Pizza Craving Fix: A Review of Gluten Free and Vegan Pizzas, Vol 1

In the course of dealing with my food intolerances that began after multiple intestinal infections about four years ago, I have managed (on most days) to be at peace with my limited food selection (in case you are new here, I am gluten/dairy/egg/sesame free).  It has forced me to become creative in my cooking and proactive when eating out.  But some days, it just flat-out sucks.  Most of the time, I can handle not eating ice cream (haven’t touched the stuff since I was 15) or frozen yogurt (not as easy to give up as ice cream).  I don’t stand out as much when I skip the bread basket on a night out or say, “no thanks” to french toast at brunch when offered.  Still, I am limited in my food choices, and although I make it work, it’s not always easy.  But when I see people eating pizza, I am literally brought to tears.  It is just. not. fair.  And it’s not like I ate pizza all the time, but it was the go-to food for this previous semi-vegetarian/picky eater/Weight Watcher when at a ball game or a quick grab-and-go dinner with the kids before a night of carpooling to activities.  I admit, I miss the cheesy, doughy stuff more than I thought I ever would (tearing up now).  Even the smell of good pizza – not Connecticut pizza, but New York pizza – makes me feel badly for myself, and I am not usually one who cries, “oh poor me.”

Last week, while doing my weekly grocery shopping, I stopped in the pizza aisle of the natural food section of the market to pick up an Amy’s Kitchen spinach pizza for the kids.  Even then, I was thinking, “Ah, pizza (sigh),” although I was never a fan of frozen anything pre-food intolerance days.  When I reached into the cooler, I saw out of the corner of my eye a green band across a box that read “gluten free – dairy free.”  Holy cow!  But then I thought, “how good could that actually be?  It’s dairy-free, gluten-free, and frozen.”  Well, I would have to find out!  But first I read through the ingredients three times looking for any signs of eggs or sesame.  None!  So, I bought the regular Amy’s Kitchen spinach pizza and the box with the green band and thought how nice it would be to eat the same dinner as my kids on pizza night.

Pizza for me – yay!

Normally, a vegan or dairy-free dairy replacement is not something I buy.  If the replacement doesn’t fill the same nutrient need as the original (as is the case with many “cheeses”), or it has fillers and gums (as is the case with “sour cream”), I go without.  If you are a label reader like me, and you cannot have gluten, dairy or eggs, there are lots of replacement foods on the market to fill the place of the missing foods, though few are worth buying.  But the Amy’s Kitchen vegan and gluten-free version had ingredients that I was willing to try.  The only downside was the serving size; one third of the pizza and it had 19 grams of fat and 350 calories and four fewer grams of protein, compared to the original that had 12 grams of fat and 310 calories.  Would it be worth all of that to have the taste of pizza again?

The original on the left, the gluten-free/vegan one on the right.

On pizza night, I removed both pizzas from their boxes to compare what I was getting to what the kids were getting.  The serving size was about the same, but theirs definitely had more cheese than mine had.  Both cooked in the same amount of time; mine required a pan while theirs cooked directly on the oven rack.  Once the 14 minutes was up, it was time for the taste test.  Although the cheese didn’t melt as it had in the photo on the box, it was soft and stretchy.

The gluten free and vegan pizza, fully cooked.

At first bite, I was slightly disappointed.  I was really hoping for Gino’s Pizza from Port Washington, NY, but I shouldn’t have set my expectations that high – after all, this is frozen pizza and Gino’s is the gold standard of all pizza in all of the world (it is, really).  I should be comparing it to Elio’s (my mom used to make that for me in the toaster).  After a few bites, I was enjoying the crust.  It’s been so long since I have eaten a food with a bready mouth feel; most gluten-free breads contain eggs, and the one that doesn’t is a styrofoam replacement, not a bread replacement.  Then the cheese stretched.  That was fun.  Best of all was the sauce and spinach combination – now that tasted like pizza!  I made sure to savor every bite; eating the entire pizza would be close to my caloric intake for an entire day seconds weren’t an option.  I added veggies to my plate and settled in to enjoy my dinner:  Pizza on Pizza Night.  Awesome!

Pizza on Pizza Night!!

Do you have any other worthy replacement for pizza?  I have one more frozen version to try before I make one myself.  Share away with me!  I love hearing from you.

xo

B