Healthy-ish Pizza
It's easy to make delicious things using oil, sugar, refined grains, and by frying everything. Eating that all the time though, isn't good for us. I once went to a pizza party where a person who worked in a restaurant specialising in pizza brought dough for everyone. It was delicious, but I was shocked that the dough was swimming in oil. If you want to eat more homemade pizza, then it's a good idea to make it healthier. This recipe tries to balance healthiness and the pleasures of the palate by blending white and wholemeal flour and minimising the less healthy stuff.
This recipe assumes you are making two medium/large-sized pizzas, depending on how thin you roll them.
Ingredients
Info
Instructions
- Mix the yeast into the warm water and the maple syrup in a bowl and set aside. My yeast says it doesn't need this and you can put it straight in, but I like seeing it bubble up and it feels important to the process.
- Mix all of the other dry ingredients well in a bowl.
- In a few minutes, the yeast should be bubbling and foaming a little.
- Add everything together and knead for 4 minutes. I like to knead in the same bowl I mixed the flour, but use a chopping board, counter top, large sturdy plate, whatever you like. Carefully add a little flour if it is too sticky.
- Split the dough into two and knead for a couple of more minutes each. The dough should now slowly spring back if you poke it.
- Here is why the prep time is so long...because of waiting for the dough to rise. Cover your two balls (steady now...) and leave them in a warm place if you have one.
Now, imagine you are in a movie where, to represent a time shift, they wobble the image.
1 hour later...
- On a floured board, roll the dough into shapes suitable for your baking trays.
- Prepare the baking trays with a tablespoon of olive oil each.
- Prebake for 8 minutes.
- Pull out, and top with ingredients. Recommendations in the notes.
- Bake for another 12-17 minutes, until the crust starts to brown and your toppings are cooked.
Notes
Toppings
Obviously, there are all the things that need "vegan-" at the start of them that I'm sure you can buy.
For fresh vegetable ingredients, here are the classics:
- Mushrooms are the best. (Don't trust anyone who doesn't like mushrooms! They may be an alien species living among us, watching, waiting for the moment to strike).
- Capsicum, usually red, sliced into long strips.
- Olives, kalamata or pimento stuffed green ones. Capers are also great.
- Zucchini, which, if you cut into long, thin strips, doesn't need any pre-cooking.
- Eggplant - sliced into disks, but I would precook them. Either bake or grill. The primary sin you can make with eggplant is undercooking it.
- Sun-dried tomatoes, or even fresh tomato is nice.
- Thinly sliced onion.
- Some basil leaves.
- Greenery such as rocket, spinach etc.
- Nuts, especially pinenuts or walnuts.
Sauce Bases
- Tomato paste - you can add some more garlic and herbs to it.
- Pasta sauce - lay it on thick.
- Pesto - so delicious.
Storing
You can also freeze your balls of dough. After they rises, give them a light coating of olive oil, pop them in a container and then store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
