Fit Fare

(Make your own Healthy Pizza)

Our bodies crave a certain amount of fat and we can’t get around that. When we don’t allow ourselves to eat fat as a part of a healthy diet, we may very well find ourselves binging upon fatty foods against our better judgment. Worse, we will be likely to over-compensate and eat something especially unhealthy for us. This reminds me of a true story about a guy who put himself on a raw foods diet, where he was eating nothing but fruits and vegetables, and deep-fat fried candy bars. Seriously. Maybe if he’d dipped his veggies in guacamole he might have resisted the urge to snack on fried Snickers bars.

The same rationale seems to operate with regard to healthy eating. A dieter most assuredly will find herself craving junk food. How well she stays on her healthy diet has a lot to do with the allowances she makes for certain beloved junk foods. If you are a pizza lover, it doesn’t make sense to cut pizza out of your diet entirely and risk revolt. However, it would make sense to learn how to make pizza at home, because then you can control what ingredients you use and in what proportions you use them.

How many commercials have you seen where they sell junk food based upon the cheese factor — those gooey strands of satisfying cultured milk product? If you look closely, you can almost see the pools of fat glistening off the top of the pizza. Cheese has become synonymous with flavor in the western diet. But you can make an even more flavorful pizza without very much cheese. This is because cheese can be used as the vehicle to deliver other flavors. Cheese is largely fat and fat has a tendency to pick up and carry flavors of other foods, especially spices and herbs, when it is in a liquid state. Cheese can work its magic in small amounts because when it melts it tends to form a thin but unified layer. So sprinkle a handful of cheese evenly across the top of your pizza, and then top it with a liberal sprinkling of dried herbs.

Dough!
If you want to make a healthier dough you might choose non-GMO, organic, whole wheat, in which case you will need to use more yeast and/or add gluten in order to get it to raise properly. The easiest route to a more healthy crust is to use half unbleached bread flour and half wheat flour, adding the bread flour first and stirring vigorously to develop gluten before adding wheat flour. If you want to avoid white sugar, substitute honey (use 3/4 tsp of honey instead of 1 tsp white sugar).

For those of you who have never tried your hands at the art of bread-making this is a great way to start. Pizza dough is a very simple dough which is easy to master and quick to mix up. I introduced a friend of mine, who was struggling to get a rise out of her bread recipes, to making pizza dough and now she’s blissfully baking bread regularly. Because, you know, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as homemade bread, and pizza dough is no exception.

Get Saucey!
Tomato sauce tends to be standard issue for pizza, but there are many other options to consider. You can use pesto, peanut sauce, or a sauce made from bell peppers, for starters. As you become more creative at assembling pizzas, you’ll find it’s easy to eat pizza regularly and never get bored.* All of these sauces are fairly easy to make yourself and make ahead of time, but you can also purchase canned varieties. Don’t forget to read labels and compare ingredients between brands.

Toppings
Here you let your inner chef run wild and mix and match herbs, vegetables, and cheeses (plus lean meat if you really feel you’d miss it).

Pizza Dough

1 tsp sugar
2-1/4 tsps of yeast (or 1 package)
1-1/4 cups warm water – not hot, but warmer than lukewarm
2-3/4 cups flour (try 1-1/4 cup unbleached bread flour plus 1-1/2 cups wheat flour)
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Place sugar and yeast in the bottom of a small bowl. Add 1-1/4 cup warm water. Swirl to mix and then let sit for 5 minutes, swirling occasionally to ensure yeast mixes well with water. Yeast should begin to form bubbles in the water as it grows. If yeast is not actively growing, your water might be too hot or too cold, or your yeast might be too old. While you are waiting for your yeast to grow, add about a tablespoon of oil to the bottom of a large bowl.

After the yeast has proofed for 5 minutes, add about 1-1/4 cup unbleached bread flour and stir vigorously to develop gluten. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil and mix to incorporate. Add remaining flour and stir to a soft dough. If it still looks too sticky to touch, add more flour until you feel you can handle it. Scatter a handful of flour on a clean surface and knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary, until the dough no longer easily incorporates more flour, but remains somewhat moist and elastic. You should knead it for at least several minutes, longer if you aren’t a speed-kneader. Form into a smooth ball and roll it in the oil you previously placed in the large bowl. Center it in the bottom of the large bowl and pat the surface to ensure it is evenly coated with oil.

Warm an oven just until it feels cozy or locate another warm, draft-free space to let your dough rise for an hour. Moisten a towel to place over the top of the bowl. This will keep the dough from drying out while it rises.

After 1 hour your dough should be doubled or more. If it hasn’t then your cozy place wasn’t warm enough, so find a warmer spot and let it rise for a while longer. Once your dough has doubled, punch the dough several times to deflate it. Wait 10 minutes for the dough to recover, then split dough into two equal balls.

Each half can then be formed into pizza crust, kept covered tightly in the refrigerator for several days, or frozen.

To form the dough into pizza crust, you have two choices. Either sprinkle flour on your surface and on a rolling pin and roll out, or flatten the ball into a disc and then place your knuckles under the center and stretch out carefully – try not to tear the center. If you are brave you can then proceed to throw your pizza, but I prefer to put it safely back on my floured surface and press the edges out until it reaches the desired diameter, leaving the dough thicker around the edges for the crust. Should you find you have torn your pizza crust, don’t despair, just stretch and press it back together and try to be more gentle in the future.

If you are baking on a pan, then oil and dust it with cornmeal before carefully moving your dough to the pan. If you are using a pizza stone, dust a pizza peeler with cornmeal and pre-heat your pizza stone. Allow your dough to rise a while before you add toppings. As we’ve already learned, it will rise faster in a warmer place. Assemble your pizza with toppings. Place in a 450 degree F oven and bake for about 20 minutes.

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Roasted Eggplant & Pesto Pizza

The toppings on this pizza recipe are based upon a lasagna recipe posted on Epicurious that takes about 3 hours to assemble. We use the leftover ingredients from that lasagna to make pizza, but here’s how to make it without marathon cooking the lasagna first. Everything can be prepared a few days in advance of assembling the pizza, if need be.

Italian Parsley & Hazelnut Pesto

1/4 cup hazelnuts
1 cup Italian flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped and lightly packed
2 Tbsp parmigiano-reggiano, grated
2 Tbsp plus 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Toast hazelnuts in 350 degree F oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Immediately transfer to a towel and bundle them up tightly. Let them sit for several minutes and then rub them together in the towel – careful not to spill them out to roll across your kitchen floor. The goal is to rub off the skins, however do not fret over those skins that will not rub off. Chop coarsely.

Place all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth.

Two Cheeses

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp mozzarella cheese, grated
1/4 cup parmigiano-reggiano cheese, grated

Keep cheeses separate for now.

Roasted Eggplant

Slice a medium eggplant crosswise into 1/3 inch thick slices. Brush both sides with oil. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on one side of the slices. Broil about 3” from oven filaments. Turn after about 4 minutes, or when eggplant begins to brown. Broil other side in a similar fashion and remove when lightly browned and soft.

Assemble Pizza

Spread about pesto evenly across pizza dough, avoiding crust edges (or not, your call). Sprinkle mozzarella evenly on top. Place eggplant slices on mozzarella, then sprinkle everything with parmigiano-reggiano. Place in 450 degree F oven and bake for about 20 minutes.

*Disclaimer — I’m not advocating that you SHOULD eat pizza regularly.