Tonight, I made a caramelized fennel, spinach and chicken sausage pizza. As I was doing my exercise this morning … walking around the park for four miles, I came up with my pizza recipe. I had a little Pinot Noir wine left over from the other night and wanted to use it. I decided to use it in my pizza sauce. I loved this! I could really taste the wine in my pizza. This was fantastic!

I really love the taste of fennel. I even love it raw. In tonight’s pizza, I used a bulb of fennel that I caramelized in olive oil. I also topped my pizza with sweet Italian chicken sausage and fresh spinach leaves, along with sautéd garlic. I chose chicken sausage that was precooked from Trader Joe’s. I sliced it on the diagonal and added it to the pan of fennel to heat through and brown a bit. After the fennel was caramelized and the chicken sausage heated through and browned, I removed them from the skillet and set aside. I added three cloves of garlic that I had sliced and cooked it in a small amount of olive oil for 30 seconds.

I use fresh pizza dough from Trader Joe’s. I let it rise for the recommended 20 minutes on a breadboard with a little flour. I stretched my dough out and fit it on my pizza pan and sprinkled it with a pinch of sea salt. I always bake my dough for about 8 minutes before adding the toppings. While my crust was baking, I mixed together the jarred pizza sauce and wine. Once the crust was done, I spread my wine flavored sauce over the crust and topped it with low fat mozzarella cheese (you can use any mozzarella cheese you like, but I like to make my pizzas with this lower calorie, low fat mozzarella that I buy at Trader Joe’s.) On top of the cheese I placed a handful of fresh spinach leaves before adding the fennel, sausage and garlic.

I placed the pizza back in my 425 degree oven until the cheese had melted, about 10 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 fresh pizza dough

• 3 precooked sweet Italian chicken sausage links, sliced on the diagonal

• fresh spinach leaves (as many as you’d like)

• 1 fennel bulb, sliced

• 1/2 cup shredded, low-fat mozzarella cheese

• 3 cloves garlic, sliced

• 3/4 jar of pizza sauce

• 5 tablespoons red wine (I used Pinot Noir)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• sea salt, a pnch

• 3 tablespoons flour (for the bread board)

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Set dough out to rise as per package instructions.

Sauté fennel in olive oil. Once fennel is starting to caramelize, add sliced sausages to brown. Remove from pan and set aside. Add a tad more olive oil to the pan, if needed, and sauté garlic no more than 30 seconds.

Form dough on pizza pan and sprinkle with sea salt. Place in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, until crust starts to crisp. Remove from oven.

In bowl, add pizza sauce and red wine. Stir together. Spread over crust and top with mozzarella cheese. Add spinach leaves before topping with the fennel, chicken sausage and garlic. Place back in oven until cheese melts. Enjoy!

Until next time, Kris