Red Onion & Sausage Stromboli

Sometimes I'm halfway through preparing a meal when I remember that I like to blog about the food I cook. This is one of those meals.

I spent my lunch break wandering the Union Square Greenmarket and one regular stand is DiPaola Turkeys. They sell turkey sausage in or out of casing and it's graced many a sauce and pizza in my kitchen. Recalling that I had a store-bought pizza crust hanging out in the back of my fridge after wiping out of another recipe, I grabbed some of the sweet sausage and had a great chat with the woman at the stand.

At home, I used up what I had on hand - a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, shredded part skim mozzarella, and a red onion. I browned all of the sausage and spooned it out on to a paper towel-covered plate. I also cooked the onions for a little bit in the remaining sausage grease because raw red onions give me stomach aches. I only had them in about five minutes just to take the edge off before baking. Once I removed the onions, I cooked up the sauce in the same pan with some thyme (from cubes!) and minced garlic.

I rolled the dough out flat on my largest baking tray with a Silpat and topped with the sauce, sausage, onions, and cheese. I hated the shape that I'd achieved - not really a rectgangle, completely uneven on one side, so I made a game time decision to switch the pizza to a stromboli (a rolled up pizza, effectively).

Carefully (but mostly spazzily) I rolled up the dough into a long tube. The descriptor I received from the peanut gallery was, "It looks like a fat pizza baby." Your mouth is watering, yes?

Once rolled, I baked at 400 degrees for about 10 - 15 minutes until the top was golden brown. After it cooled for a bit, I transferred it to a platter and cut it into thick slices.

I served the slices with a simply dressed greens salad and dug in. I'm so glad I pre-cooked the onions - they still retained their pretty purple hue, albeit a bit lighter, but they were sweeter and softer. The sausage was perfectly seasoned and worked perfectly with the onion and garlicky sauce. If you want a twist - or, more accurately, roll - on your pizza night, just make it into a stromboli!