I love cooking with vegetables from the garden but I am also grateful that I can buy sausage, cheese, tomato sauce and noodles that let me create a wonderful pizza style dish, in a very short period of time. It fulfills my desire to eat pizza and it’s a great time saver on days when gardening or creating in other ways, leave little time for cooking.
I have tried making gluten free crusts. I have not found a gluten free crust recipe that I think tastes really good. I had given up on eating pizza until, I discovered Mung Bean noodles at the Good Foods Co-op in Lexington. They are gluten free and high in protein. It occurred to me that I could easily do a pizza style dish with or without adding meat, using these noodles as the starch and protein in the dish.
I started by first bringing some water to boil. Once I had it boiling, I added about 1/4 of the package of noodles. That would be half of a recommended serving, but it was enough for two of us to each have a good serving and have leftovers.
I placed the noodles into the boiling water, turned down the heat, covered the pot and let the noodles cook about 7-8 minutes.
I also turned on the toaster oven ( yep, I’m using that handy toaster oven again) to broil.
While the noodles were cooking, I removed the casings from and sliced up two pieces ( a half pound) of Italian Sausage that I had purchased at the Berea College Farm Store. This is a delicious sausage that was made from a local, pasture finished hog. Actually, it is the best Italian Sausage that I’ve ever eaten.
I cooked the sausage in 9″ iron skillet, until was completely cooked through and somewhat broken up into pieces.
Then I added a small can of tomato sauce. I just used plain tomato sauce since the sausage was already well seasoned with Italian seasonings. For a vegetarian version, I would use an organic, commercial pasta sauce and probably add in some mushrooms, peppers, etc.
Sausage simmering in tomato sauce.
In the meantime, I drained the cooked noodles. I added then added the drained noodles to the sausage and tomato mixture. These noodles aren’t real pretty to look at but they have a good texture and don;t break down when they are stirred into a dish. They also take on the flavor of the dish that they are cooked in.
Noodles just added to the pan.
Noodles mixed into the sausage and tomato sauce.
While I was doing the meat and noodles, Steve, grated a half pound of Mozzarella cheese and some Romano cheese. I piled the cheeses on top of the meat and noodle mixture.
Then I popped the pan into the toaster oven for about 2-3 minutes, until the cheese was good and bubbly and beginning to look browned in places.
Even though there was not a real crust, this dish, served with a salad and a glass of red wine, tasted just like real pizza to us. It also made 4 servings, so we got to have it two nights in a row. Yea for leftovers!
GRATEFULLY COOKING and EATING 
with JOY,
Karen
COMING ATTRACTIONS: Stir Fry with Mung Bean Noodles, fresh carrots and smoked chicken
Find out more about the Berea College Farm Store at: http://bereacollegefarmstore.com/
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Thanks!
