Deep-dish Pizza, Onion Rings

In the store today, I was excited to find a nice quality frozen pizza shell that was vegan. On my layover on my way back from my recent Southwestern vacation, a friend and I enjoyed some good Chicago pizza, but the stuffed pizza had cheese in the dough. We had good thin crust vegan pizza, but the thought of deep dish pizza, famous in Chicago, stuck.

Vicolo Pizza organic cornmeal crust pizza shell came in a pack of two and was perfect for a thick sauce. I normally like to make my own sauce, but started with a base of a small 6 ounce can of organic tomato paste and a new (at least to me) sauce, Newman's Own Sockarooni Sauce. I used half of the 24 ounce bottle of sauce; the sauce was reasonably thick but I thickened it further by mixing the paste in, as well as maybe ten small marinated artichoke hearts cut into quarters and several halved olives. I also mixed in a little salt and crushed red pepper, as well as maybe a dozen fresh oregano leaves. I grilled some thin eggplant slices till both sides were cooked, and used them to top the pizzas, also adding a roasted yellow pepper slice. I baked the two pizzas at 425°F for about 15m, turning them halfway through.

A few weeks ago, I had a desire for onion rings and know of only one brand, Ian's, that makes vegan ones. I have not seen their Onion Rings and Strings in the store for a while, but found them today! I simply heated them and served them as a side.

The pizza was very good!! I really like the crust. It was quite filling and both my wife and I only got through half of our pizzas. I'll try making another pizza with this premade shell again in the future.1/2 of 24oz socarooni newman's own
6 oz paste