Personal Portabella Pizzas

If you look through the rest of my Instructables, you'll see that I'm a bit of a foodie.

A few years ago, we found that our younger child had trouble digesting wheat but we all love pizza so I had to come up with an alternative.

Step 1: Let's Get Started

Sauce

This makes enough for several small pizzas but it never goes to waste in our house.

• 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped yellow onion
• 2 medium cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce
• 1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp. rosemary
• 1/2 tsp. thyme
• 1/2 tsp. oregano
• 1/2 tsp. sweet basil
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Note: all the spices are in their dried form (so I can make this year around)

In a medium sized saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. When the oil gets hot, add onion. Cook until onion just starts to turn brown. Stir occasionally.

Add tomato sauce and tomato paste to the pan. Reduce heat to medium. Blend thoroughly.

Add seasonings. Blend thoroughly.

Add Worcestershire sauce. Blend thoroughly (there's a pattern emerging here).

Reduce heat to low. Simmer uncovered for 45 minutes stirring occasionally.

Step 2: Setting the Stage

While the sauce is cooking, grate some fresh mozzarella cheese. If you buy shredded mozzarella, it'll save you that step but what will you do while the sauce is cooking?

Prepare the portabella mushroom caps by removing the stems and any membrane covering the gills. Our mushrooms were about 4 inches in diameter.

So, what do you do with the mushroom stems? Chop them up to use as topping for the pizza!

Step 3: Bring It All Together

Once the sauce is done, heat your oven to 400 degrees F.*

Place prepared mushroom caps on an aluminum baking pan covered with foil with a light mist of cooking spray. This makes clean-up a lot easier.

Cover each mushroom cap with sauce.

Put your choice of toppings atop the sauce. When we had these for dinner last night, I used mini pepperoni slices. Whatever you use should probably be fairly small or cut into small pieces. Be generous!

Cover the mushrooms with the mozzarella you grated in the previous step. Again, be generous. I also sprinkle a fair helping of Parmesan cheese and, to add a little more flavor, a sprinkling of oregano into the cheese.

*No, you can't pre-heat an oven. The moment you turn it on, you're heating it. You can't pre-drill a hole, either.

Step 4: Let's Cook It Up!

Slide the baking pan into the oven on the middle rack and let it cook for 15 minutes. Don't open the oven to peek. Just let the oven do its thing.

If you want the cheese a bit more browned, you can go an extra 5 minutes or so.

Because this is a fun dish, serve it up on your nerdiest plates!

The amount of sauce can easily cover 6 mushroom caps of this size so you can make up to 6 of these at a time.

Let these cool just a bit before you eat them because the mushrooms stay hot a bit longer than traditional pizza crust.