Wow! I can’t believe that at the end of October big game season will open and this is the time of year that we start to make room in our freezers. You will find fish caught this summer, frozen vegetables from your garden and to your surprise a package or two of ground venison. If you properly wrapped or vacuum sealed your game it is time to cook it up.  Some folks will make hamburgers, soups or even tacos.  I like to use my imagination and think of new ways to prepare this ground venison.

 

Hamburger soup is good as well as good old hamburgers, but I suggest that you make one of your family’s favorite meals.  I do not know if some of you know that was I was in the restaurant business.  Yes, it was an Italian restaurant that was part of a chain of pizza houses that my father and his brothers (ten of them) started when they were younger.  There were a total on nine pizza houses in San Diego which supported my father and Uncles well until they retired.

 

I think that you may have guessed by now that this month we will be cooking a very tasty pizza with that venison burger you found in the bottom of your freezer.  The sauce recipe is close to what we made at the pizza houses and the sauce is what really makes the pizza.  You can put anything you want on a pizza but remember the sauce and one other item makes or breaks the pizza, the crust.  Keep in mind if you put too many toppings on a pizza the crust will not be crisp on the bottom.  I do hope you enjoy Vince’s Venison Pizza.

 

What you need:

Pizza Sauce

• One 15 oz. can tomato sauce

• One quarter cup olive oil

• Two tablespoons dry oregano

• One teaspoon black pepper

• One teaspoon powdered garlic

• Salt to taste or none at all

• Venison Sausage Recipe

• Eight ounces ground venison

• Eight ounces unseasoned course ground pork

• Two teaspoons fennel seed

• Salt to taste

• One half teaspoon ground red pepper

• One half teaspoon course ground black pepper

- if you like hot sausage add some crushed red pepper flakes

 

Cheeses

• One pound grated mozzarella cheese

• One half pound sliced provolone cheese

- torn into smaller pieces

• Grated Parmesan cheese

What You Do

Prepare pizza sauce and sausage ahead of time.  Use your own dough recipe or packaged pre-made dough. This recipe should make two 12 inch to 14 inch pizzas. Either hand toss or roll out each pizza crust.  Set your oven to 500 degrees to 525 degrees. To have a crispier crust place your rolled out pizza on a pizza tray (use a fork to poke holes in several places in the dough to prevent the crust from puffing up) and precook for 4 minutes. Remove from oven and put half the sauce on the pizza crust then add the grated mozzarella and provolone to the pizza being sure to split the cheeses equally between the two pizzas. Take half the prepared sausage and pinch off pieces and spread evenly over the pizza.  At this time you can add any  other toppings you may want.  Finally, sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top. Cook the pizza an additional 12 to 14 minutes or until crust is nicely browned and cheese is bubbly. Enjoy!