OK, lest someone gets on my case for being politically incorrect, these sandwiches/bread pizzas have always been known as Guinea Grinders in Des Moines where I first ate them and where I figured out how to make them. By the way, Des Moines, Iowa has always had some outstanding Italian food stemming from the coal miners who worked there in the 19th and early 20th century.
This Guinea Grinder French Bread Pizza Recipe is a great weeknight or weekend dish which you pick up and eat with your fingers. And of course that means that there are fewer dishes to clean.
Recipe: Guinea Grinder French Bread Pizza Recipe
Summary: Guinea Grinders or Italian Bread Pizza are easy, fun, cheap and TASTY!
Ingredients
- 4 French/Italian bread rolls or loaf cut in about 8” lengths & sliced in half
- Tomato sauce—8 oz.
- 8 oz. Mozarella cheese
- 1 lb Italian Sausage (or 1 recipe meatballs)
Instructions
- Slice rolls or bread.
- Brown Italian sausage over medium heat (if using cased sausage, slit the casing and crumble the sausage into the pan.
- Preheat oven to 400.
- Open tomato sauce and sprinkle garlic powder, onion powder, oregano and basil into it (this’ll turn the basic tomato sauce into an inexpensive and good pizza sauce for about $.50–and I’ve seen Guy Fieri do this on his show too!).
- Using a silicon basting brush, paint a real thin skim of oil (olive or canola) on the cut side of the bread/rolls, put on a cookie sheet and pop into the oven for about 3 minutes.
- Remove rolls from oven and put about 1-2 tablespoons of the sauce on each roll.
- Then using your fingers put a good, even amount of the meat on each half roll then cover it with the mozzarella.
- Now, pop it all back into the oven for about 8 minutes (until the cheese melts and just starts to brown up).
- Remove, let cool. Serve with salad.
Quick notes
If you use meatballs, cut them in half and put 3 half meatballs on each slice.
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 20 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 4
Culinary tradition: Italian
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
These are open faced sandwiches or you can call them bread pizzas if you want. No matter what, they’re good!
This is tasty stuff! Kids love them because they’re pizzas on bread. And, if you want, you can make them a sandwich just by topping one side and then slapping the other side of the bread on top when you serve! Just don’t make it as crispy!
The Cheap Bastid Test: Well, I get the bread for $1 for 5 rolls. The sausage costs about $2.25, sauce $.50 and cheese about $2.00. That’s $5.75 for 3 but and it’s a lot less than what you’ll spend at a pizza joint or even out of your grocer’s freezer case.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
Mel has to make a trip into town today and I’m going to get her to pick up what I need to try this dish. I have never heard of Guinea Grinders before and that picture looks delicious.
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