Yum, pizza sure is good, isn't it? Don't you wish your New Year's resolution to eat healthy and lose weight included delicious, crispy-crusted pizza? Oh wait, it can. You just have to make it yourself so you can eliminate the calories added by chains to cut cost. Because, in America at least, processed fat is cheaper than fresh ingredients. (As opposed to most developing countries as far as I can tell, whose populations eat mainly grains and vegetables as a matter of necessity because those are the cheapest foods for them.) Behold, healthy pizza. It is surprisingly quick and easy to prepare. (Honestly you'd spend more time waiting for the pizza delivery guy than you do making this pizza.)
Dough:
1/2 C. warm water
1 pkg. fast rise yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1-1/2 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 TB. oil
cornmeal for sprinkling on baking sheet (about 1/4 C.)
Toppings:
2% or part-skim mozzarella or "pizza blend" shredded cheese*
tomato sauce of your choice**
parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top
--2-3 of the following--***
1 whole onion, chopped
4 yellow crookneck squashes
1-2 bell peppers
2-3 roma tomatoes
broccoli florets, cut into small bitesized pieces
1/2 bunch fresh spinach or 1/4 bunch fresh kale****
any other soft vegetable or precooked hard vegetable such as winter squash or carrots
oil for sauteing
Part 1: The Dough, 5-10 minutes
First, make your dough by mixing together the flour and salt. Then, in a small bowl, combine the sugar, warm water, and yeast. Let it proof before adding it to the flour, which should be less than a minute for fast-rise yeast. (Proofing means watching to see if bubbles start to form on the top of the water, which is a way of checking that your yeast is active.) Add in the oil to the yeast mixture, then add in a little flour, stirring until the mixture is smooth like a cake batter. Add in the rest of the flour a little at a time and continue to stir until the dough becomes too thick. At this point, dump it onto a clean work surface and knead (the regular bread-dough way) in any remaining flour, then knead a few more times until the dough is satiny. Shape it into a ball and set it aside to rest and rise just a little bit-- basically the amount of time it's going to take you to prepare your vegetables.
Part 2: The Vegetables, 10-12 minutes
So. Chop the vegetables of your choice into bite-sized pieces. Saute them in a little oil until they are done, about 5-10 minutes. (I often chop and saute at the same time, starting with the hardest vegetable and ending with the softest to avoid overcooking anything, but add a few more minutes if you want all your ducks in a row before you start.)
Part 3: Putting it All Together, 3-5 minutes
Oil your baking sheet. Sprinkle a little cornmeal on it. Place your dough ball in roughly the center and pat it out until it's mostly the same thickness (however thick you like your crust) all over and also some regular shape (mine almost aways comes out oval for whatever reason). It's more important that the crust be of uniform thickness than uniform shape. Spread a THIN layer of tomato sauce on the crust, leaving about a 2 inch (5 cm) boarder. Sprinkle a generous layer of your cheese. Lay your vegetables in a layer on top of the cheese, then (if you want to) spread some more tomato sauce, and definitely some more cheese, on top. Sprinkle with parmesan. (You can also sprinkle your crust with parmesan before putting on the tomato sauce.)
Part 4: Baking 5-6 minutes
Put your pizza in the oven at a pretty high temperature (let's say 425-450F) and bake it until the cheese melts.
Shazam, fresh hot pizza with almost no fat, about 2 servings of vegetables per slice, a healthy serving of lean protein and some good vitamins and minerals if you use whole wheat flour in your crust. (I have done this and later discovered than my eater didn't even realize that I had used whole wheat flour. And this person was a pretty picky eater!) And you know what? If you used your time in the kitchen efficiently it took you between 23 and 31 minutes, which at the bare minimum is exactly the same amount of time you would have to wait for a particularly fast and nearby pizza delivery service to bring you a diet deal-breaker.
__________
*"Pizza blend" is a blend that usually contains some combination of the following: romano, parmesan, mozzarella, formaggio, and asiago. It's pretty good, but just mozzarella is good too.
**You can get a can of tomato sauce from the canned goods aisle for about 85 cents, and it tastes fine. Or, if you have a partial jar of spaghetti sauce hanging around in the refrigerator, that works fine too. I'll let you in on a secret: Italian cooks do not always use hand-prepared-that-day tomato sauce. Back in the day, they would can tomato sauce made from tomatoes from their backyard garden (which is a membership requirement for all Italians to have or at least express the desire to have). Since not everybody has the space for a garden or time to can zillions of jars of homemade plain tomato sauce, Italians have been known to frequent the tomato section of the canned aisle and stock up on plain sauce.
***I have been known to use up leftovers on the top of a pizza as well. The secret to not making nasty pizza is to choose your leftovers wisely. IE, if you have some broccoli that you cooked a day or so ago with salt and butter, it'll be fine. Spinach cooked the same way? Even better. For optimum success, use homemade pizza as an excuse to rid your freezer of partial bags of frozen vegetables. Just cook said vegetables for about 2/3rds of the recommended cooking time before putting them on top of your pizza.
****I'm not sure of the exact weight of bunches of spinach or kale, but I think it's about 12oz (about 350 grams). So for a pizza you would use about 100gm of either one or, to be more concrete, about a handful of fresh washed spinach stems or 3-4 stems of kale. (Which you would chop up, of course, unless you enjoy eating your pizza like a tough, fibrous hotdog.)
Dough:
1/2 C. warm water
1 pkg. fast rise yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1-1/2 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 TB. oil
cornmeal for sprinkling on baking sheet (about 1/4 C.)
Toppings:
2% or part-skim mozzarella or "pizza blend" shredded cheese*
tomato sauce of your choice**
parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top
--2-3 of the following--***
1 whole onion, chopped
4 yellow crookneck squashes
1-2 bell peppers
2-3 roma tomatoes
broccoli florets, cut into small bitesized pieces
1/2 bunch fresh spinach or 1/4 bunch fresh kale****
any other soft vegetable or precooked hard vegetable such as winter squash or carrots
oil for sauteing
Part 1: The Dough, 5-10 minutes
First, make your dough by mixing together the flour and salt. Then, in a small bowl, combine the sugar, warm water, and yeast. Let it proof before adding it to the flour, which should be less than a minute for fast-rise yeast. (Proofing means watching to see if bubbles start to form on the top of the water, which is a way of checking that your yeast is active.) Add in the oil to the yeast mixture, then add in a little flour, stirring until the mixture is smooth like a cake batter. Add in the rest of the flour a little at a time and continue to stir until the dough becomes too thick. At this point, dump it onto a clean work surface and knead (the regular bread-dough way) in any remaining flour, then knead a few more times until the dough is satiny. Shape it into a ball and set it aside to rest and rise just a little bit-- basically the amount of time it's going to take you to prepare your vegetables.
Part 2: The Vegetables, 10-12 minutes
So. Chop the vegetables of your choice into bite-sized pieces. Saute them in a little oil until they are done, about 5-10 minutes. (I often chop and saute at the same time, starting with the hardest vegetable and ending with the softest to avoid overcooking anything, but add a few more minutes if you want all your ducks in a row before you start.)
Part 3: Putting it All Together, 3-5 minutes
Oil your baking sheet. Sprinkle a little cornmeal on it. Place your dough ball in roughly the center and pat it out until it's mostly the same thickness (however thick you like your crust) all over and also some regular shape (mine almost aways comes out oval for whatever reason). It's more important that the crust be of uniform thickness than uniform shape. Spread a THIN layer of tomato sauce on the crust, leaving about a 2 inch (5 cm) boarder. Sprinkle a generous layer of your cheese. Lay your vegetables in a layer on top of the cheese, then (if you want to) spread some more tomato sauce, and definitely some more cheese, on top. Sprinkle with parmesan. (You can also sprinkle your crust with parmesan before putting on the tomato sauce.)
Part 4: Baking 5-6 minutes
Put your pizza in the oven at a pretty high temperature (let's say 425-450F) and bake it until the cheese melts.
Shazam, fresh hot pizza with almost no fat, about 2 servings of vegetables per slice, a healthy serving of lean protein and some good vitamins and minerals if you use whole wheat flour in your crust. (I have done this and later discovered than my eater didn't even realize that I had used whole wheat flour. And this person was a pretty picky eater!) And you know what? If you used your time in the kitchen efficiently it took you between 23 and 31 minutes, which at the bare minimum is exactly the same amount of time you would have to wait for a particularly fast and nearby pizza delivery service to bring you a diet deal-breaker.
__________
*"Pizza blend" is a blend that usually contains some combination of the following: romano, parmesan, mozzarella, formaggio, and asiago. It's pretty good, but just mozzarella is good too.
**You can get a can of tomato sauce from the canned goods aisle for about 85 cents, and it tastes fine. Or, if you have a partial jar of spaghetti sauce hanging around in the refrigerator, that works fine too. I'll let you in on a secret: Italian cooks do not always use hand-prepared-that-day tomato sauce. Back in the day, they would can tomato sauce made from tomatoes from their backyard garden (which is a membership requirement for all Italians to have or at least express the desire to have). Since not everybody has the space for a garden or time to can zillions of jars of homemade plain tomato sauce, Italians have been known to frequent the tomato section of the canned aisle and stock up on plain sauce.
***I have been known to use up leftovers on the top of a pizza as well. The secret to not making nasty pizza is to choose your leftovers wisely. IE, if you have some broccoli that you cooked a day or so ago with salt and butter, it'll be fine. Spinach cooked the same way? Even better. For optimum success, use homemade pizza as an excuse to rid your freezer of partial bags of frozen vegetables. Just cook said vegetables for about 2/3rds of the recommended cooking time before putting them on top of your pizza.
****I'm not sure of the exact weight of bunches of spinach or kale, but I think it's about 12oz (about 350 grams). So for a pizza you would use about 100gm of either one or, to be more concrete, about a handful of fresh washed spinach stems or 3-4 stems of kale. (Which you would chop up, of course, unless you enjoy eating your pizza like a tough, fibrous hotdog.)
No comments:
Post a Comment