Frozen pizza chronicles: Tofurkey Italian Sausage and Fire-Roasted Veggie Pizza

As I was leaving Whole Foods last week, this caught my eye. The fact that it was on sale made me immediately decide to buy it. Non-dairy cheese that melts? Meatless and delicious? We'll see about that . . .


This pizza looks like it came out of a box, which it did. It is building on the brand loyalty of Tofurkey. You are supposed to trust it, but can you?



There is definitely a flavor of fakeness. There are a good amount of vegetables on it. They look like they were roasted, which they said they were, but they taste as if they were frozen, which again, they were. There is not a lot of cheese on it, even though it raves about its melting ability. There is no visible grease pooling on the surface, which could be the result of not that much cheese and non-meat sausage. Some of the toppings did fall off as I tried to lift the pizza from its place of cooking directly on the rack. The crust is really dense. Overall it tastes like a healthy frozen pizza: no cholesterol, low sodium, low fat, but with flavor!



They want us to join them in their goal of "No pizza eater left behind!" I'm not sure if I would again.

Frozen Pizza Chronicles: Pizza Bourekas

Seven Mile Market in Pikesville has a very extensive selection of frozen pizza products. One of these that we decided to investigate was Ta'amti's Pizza Bourekas. They are pizza filled puff pastries. Sounds like a great idea right? First off they were a little undercooked which was my fault. The instructions were a little misleading. They instructed me to sprinkle sesame seeds on top of the Bourekas before baking them. I could not find sesame seeds inside the box or even listed as an ingredient as th directions seems to be imply. I did not put any on and they were fine without the seeds.

before and after
We decided that they are quite large for hors d'oeuvres and were trying to figure out their place in the world. We then had a debate on if they qualified as pizza or just pizza themed.



They kind of tasted like pizza combos. The olives inside them were totally unexpected. Alicia felt they were similar to pizza bagels, but with philo dough. They are pretty dense and on the doughy side. Inside the puff, the sauce and fillings were not evenly distributed and there wasn't that much tomato sauce. Bonnie wondered if they were even close to pizza.

Overall we decided that these do qualify as pizza. Eating one is definitely different than eating a slice of pizza, but they were fun to eat. They would be a nice addition to a cocktail party.

Frozen Pizza Chronicles: The Original Naan Pizza

I had this in my freezer for a couple of months and decided that it was time to try out The Original Naan Pizza, spinach & paneer cheese. Boy was I glad I did, such a nice post-work snack. The crust, which is made of Naan, is pretty crunchy. At first I had no idea what the sauce is, in fact I'm not totally sure. It is not pizza saucy, but also not like an Indian sauce. The ingredients say that it is made of tomatoes, so it is tomato based with "spices". The box informs us that the artisan crust is hand-stretched and fired in a clay oven approaching 1,000ºF. Impressive?





It tastes like it once was frozen, the magic of the toaster oven could not hide this fact. It is slightly spicy and "foreign" tasting. The more I ate of it, the more I liked it. Eventually I truly believed that I could taste the Naan coming through. After this experience, Alicia and I decided that there should be more pizzas with paneer on them. It is time for the world to listen to our plea! Alicia felt that it tasted like Ellio's pizza, just with paneer. In a jam or snack situation, this is totally good. You can definitely taste the spinach on this pizza, even though it was cut into weird squares.





5.5/8

Frozen Pizza Chronicles: Wegmans Bake & Rise Pizza Four Cheese

Wegmans Bake & Rise Pizza Four Cheese
The four cheeses are: Mozzarella, Parmesan, Romano & Asiago. The box wants us to know that "Our Crust RIses as it Bakes for a Truly Authentic Pizzeria Style Pizza!" We'll be the judge of that Wegmans . . .


The directions are easy, heat oven to 425º, remove pizza from box and overwrap and place it directly on the rack in the oven.



Bake for 20 -24 minutes and done! The pizza smells good while cooking, like fresh bread. My oven was running a little bit hotter than I thought it was and the pizza came out a little more "done" than expected.


The crust did rise immensely. The pizza itself is very doughy. It tastes very mild, not a strong sauce flavor. The sauce is watery and a little spicy, spicy in the same way pepperoni is spicy. It is hard to taste the four cheeses, the bread taste is overpowering. I would have preferred to have a puffy crust and for the inside to be a little less risen.



It looks tasty and that is 30% of the battle. The surface is glistening and cheesy. It looks much nicer than it tastes. It looks like it should taste awesome, but it falls short. This is no way gross frozen pizza, just a different take on it.

This pizza cost $3.99 at Wegmans in Hunt Valley, so overall pretty good for the price.

5/8