I have been wanting to try one of these, see how crispy their “Crispy Flatbread” gets. I am skeptical about the results from the get-go, because at the store I purchased this product from, the entire selection of the product had obviously been subjected to freezing problems (like thawed and refrozen – indicated by warped boxes, ice crystals on the interior packaging. I am trying the Italian Sausage and Onion variety, which claims both slices of sausage as well as crumbles, and sliced white onion.
Reading the ingred
ients, I am thankful that the sausage seems to be “normal” (i.e., no poultry products in it), as does the cheese. The nutritional ingredients are thus:
So eating an entire pie, contributes 1200 calories, 210 % of my daily fat requirements, 150% of my sodium, and 27% of my carbs (that’s surprising!). Yeah, like I pay attention to this.
Cooking instructions are preheat to 400, cookie sheet, 2nd rack, 23-27 minutes. Additional notes include “do not allow to thaw” and “let sit five minutes before eating.” I guess they should know, since they claim “If it looks like delivery, smells like delivery, and tastes like delivery, it must be DiGiorno!” (I hope they are discriminating in their comparisons…I mean they wouldn’t want it to taste like Domino’s would they?) (Although I haven’t tried the new Domino’s recipe).
I also wanted to try this before its ownership floats overseas….Kraft sold its profitable pizza division to Nestle’s this week in order to finance their attempt at acquiring Cadbury. It’s curious that they didn’t sell to a strategic buyer, like Schwan’s. You can always get more money from a strategic buyer. But Schwan’s and Kraft have a little “history”, so that probably prevented them from wanting to make a deal like that.
Here’s the pie straight from the box. It’s kind of a bad sign that there are ice crystals INSIDE the vacumn wrap. Not sure how that could happen. Think I am in for some freezer-burn tasting sausage!
Pie out of wrap. Appearance of substantial freezer burn. Now I am really worried.
In any case. Pizza in the oven. Requisite amount of time. Pictured cooked as instructed. After 23 minutes, cheese not melted, crust not crispy.
But after 27 minutes? I am gonna surprise you. This may very well be one of the best (to my taste) frozen pizzas I have had. The crust crisped up nicely. The sausage and cheese were flavorful. The toppings and sauce weren’t like anything I have experienced with any Digiorno pizza before. I especially liked the moderately heavy use of herbs, which is reminiscent of my heretofore personal frozen favorites – California Pizza Kitchen’s “Sicilian.”
The white onion slices were a nice touch. I’ll buy this one again. They could even pump up their advertising a little to say “It’s better than a lot of deliveries.”