Pizza as health food? Sure, why not. With a whole wheat crust and vegetarian toppings, this one comes fairly close to being virtuous. And the cheese? Well, that's dairy right? It has some redeeming values.I promise you, if you get into the habit of making your own pizzas it will soon seem so easy you hardly have to think about it. You mix up your dough and all of a sudden you have all this time to do other things while it takes care of itself. Yeast is very helpful that way.
Homemade pizzas are also a great way to clean out the fridge. Leftover ham, chicken, stir fry.. most things can be turned into pizza toppings with a little imagination. My almost empty fridge had an eggplant just waiting patiently to star in a dish. This was it's night to shine!
VegetablesThis can be done in advance
Slice one eggplant into 1cm rounds
Slice one sweet onion and one green pepper
Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper
Grill or roast until nicely cooked through and starting to caramelize around the edges
Dough
Whole wheat pizza dough is great with some extra seasoning to avoid any bitterness from the flour.
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 cup tepid water
2 tbsp olive oil
1.5 tsp garlic salt
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp Italian seasoning
All purpose flour for finishing
Cornmeal for dusting
Combine all the ingredients, except for the all purpose flour and cornmeal, in stand mixer with dough hook. Let mix for about 5 minutes, adding a little all purpose flour if dough is too wet. The dough should clean the sides of the bowl.
Preheat oven to 450f.
Fit two baking sheets with parchment paper and dust with cornmeal.
Take the finished dough out, form into a ball on lightly floured board and let rest in an oiled bowl, rolling to coat, for 45 minutes to an hour - until dough has doubled in bulk.
Punch down and, on a lightly floured board, divide dough into 4 pieces and roll each out into a round, flat crust. Mine are about 6x8 inches, oblong so as to fit two on a pan.
Place the crusts on the prepared baking sheets, sauce liberally with marinara sauce, sprinkle with grated mozzarella cheese, divide vegetables to top all the pizzas and finish with finely grated Parmesan cheese.
I made mine thin, flat crusts with toppings all the way to the edges.
Bake for 10 minutes and check on the pizzas, if the bottom needs more crisping move the trays to a lower rack. Bake for 5 minutes more or until done to taste. Wait a couple of minutes for the cheese to set before slicing.
Wondering what those orange rounds are? My homemade marinara has carrots in it.I have taken an informal poll, and my compatriots agree that a pizza is definitely a form of open faced sandwich! So this sammie is for Souper Sundays.













23 comments:
To riff off of one of my usual sayings: all *food* is health food; it's what some do with it that makes it unhealthy.
The pizza looks lovely.
j
You cannot beat homemade pizza dough! I really need to incorporate whole wheat flour into mine now.
Yum, not much better than homemade pizza...except maybe healthy homemade pizza :D Looks delicious :D
Wow! These mini pizzas are amazing! I think your recipe here, using the grilled eggplant, onion and pepper on the pizzas is fab. Yum! They look super delicious!
So how much do you charge dor your large pie :-). This looks incredibly good and I love the recipe for the whole wheat crust.
I'm drooling over here!!
I've been using KA white whole wheat flour in my pizza dough for awhile now - and I actually prefer it to plain white flour now. Funny how your tastes can change, right?
And besides, eggplant deserves a starring role - it's one of my favorite vegetables.
I love making homemade pizza - it is a regular thing in our household! I really need to do an eggplant one soon! One of my faves!
Pizza is a Sunday night tradition in our house going back 30 years when I first made it with Chef Boyardee in a box. Now it is homemade crust and better toppings. Yours looks perfect.
Gorgeous pizzas, er...sammies, er..pizzas...whatever! They look delicious and I love how healthy they are. Thanks for sending them to Souper Sundays!
i love eggplant - and i love it even more when you say it in italian! sounds like the perfect topping for a WW pizza crust!
You make the whole homemade pizza thing sound as easy as falling off a log. At my house it would involve major feats of scheduling to get it together for a meal time, no matter how helpful the dough is trying to be. It's totally a sandwich and totally delicious looking!!
Pizza has all the important food groups, so I agree it's pretty healthy if you make it yourself! I love eggplant on pizza, looks great!
Pizza is most definitely a healthy food if made correctly, and you certainly made health food look freaking cool and delicious!
I am totally trying your pizza dough recipe, this looks too good to pass up. Homemade pizza is definitely health food - lycopene from tomatoes, calcium and protein from cheese, whole wheat crust, a myriad of veggie topping options, good fat from some olive oil...
Oh yummy, pizzas! Love it and can eat this for a whole week. Just yell out pizza and I'll come running.
I love home-made pizzas. It's a great way to get rid of leftovers!
This looks really interesting... Pizza gets a bad rap for being "unhealthy," but compared to a lot of other choices it's really not that bad. And it combines multiple food groups in one dish, which makes (at least me) more likely to get servings of things like calcium.
Your pizza looks amazing. And with the right toppings, it is a health food!
These look so delicious with the roasted veggies on top!
Love the roast veggies on top. I happen to have an aubergine stashed away so it makes me think... :P Pizza has an undeserved reputation for being unhealthy but how unhealthy is it when you make your own crust from scratch and put a lot of veggies on it? ;) And as for cheese - to get 1g of calcium per day you've got to drink copious amounts of milk, eat yogurt and nibble on some cheese.
Your pizzas look delicious!
BTW--I love Squeeze (the band).
WOW (impressed look). Your eggplant dish looks so yummy.
Here I bought a sauce pack for Sauce for Spicy Eggplant so as to skip all the seasonings! and i will try this friday after work.
http://yummiexpress.freetzi.com
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