Gluten Free Pizza

I thought I would turn the reigns over to my wife for a guest post about a subject close to her heart, Gluten Free Pizza. Here she is:
I hope I don’t disappoint any loyal fans of my husband, but I have decided to do a post!! Yes, the resident Celiac, who usually just gets to enjoy all of the wonderful cooking and baking done by my hubby, decided to “guest blog.” This post has been long overdue. Back in June, I stopped by a local pizza restaurant down the street from our home. I had heard that Bellagios Pizza now served gluten free pizza with many wonderful options. I had the opportunity to speak with the manager of our local Bellagios who gave me a great “look” into how they do pizza gluten free. The manager was also kind enough to let me take home a sample pizza to enjoy with my family for dinner that night. It did not disappoint!

For $13.00, you can enjoy a 10-inch pizza with a number of mouth-watering options. Some of these options include: Very Veggie, Margherita, BBQ Chicken, Mother Earth, Garlic Chicken, Pepperoni Plus, and Pesto Chicken. For a complete list of all of their customer favorites and a list of ingredients, check out Bellagios website and click on the Gluten Free link. Another option is to buy their Cheese gluten free pizza for $10.00 and then add your own choice of toppings for extra. I always like to try the combinations they create and I found Bellagios has plenty to choose from!

For dinner that night, I decided to try half a Bellagio Combo (mozzarella cheese, salami, pepperoni, mushrooms, black olives, and green peppers) and half Garlic Chicken (mozzarella, chicken breast, garlic, feta, red onion, mushrooms, tomatoes, on a creamy garlic base sauce)….. yum!! They were both delicious. While my husband and I found the 10 inch pizza to be a little small to feed our family of three, we decided with a salad and/or another small side dish (or even a second pizza!), it would have been the perfect amount of food.

Bellagios was also kind enough to send me home with a sample of their frozen, gluten free, pizza crusts and pizza sauce. You can purchase this “Dough to Go” for $3.50 for one crust or $6.00 for two crusts. The crusts come with a single serving of their pizza sauce that (almost) covers the pizza crust (we added a little bit of our own sauce since we like a little extra).

(our homemade pizza on a Bellagio crust)

Bellagios has really done a great job of catering to the gluten free world with their pizza. It tastes (as much as I can remember) as close to “real” pizza as any I have tried and it also has that gourmet look and taste to it that I love. The gluten free pizzas are made in a dedicated gluten free area of their kitchen with the ingredients and utensils kept separate from their glutenous counterparts. I was very impressed with the knowledge the manager of this branch showed about the gluten free world of eating. I would highly recommend a stop by one of the 14 Bellagio Pizza branches in the Portland, Oregon area (with one in Vancouver, WA). If you do not have the good fortune of having a Bellagios near you, put in a good word on their website and maybe one will pop up in your neighborhood soon!

Thanks for letting me post! And now, back to the REAL blogger…

For my two cents, I'll say that Bellagios not only has great gluten free pizza, they also have great customer service with a friendly atmosphere. The staff also appears well versed in avoiding cross contamination. It's nice to have a great place nearby to enjoy pizza again.

I'm baaaaaack!

I had a great week in Indianapolis at a fire fighter training conference. It feels great to be home. I know some of you would love to be surrounded by 30 thousand firefighters, but after a week of talking about nothing but firefighting and hanging out with a bunch of dudes, I'm spent.

Just in case you ever wanted to know what a football stadium full of fire trucks looks like, here you go.

On to real business; food.

For this weeks What's for dinner? Wednesday, I made Garlic Chicken Pizza.

Other than the crust, I don't follow a recipe for this pizza.

To make the crust, I simply follow my gluten free french bread recipe with one exception. I use half the water needed to make the bread, everything else is the same. Once the dough is made, I roll it out on a rice flour dusted counter. I then lay my pizza pan on top of the dough and cut around it to make a nice circular crust. Next, I take the left over dough and roll it like a bread stick and mold it to the edge of the crust. Finally, I bake the plain crust in a 400 degree F oven for 10 minutes.
For the sauce, I use Classico Alfredo pasta sauce for the base. For the pizza topping, I grill 2 chicken breasts on my BBQ and cube them up. I roast 2-3 cloves of garlic, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper, in a 325 degree F oven for 15-20 minutes until soft. I dice about 1/4 cup each of red and green bell pepper and red onion. Add all the ingredients on top of the sauce, sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top and bake. I love to grill my pizza for a crisp and smoky flavor.

Bake or grill at about 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown

Enjoy!!!