Chickpea Pizza with Sausage and Peppers

Another unusual source for this recipe, Fitness Magazine. I would never call this crust real pizza - I would have to turn in my Italian American membership card - but for the gluten free people in your life, it really tasted good. My wife wished the sausage was spicy instead of sweet, and after she said it, I think she was right. 

Also, in my opinion, make sure to slice the sausage thinly. If the pieces are too big, the sausage doesn't lie well on the pizza slices and it makes them hard to eat. And finally, I think the recipe calls for too much sausage. I bought 2 links from the meat counter at the super market instead of using Applegate as the recipe suggests and they were so big, there would have way too much sausage for 1 pizza, so I doubled up the recipe and made 2 pies. I had plenty of sausage for both with just 2 links.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
2 fully cooked sweet Italian chicken-and-turkey sausage links (such as Applegate), thinly sliced
1/2 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 ounce shredded part-skim mozzarella (about 1/4 cup)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees . In a medium bowl, combine chickpea flour, water, salt and 1 tablespoon oil. Whisk with a fork until most lumps are dissolved; let sit 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat 1/2 tablespoon oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage, bell pepper and onion and saute, stirring occasionally, until vegetables soften and links brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

3. Swirl remaining oil in an ovenproof skillet. Heat in oven 5 minutes; carefully remove. Rewhisk chickpea flour mixture, pour into skillet and bake 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges pull away and top looks firm.

4. Remove crust from oven; raise oven temperature to broil. Top crust with mozzarella and sausage-and-pepper mixture and return to oven for 3 minutes, or until cheese melts and edges are just beginning to brown.