Saturday, June 21, 2008

Birthday Pizza and Ice Cream

Today is my birthday so I am indulging in Pizza and homemade ice cream. I decided to blog about my lunch since it seems more interesting than dinner. :) My hubby knows me SO well. Most people would probably not be happy getting an ice cream maker for their birthday, but I am just thrilled! I have so missed ice cream and I can't wait to try it out.

I am trying the first of the Gluten Free products I bought. I made pizza using the frozen Nature's Highlights brown rice pizza crust. I would love to give them some credit for their product but I can not find any info except pdf catolog files for gluten free products.
In the picture above I thawed the crust as per the package directions. It only took 10 minutes so it was pretty quick. It looked pretty good and "normal" so I was excited to put the pizza together.

My camera is a little wacked out but I promise there is not as much olive oil on the crust like it appears! lol The suggestion is to brush with olive oil and heat crust with just the oil. I let it cook on 450 for about 8 minutes while I sauted my pizza toppings and cut my fresh tomatoe slices.


Just like in the oil pic the amount of pasta sauce looks exaggerated. I SWEAR! I used a very light layer of tomato sauce because I was not sure how well the crust would hold up to moisture.



I do not have any dairy allergies so I shredded some mozzerrella.





This was for the kids and I, so I used a good amount of toppings to make it hardy. I am glad I did as I think light toppings might not have been as good. I used mushrooms, garlic, onions, and leftover beef patties of jalepeno and cheese that my husband had made the night before.




And wala! The finished product.
My review: The crust sounded really crispy as I cut it. I took my first bite about 5 minutes later after serving the kids. The crust was warm and a little crunch but had some chew to it. The crust holds together really well. It really held all the toppings I had added. I might have been able to add more sauce and it still would not have been soggy-I like that. I'm not sure if I would have appreciated the taste of the crust by it's self. I would probably next time add sea salt as well as the olive oil.
I tried a second slice about 15 minutes later. The more this crust cools off the more it gets chewy, but not in a gross way or anything. I do not think any leftovers would have been good though.
It did satisfy my craving for pizza and I have another crust so I know I will make it again. :)
I give it a 3 out of 5 *
Feel free to leave a link to your own pizza using products safe for you or your family.
Note: An update. Allergies suck! As I finished writing this I felt itchy and had a yucky tummy. I took some benedryl and now need to find out if it was the crust or one of the toppings. I am suspecting maybe tomatoes-but I had tomato basil soup yesterday with no problems. It was a very mild reaction but a reaciton non-the-less.