Sausage and Grape Pizza

Typically on a Monday morning, I'd be telling you about our menu for the week but, this weekend we had a little accident with the new car. (We are both fine & the car has barely any body damage but, one of the wheels won't steer anymore.) Since we are a one car family that means we are currently carless so, there was no Sunday trip to the grocery store & menu planning. Until I know when I'll have a car again, it'll be freezer & pantry scavenging to make meals (maybe mot such a bad thing as both could use a little clear out.

Anyway, instead of a menu today you get this amazing pizza that we had for dinner Friday night.

This pizza was inspired by one of our favorite appetizers at Broder's Pasta Bar. They grill up some Italian sausage & serve them with grapes & a balsamic reduction. Well, we like sausage on pizza & grapes on pizza so, why not turn the whole dish into a pizza? I stayed pretty close to the inspiration dish just adding some Fontina cheese & onions. The final result was really one great pizza. Spicy from the sausage, sweet from the grapes and a little acid from the balsamic all tied together by the creamy fontina. It made for a great dinner but would also make a wonderful party appetizer.

We are experimenting we different pizza dough right now & tried this one on Serious Eat's this time. It was very simple to put together & made for a very crisp, basic crust. It really stood up to the toppings. I didn't have the bread flour so I used all-purpose mixed with a little vital wheat gluten. It is one you have to either make the day before or 3 - 4 hours before baking. We had to press it out very thin to get the two 12" pizzas it said it made.

Sausage & Grape Pizza

Pizza crust dough for for two 12" pizzas
8 oz bulk hot Italian sausage (you can use mild but the spice really plays well here)
1/2 large white or yellow onion, sliced thin
olive oil
grated Fontina cheese
1 c seedless grapes, sliced in half (we used black grapes but any will work)
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
1 t brown sugar

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Put the sausage & onions in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté, breaking the sausage apart, until the sausage is cooked & the onion are soft & starting to brown.

Lightly coat a baking sheet with some olive oil. Press the crust out until you get a thin large pizza (our's filled our whole baking sheet almost). Cover with grated cheese, sausage, onions & grapes.

Bake until the crust is golden brown & the cheese is bubbly, about 12 - 13 minutes.

While the pizza is baking bring the balsamic vinegar to a simmer in a small skillet or saucepan. Whisk in the brown sugar. Let simmer, stirring from time to time, until reduce almost in half & thicken slightly.

Remove pizza from the oven & drizzle with reduced balsamic,

2 - 3 main dish servings

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