I often hear people say, "Oh, you guys are healthy you probably don't eat pizza." Wrong. We love pizza at our house! But we never order pizza and rarely eat it out because we love rolling our own dough and making up creative toppings.
I've found that pizza is one of the best meals to get kids involved in the cooking as well as the eating. If you haven't got the time to mix up your own dough, there are some great ready-made doughs available at Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy in whole wheat varieties. If there's pizza, there's always a party at our house. I can hear my little girls scraping chairs across the kitchen floor and pulling up to the counter to help mama. Meilani loves rolling out the dough. Giada loves adding toppings - or rather, eating toppings - while we prepare our pies.
Pizza is also an opportunity to get kids involved in selecting and trying new veggies. If they get to "decorate" their own personal pizzas with colorful toppings, they just might try eating them. We discovered a new fave pizza by using what we had in the pantry: milk, garlic, broccoli and canned black olives. The result was this Broccoli & Garlic White Pizza.
My friend Amy also just made us a fun "Mexican Pizza" by cooking black beans until they were mushy, then spreading them on pizza dough and melting cheddar cheese on top. Then she chopped up lettuce and tomatoes and onions and threw them on top when the pizza came out of the oven. Yummilicious!
Honey-Whole Wheat Pizza Crust
Ingredients:
-1 package yeast or 2 tablespoons yeast (Make sure your yeast is fresh.)
-1 cup warm water
-1 tablespoon organic sugar or honey
-1 tablespoon salt
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-3 cups whole wheat flour
-2 1/4 cups unbromated, unbleached white flour (I like Trader Joe's brand.)
-1 cup cold water (filtered is best)
1. Proof the yeast: Add yeast to 1 cup warm water. Be careful not to get the water too hot. (Temperature should be 110-115 degrees if you want to be precise.) Wait about five minutes until yeast begins to bubble up in water.
2. Use KitchenAid or other high-powered mixer with dough hook attachment. Add yeast/water mixture, honey, salt, olive oil, flours and cold water. Mix together on low speed.
3. Increase spead and knead dough in mixer for 8-10 minutes. Dough will pull away from the sides of the bowl and look smooth.
4. Divide into 3 balls of dough. Store in Ziplock bags in the refrigerator (for up to 1 week) or in freezer.
Simple Garlic White Sauce
Ingredients:
-1/4 cup butter
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-1/4 cup flour
-1 1/2 cups milk
-1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated or shredded
1. Melt butter in small saucepan. Saute garlic.
2. Add flour and whisk together.
3. Allow to bubble and cook 3-4 minutes.
4. Add milk and whisk over medium heat until sauce thickens.
5. Stir in parmesan cheese and cook 3-4 more minutes.
6. Spoon over pizza.
Broccoli & Garlic White Pizza
Ingredients:
-1 recipe pizza dough (see above)
-1 recipe white sauce (see above)
-2 cups mozarella cheese, shredded
-1 head of broccoli, chopped
-1 can black olives, sliced
-whole garlic cloves (if desired)
-1 teaspoon fennel seed
1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven to heat up.
2. Roll out pizza dough on to pizza pan or transfer to the pizza stone.
3. Top with white sauce.
4. Sprinkle with shredded mozarella cheese.
5. Top with broccoli and black olives. (You may add extra garlic cloves here if you really want that garlic flavor.)
6. Sprinkle with fennel seed.
7. Bake approximately 15 minutes until cheese bubbles and crust in golden brown.
