Success after so many failures is SOOOO sweet!!

We succeeded at making tasty healthy pizza with no cheese or flour (gluten) tonight. After so many failed attempts at meals the kids will actually eat (and that are nutritionally dynamic) I am so excited pizza was a success! I thought it was doomed when I figured out the $6 of  veggie shreds "cheese" I bought had  casein in it. I am not sure how I missed it! I read the label but after missing dairy and gluten in things a couple of times I have gotten in the habit of double and triple checking ingredients. I am also getting better at remembering the many names every ingredient has. Though I am still thinking I need to make flash cards to really make sure I know it! I rely very much on the "gluten free" "dairy free" statements on products as back up as well as looking at the allergens sometimes listed at the end of ingredient lists. Somehow though I was tricked still. In my defense it was at the end of a very LONG shopping trip. The veggie shreds had a "gluten free" and "lactose free" label on the front. I caught it after already having invested 2 hours into this pizza and it was very tempting to use it but I did not give into the temptation. So I have 2 bags of lactose free cheese that I don't know what to do with. So I continued with the pizza minus "cheese". I put a lot of ingredients into the sauce so I hoped and prayed the sauce could hold it's own and not need cheese but with kids as many people are aware it is all about the marketing. I was really worried that even if the sauce was good the kids would not go for pizza with a very obviously visible missing ingredient. So to try and hide the fact that the cheese was missing I sprinkled dry minced onion on top (for the little white showing affect more than the flavor-maybe they would mistake it for cheese?). I covered it in pepperoni and threw it in the oven. It looked great when I pulled it out and I cut it up and served it. Much to my amazement the kids did not even seem to notice the missing cheese and gobbled it up. As I ate mine I was very pleased with a deep and dynamic flavor all the ingredients came out to make. It was actually really good give me seconds pizza!! Yay! All the failed attempts at an entirely new way of cooking really make the victory so much sweeter! After taking 2 kids to Central Market to get essential ingredients that are an entire page long (for one week of meals) it is so nice to have it work out.
After walking every isle twice in a very crowded store with rude customers (who are completely impatient, lacking grace and easily annoyed by the fact that I have 2 young kids and a big cart and have the nerve to be stopped reading ingredients) it is nice to have a dinner that we can all enjoy. (I had a very intense shopping trip today and I could probably write an entire blog just about how I would never like to do that again! I had many thoughts on sociology and psychology. I would not have choose to take the kids but I have been needing to go for several days and been too busy. What can I say we were out of food and I had to go because I have so much work to get done. The kids were actually pretty well behaved it was the other people that were the problem. I tried really hard to keep a good attitude and I even managed to help a fellow mom not accidentally buy several packs of all natural hot dogs that were expensive and I had noticed expired. There was one moment where I really had to hold back and not ram a lady with my cart or curse her out (or both). I just gritted my teeth and tried to breath until she had passed)

But as far as the pizza I am hoping now that I can make it again and have it come out as good. Since I almost always stray from the recipe I am pretty sure I know about how much of everything I used BUT I did not measure or write it down. Ooops - rookie mistake! I have decided to start blogging the recipes that work (partly for my own reference) and in hopes that it can help someone else.

RECIPE TIME

So the crust was :
Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free (dairy free) Pizza Crust Whole Grain Mix
I followed the instructions on the back which called for warm water, olive oil but I did not use egg (daughter is allergic)
I substituted 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tablespoons of water (for the 2 eggs)
I also let it rise 40 mins instead of 20 and I accidentally put the sauce on before I realized I was suppose to put the crust (alone) in the oven for 7 mins.
I put the crust with sauce in the oven for 7 mins then put the pepperoni and cooked 15 more mins

The sauce was:
Okay so this part will have some guesstimating :) For one thing the beginning of the sauce was left over spaghetti sauce from last night (recipe below)
1 cup meaty spaghetti sauce
1 cup chopped broccoli
1 small can mushrooms
1 can tomato paste
1 tablespoon garlic powder
-I used a food chopper to puree all of these together for a very thick sauce

On top of the sauce I put
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
then covered in gf/cf pepperoni - Apple Gate farms is the only brand I have found with reliable dairy free meats

The Spaghetti sauce was:
1 can Hunts Mushroom Spaghetti sauce
1-2 tablespoon dry sweet basil
1 lb 27/73 ground beef
-obviously we don't worry too much about saturated fat- we hardly eat fat and our son is very thin
The sauce is really greasy so you may not like it for spaghetti (next time I will probably drain it or use ground beef with less fat also if you like it more tomato flavored you could put tomato paste but we don't - we put the sauce on top of gluten free spaghetti)