It’s been 18 months since I ate a pizza.
It seems that many of my stories start this way.
Truly, though, when you are managing a low carb diet for the
sake of blood sugar control, there are many foods that simply disappear. Pizza
was one of those for me, due to the overwhelming amount of bread (usually
white) that makes up that delicacy. Now admittedly, I had a few slices of
pepperoni pizza (my all time favorite) the day after Thanksgiving last year. I
had Turkey Day dinner without mashed potatoes, only a taste of stuffing and
just the filling of the various pies, so I felt somehow deserving and
victimized, all at the same time. But the enjoyment of the pizza was tempered
by knowing I would feel like crap later that night and the entire following
day. Which I did.
So really, why bother?
Enter my veganventure, where pizza needs to be without animal
products. No pepperoni. No cheese. Did I say no pepperoni? I thought about it
and decided, “Why bother?”. Then Peter suggested one night that a pizza on a
whole grain crust would be a terrific quick meal. I decided if my carnivore-turned-vegan-for-the-month
husband was thinking about pizza then I should, too. So I bought some Portland
Pie Company whole-wheat crust and some vegan sauce (Paul Newman’s Sockarooni)
at Hannaford in preparation for a night when I would be home later than Peter
and he was going to do the cooking.
Lets cut right to the crust. It was glorious.
The Newman Sockarooni sauce is a bit spicy and truly
flavorful. Peter covered the ‘za and sauce with fresh basil, chopped kalamata
olives, peppers, onions, mushrooms and some Daiya Mozzarella cheese-like
substance that I had bought to add some semblance of cheese to certain dishes. Everything
tasted fresh and real and savory. Oh my.
Peter heated our pizza stone 1st, so the bottom
of the crust was crispy and the inside chewy. The cheese was surprisingly good,
staying soft and melty while the pizza was still hot, and with a flavor that
was moving in the cheese direction. The mouth feel, though, was definitely
cheesy. All in all, a great, quick meal.
We accompanied the pizza with a bottle of Nero D’avola, a delicious
Sicilian red wine. The wine was really robust with a full fruit flavor, subtle
spice with some nice tannins and balanced by a smoothness that made the tannins
all that much more delightful.
We ate almost the entire pizza. (It was smallish) We drank the entire bottle of wine. (It was
not smallish).
It was one of those days.
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