We love pizza, but finding gluten and dairy-free pizza in a restaurant is hard. So we make “pizza night” into a fun activity to do with the kids! It’s great, until my daughter has a breakdown after she slops the sauce onto the edge of the crust or doesn’t spread the cheese evenly (I keep my Tranquil Roll-On handy with this child at all times). Sometimes she complains that sauce is too spicey too. So, I set out to make my own. I found a recipe on food.com that included fennel seed, and I changed it a lot. I hate that most sauces have cane sugar and parmesean cheese. If I’m going to have cane sugar, it better be a very tasty dessert – preferably with chocolate.

I’m always trying to find more ways to increase protein in our diet. I was at Fresh Thyme looking for Baking Powder, and I came across Bob’s Red Mill High Protein TVP (textured vegetable protein). The bag says “it takes on the flavor of whatever recipe to which it is added.” I thought it would be great not only for the pizza sauce I was making, but also chili and soups. The sauce turned out great, and you wouldn’t know that I added anything to the sauce by the taste. It does have soy; if you have a soy allergy, make the pizza sauce without it!

This recipe makes 4 small gluten-free pizzas, and I tripled it in order to make 4 small gluten-free pizzas, and an eggplant pizza bake. I love it when I can to turn one dish into two for multiple nights! Plus, it’s always convenient to make extra sauce and have it ready in the freezer!

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons organic olive oil
• ½  cup shallots finely chopped
• ¼ cup celery (~1 stick) finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can organic tomato sauce (I used Kirkland brand from Costco)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon Redmond’s Real Salt
• ½ teaspoon coconut sugar
• ¼  teaspoon black pepper
• 1 small bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon fennel seed
• 1/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill High Protein TVP (textured vegetable protein) (optional)

Directions

1. If you are going to include Bob’s Red Mill High Protein TVP, boil the water. Add a little less than ⅓ cup of boiled water over ⅓ cup of protein. The bag recommends 1 cup protein to ⅞ cup water, so that’s how I did the math as best as I could. Set the protein mixture aside and let it set for 10 minutes.
2. Finely chop shallots and celery (I sliced the celery stick into 4 tiny strips and then chopped it). 
3. Smash your garlic with the flat part of your knife and then mince.
4. Sauté veggies in a large skillet until very tender and almost translucent.
5. Add all remaining ingredients and let simmer for 30 – 60 minutes.
6. Get your pizza ready!!!