When we first went GF, pizza was the one I missed the most. Not only for the taste, but also for the ease of picking up the phone or picking up a pie on my way home. Then a few of the conventional restaurant options became available, some of them pretty tasty, so we were back in business, if not out a little cash as those options tend to be expensive. Then we found that dairy was a problem and we were back to the starting point. Ugh, what to do? Well, frankly, we went without pizza for awhile.
One day I saw a post on Facebook that contained a recipe for a "nut cheese". I tried a recipe from a blog the first time and it was waaaayyyyy too salty and the "cheesy" taste from the nutritional yeast was just too prominent - I thought it tasted like the cheese powder in a bad box of macaroni and cheese (and not even a bad BLUE box!).
I decided to develop my own recipe and the results made our homemade pizza taste complete. It's not the ooey, gooey, stringy kind of cheese that you typically get on a dairy filled pizza, but it fills the void much better than any of those plastic make-believe cheeses you will find in the dairy aisle or the health food store.
As for toppings, we run the gammit at our house. Dear daughter likes hers with tomato sauce and "cheese". Sometimes she wants a little pepperoni and other times she's open to add a little of the pizza sausage we get in our CSA bin. Some times she wants me to add pineapple. Darling Hubby likes pepper or the sausage and the nut cheese. He's another fan of pineapple, so I add that if I have it on hand. I'm a bit more of a toppings gal. My favorite pizza is pepperoni or sausage with green peppers, onions, mushrooms, black olives and banana peppers. I'm open to some pineapple as well. We've tried them all and they all work well with this basic sauce and the nut cheese.
Finally, a good pizza crust is something that becomes a quest for many GF folks. There are a litany of recipes on the internet and Pinterest has some pretty good ones. We've not settled on one "best" recipe yet so I'll come back and share that when we do. In the past month, things have been pretty hectic at our house so I finally broke down and bought some Udi's GF crust. I have to say that for the ease of prep, I'm a fan. The taste rivals some of the restaurant crusts as well, so not too bad if you're going this route. In fact, I've decided to keep a few in the freezer for weekend lunches or week night meals on those nights when we have commitments after work and school.
Definitely make the tomato basil sauce, it's a great sauce that you can put on just about anything - grilled veggies, pizza, pasta of any form and if you have some good GF bread (Udi's dinner rolls, maybe), it would make a great dip. You can also use it as an ingredient in another recipes - e.g., 1 cup in a recipe of mussels marinara.
Homemade Tomato Basil Sauce
- 1 28 oz can of organic Diced Tomatoes (I like the fire roasted type)
- 2 15 oz cans of organic tomato sauce (I use Simple Truth)
- 1 small onion or half of a large, small dice (any type will do, I prefer red, but have even used Vidalia with good results)
- 1 bunch of basil, torn into small pieces or chiffonade into strips
- 1 tbsp minced garlic (I use the kind from the jar)
- 2 - 4 tbsp EVOO (to taste or your preference for adding flavor and to sauté the onions)
- pinch of red pepper flakes
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 1 large carrot - clean and cut in half vertically (if your carrot is really large, cut it in half and then into quarters so it fits into your pot better)
Place a large sauce pan over a medium-low heat and allow pan to heat while you dice the onion. Add EVOO to the hot pot and allow it to come to temp. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the onions and cook, stirring on occasion so as to avoid browning the onion, add a sprinkle of salt. When onions are translucent, add garlic and stir to distribute. When the garlic is fragrant - 30 seconds or so - add the tomatoes. Stir to combine. Add the pepper flakes and stir again. Add the carrot to the pot.
Turn the heat to low and allow the sauce to cook for 20 to 30 minutes stirring frequently to keep the bottom from scorching. Allow the sauce to cook until thickened and reduced a bit. Turn the flame off and taste. Season with salt and pepper as needed. Add basil and stir to distribute it throughout the sauce. Allow the sauce to rest for 10-20 minutes. Taste and make any final adjustments of seasonings. Store in the fridge in a clean glass container or in the freezer in batches of 1.5 cups each for a 10" pizza crust.
"Parmesan" Nut Cheese
- 1.5 cups raw cashew nuts - pieces or whole
- .5 cups almonds - whole or sliced
- .25 cup EVOO
- .25 cup Olive Oil (regular olive oil)
- 1.5 tsp good quality sea salt
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice
Soak nuts overnight in cold water - make sure the nuts are covered with enough water to allow for the nuts to swell during soaking. When you are ready to prepare the cheese, drain and rinse the nuts in a colander. Add the nuts to the work bowl of a food processor. Add salt, lemon juice and the EVOO. Turn the food process to "On" and allow the contents to process until the EVOO has been incorporated and the nuts have broken down into large sand grains. Taste the mixture to determine whether you need to add more salt and adjust seasoning (you can also choose to add a little more lemon juice, but the purpose of the lemon is to add the bite that you typically get from parmesan and not to actually taste the lemon). Continue to process the nuts until the mixture looks like fine grains of wet sand. If you have trouble getting the nuts to break down, add the remaining olive oil by tablespoon until the mixture reaches the texture you want. Taste one last time to adjust seasoning, if needed.
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