Lightening Up a Sausage Pizza - A Mid-week Recipe - Sausage, Fennel and Ricotta Grilled Pizza

Ever since I stopped trying to master the cast iron skillet pizza method and figured out how to turn out a pretty decent one with a stove top grill pan (bonus: grill marks!), pizza has become a more common dinner entree around here. Of course, if you ate what comes from a pizza parlor a couple of times a month, you'd weigh 600 pounds. Unless you are a college student, in which case, your MyPlate is composed of equal parts pizza, ramen, instant mac and cheese and Red Bull, with a side of Pringles.

The trick is moderation with the toppings.

This recipe has nowhere near the calories of a delivery sausage pizza but doesn't stint on flavor. Fresh fennel complements the taste of the fennel seeds in Italian sausage, turkey sausage in this case, and even more fennel taste is introduced in the crushed seeds added at the end.

Fennel is a marvelous veggie. It can be used as an aromatic substitute for the carrots in mirepoix, sliced thin as a salad with lemon dressing and Italian parsley, and even sauteed in butter for a decadent side dish. I snack on raw fennel when it's around.

This is paired with an arugula and mushroom salad. I deviated from Cooking Light's recipe to saute the mushrooms.

Mangia!

Ready for the oven

Sausage, Fennel and Ricotta Pizza
Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients

16 ounces refrigerated fresh pizza dough

1/2 pound link Italian turkey sausage

1 cup thinly sliced fennel bulb

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2/3 cup part-skim ricotta

2 tsp minced fresh garlic

1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion

2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed in a mortar

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup  shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 tbsp fennel fronds, chopped

Preheat oven to 450° Let pizza dough stand at room temperature, covered, while oven preheats.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Remove casing from sausage. Add sausage to pan; cook 4 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring to crumble. Add fennel bulb; cook 4 minutes or until tender.

While sausage cooks, preheat a stovetop grill pan over high heat. Take the pizza dough, divide in half and form each half into a ball. With floured board and rolling pin, roll out one half and with floured hands, begin to gently pull the pizza in the air until you form a rectangular shape sized a little less than the diameter of the grill pan. Invert a large bowl and dust it with flour. Lay the prepared half across the bowl. This helps keep the dough stretched and from retracting. Repeat with the other half.

Give the grill pan a spray of oil and lay the dough on the pan. After about 2 to 3 minutes, turn it over and repeat timing until the dough is about 80% cooked and has gorgeous grill marks. It will puff up quite a bit during cooking. Lay the pizza on a cookie sheet.

Brush dough evenly with oil. Sprinkle sausage mixture evenly over dough, leaving a 1-inch border. Combine ricotta and garlic in a small bowl; top pizza with teaspoonfuls of ricotta mixture. Sprinkle red onion and remaining ingredients evenly over pizza, ending with fennel fronds for color. Bake at 450° for 7 minutes or until golden. 

Arugula Salad with Sauteed Wild Mushrooms and Lemon Vinaigrette

Adapted from Cooking Light

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice 

3 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, separated

1/2 tsp kosher salt 

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper 
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

1 1/4 cup roughly chopped wild mushrooms

6 ounces baby arugula

1 tbsp shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Preparation

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms, 1/2 tsp salt and crushed red pepper, and saute for 4 to 5 minutes or until soft. Set aside.

Combine vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add mushrooms and arugula; toss gently to coat. Top with shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.