of parmesan if you  feel like it.
• Roll up the dough, carefully including the filling.

Make 1 -  2  inch slices and place them, cut side up (like cinnamon rolls) in a lightly greased 9 x 13 pan.

Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes. Let them cool. Serve with a big green salad.

One is missing, because I ate it before I remembered the camera. LOL. It was realllllllly good.

Other filling ideas:

• Boar’s head pepperoni, with pasta sauce + shredded cheese = rolled up pizza fun
• Cubed ham and shredded cheese.
• Cubed SPAM and shredded cheese
• shredded chicken and cheese

Baby Pizzas

No, they aren’t for babies…but  they are little itty-bitty pizzas. And wow are they yummy. You should go make some. Now. You won’t regret it.

Here’s what you need:

• mini cupcake tins
• part of  a batch of “wonder dough”
• roasted garlic salsa (from Trader Joes)
• grated mozzerella cheese
• optional: sliced fresh tomatoes, or grilled veggies.

Take about a tablespoon  of the dough and press it really flat, into and up the sides of each of the mini-muffin tin spaces. This is tedious, but worth it.

Bake the pizza shells for 8 minutes at 400. Scoop a little bit of the roasted garlic salsa into each cup, probably 1/2 teaspoon if you are counting. Then pile on a bunch of grated cheese. It’s probably a tablespoon more or less for the pans I use.

Bake another 10 minutes or until bubbly and starting to brown.   
Let them cool slightly in the pan, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

Add fresh tomatoes or other toppings just before serving. These are good warm, or cooled off. Easily kept in the refrigerator for mini-pizza emergencies for a couple of days. Also just plain awesome as an appetizer that you can take to a party. I love tiny food. It makes me happy. And GF .. and nobody cares, because it’s pizza. LOL

One Stop shopping -Pizza Perfect-

Okay.. the “wonder dough” (see previous recipe) has now been morphed into the best deep dish pizza crust … EVER!. That includes any version of any wheat (**:::shudder:::**)  recipe I have ever tried.  Faster too. This dough is really one stop shopping. I used to have a diffferent recipe for pizza crust, cinnamon rolls, breadsticks and pretzels… voila! it’s now all in one. Love it.

Seriously. Who doesn’t love pizza? It’s the perfect food. It’s all bread-like covered in cheese and/or various toppings.. … mmmmmm. Except this “bread” has no wheat. .. yay! I used potato starch, brown rice flour and sorghum flour for this pizza crust. Which may be a little different than the “wonder dough” original ratios.. but not that different. Just use 1/2 C potato starch and 1/4 C Brown rice flour and 1/4 C sorghum flour for the same delicious experience.

The oven heats up while you mix the dough. (Multi-tasking gets dinner done that much faster)

Pat it into shape with a little extra potato starch to keep it from sticking to your fingers…. ..and…*poof* … it’s dinner. Really fast too.

You can bake it in one pan, or shape it in to pizza circles and bake them separately on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

Bake the dough for about 10 minutes to set it. Then top with sauce and lots of cheese.  Return to oven to finish baking. This took about another 15-20 minutes for the trial run. I was waiting for the cheese to brown a little on the top.

Next time I will TRY to remember to mix in some basil and oregano to the dough before I shape and bake it. Yummy.

The trial pizza was topped with:

• Full Circle Brand Organic Pasta sauce (it’s GF)
• a pile of mozzerella cheese (probably about 2 cups if you are counting) .

Mozzerella cheese is about the only cheese we can tolerate. Everything else has wierd stuff in it, like annato (eww) or rennet (double yuck and eww) .. so we go for the vegetarian version of  “cheese enzymes” when shopping for cheese. Your mileage may vary.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

I went out to lunch with 5 friends yesterday. Really, really fun. We ordered a BBQ chicken flatbread as an appetizer. Mine is better. And gluten-free.

The flatbread that we ordered was tasteless, the toppings pretty skimpy, and although it looked exoctic… and it was also exoctically priced…it was just “okay”.

Here’s my version.

• Rice/potato pizza crust,
• Bull’s Eye BBQ sauce,
• organic refried beans,
• sauteed-carmelized white onion and 3 cloves of garlic,
• BBQ chicken pieces,
• cilantro is nice if you have it.(sprinkle it around on top)
• Cheese is optional. If I HAVE TO have cheese, I just sprinkle a little bit of shredded mozzerella around on top before I bake it. Cheese is over rated.

BBQ Chicken: bake chunks of skinless-boneless chicken at 425 for 35 minutes covered in a glass pan. Drain any liquid that remains, and toss chicken pieces with Bull’s Eye Original BBQ sauce until well coated. Bake for 20 minutes uncovered, or until glazed.

Pizza crust: I have several “from scratch” bread recipes that work, but I  almost always use the ‘Nature’s Highlights’ frozen pizza crust I find in the freezer section at Whole Foods. Let it thaw out, brush it with a little oil and bake it for 5 minutes, then top it with BBQ sauce, refried beans, sauteed-carmelized onions/garlic, baked BBQ chicken, some cilantro and a little sprinkle of mozzerella if you want cheese.

Bake 8 minutes and slice and serve. Just like the lunch flatbread at the expensive lunch place, but better!