[Guilt-free Pizza] Healthy Wheat free Pizza

What is more important for you when you have a slice of pizza? Crust? or topping and cheese?

Personally I care more about cheesy pizza topping than about pizza crust. Pizza crust is thinner the better. I make normal pizza from scratch as well. (you can see my pizza crust recipe here). My whole wheat pizza crust is very tasty and kids like it, too. But, still each time I make pizza crust, I feel like I'm eating too much carbohydrate, in order to enjoy delicious cheesy toppings. That is why I proclaimed "Eureka" when I found a wheat free pizza crust recipe. To be honest, I had some doubt about the taste of pizza without flour. But, I still gave it a try and it definitely was worth a shot. It actually tasted really really good. This pizza crust is made of healthy cauliflower instead of flour. If you are a cauliflower fan like me, you can eat cauliflower as much as you want when you make this pizza :D  Even better, two pizza monsters growing in my household like this pizza as well. :) The only challenge would be to hold this pizza by hand. Still you can keep the shape of pizza when you use fork and knife.

Here goes the recipe:

(adapted from the appendix of Wheat Belly)

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower, cut into 1-2 inch pieces

1/2 cup olive oil

2 eggs

3 cup mozzarella, shredded

1/2 pound sausage or meat or pepperoni

1 + 1/2 cup pizza sauce (homemade or store bought, homemade pizza sauce recipe follows at the end of the pizza recipe)

bell pepper, sundried tomatoes, chopped onion, olive etc

Fresh or dried basil

oregano

1/4 cup grated Parmesan (optional)

Directions

1. In a large pot boiling water, steam or boil cauliflower until soft (5-10 minutes)

2. Drain, and mash until consistency of mashed potatoes with minimal chunks. 

3. Add 1/4 cup oil, eggs, 1 cup of mozzarella and mix well.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly coat pizza pan or pizza stone with 1 tablespoon olive oil. If you use a pizza stone, you should place the stone in the oven before preheating.

5. Pour mixture onto pan and press the dough(?) no more than 1/2 inch thick, mounding high up to have higher edges.

6. Bake 20 minutes and remove the pizza stone/pan from the oven

7. Spread pizza sauce 

8. Top with all the ingredients you prepared.

I made a half and half pizza, half with olives and the other half with pepperoni.

9. Put back in the oven and bake another 10-15 minutes

9. Use spatula to transfer to plates.

It looks nice, doesn't it?

It tastes heavenly as well :)

Enjoy!

Following is the pizza sauce recipe

Pizza sauce (adapted from All Recipes)

Ingredients

1 cup tomato sauce

4 tablespoons canned tomato paste

2 teaspoons ground oregano

1 teaspoon dried minced garlic

Directions

In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients until smooth.

Wheat Free Pizza

[Whole wheat pizza dough] Super-duper easy pizza dough

Pizza can be a highly versatile food.

It also can be a (sort of) healthy food.

On top of that, pizza is very easy to make from the scratch.

Well, I realized that frozen pizza can be cheaper than home made one.

But you know what, 

it might be cheaper to buy a ready made pizza, but it simply cannot be healthier than what you make at your own kitchen.

I got this recipe from the Shape (fitness/workout magazine) last year.

I know, I make about 101 excuses not to work out. But, still I do buy those magazines. 

It sounds silly, and Mr. D thinks it's a total waste, but I find a nice recipe to use almost each volume I buy.

So, it is not as bad as you might think :)

I like bready pizza dough too.

But, my favorite would be a super-thin crust pizza.

I use either stand mixer or bread machine to make pizza dough.

But, you can also exercise your handcraft talent. :)

The best thing about pizza dough is, unlike bread dough, it does't need a second rise.

In the weekend,

I give a small piece of piazza dough to kids and let them make their own pizza with toppings of their choice.

Well, anyway they only like pepperoni pizza. So not much things to prepare.

One of my favorite pizza is olive pizza.

Confession:

It doesn't matter how much I eat olives,

I can't eat enough olive.

So last weekend,

kids and I made pizza together.

(Boys made their own pizza each, and I made for Mr. D and me)

Mr. D didn't participate in this activity.

He prefers cleaning up the mess to making/cooking.

And I don't complain about it :), because I'm an awesome wife. :)

Here goes the very easy whole wheat pizza dough recipe:

   

Ingredients

1 cup bread flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2/3 cup cold water

How to make:

1. If you use bread machine, making pizza dough becomes a piece of cake. Mix all the dry ingredients and make a well in the centre and pour the cold water. 

Then, press the menu button to set "dough"   mode. 

Then, you can wait until the dough is risen and gets ready.

If you are mixing it by hand , stir all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and make a well in the centre and pour the cold water.

Mix well until it comes to get together. Put dough out onto a floured surface, and knead until all of the the dough becomes elastic and smooth, about 8-10 minutes.

Put 1 teaspoon of olive oil in the bowl, and place dough in the bowl and flip to the other side so that the dough is oiled all around. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

2. When the dough is doubled, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, 

and punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. 

Then pizza dough is ready to be used. Doesn't it look healthier? :)

This is the size of dough I gave to each of my kids

(If you are going to bake your pizza on a pizza stone, you have to place pizza stone in a cold oven and then turn the oven on. If you place your cold pizza stone  into a hot oven it will very probably shatter. )

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). 

Roll a ball of dough with a rolling pin until it will not stretch any further. 

Top pizza with your favorite toppings, such as sauce, cheese, meats, olives or vegetables. :)

As my pizza stone is not too big, I have to bake in two batches if kids make their own pizza.

Last weekend, I topped pizza sauce (ketchup + ample oregano), mozzarella cheese, onion, pepperoni and sliced olives.

Bake for about 15 minutes (depending on how thick it is) in the preheated oven.

Leave the pizza on the stone for about 5 minutes before you serve.

Pepperoni is hiding under cheese in Pablo's pizza.

Enjoy! :)

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough