Easy, Healthy, Home-made Pizza

I love making home-made pizza for my children. They love "pizza man pizza" but I can't bear actually allowing it into their precious bodies more than once every few months. I do, however, enjoy making it at home. I found a great 10-minute, no rise dough recipe online, which I modified slightly and the girls love making it with me.

The ingredients for the dough:

2 cups whole wheat flour (whole wheat white works well too - I prefer King Arthur's, but anything unbleached will do)
1 tsp salt (or slightly less)
1 packet of quick-rise yeast

Mix the above ingredients with a fork to distribute them evenly, then add:

1 cup warm water (very warm, not very hot or it kills the yeast)
A splash of olive oil (I never actually measure this)
A squirt of honey (optional)

Stir the ingredients with a fork until combined Add more water, necessary to combine all of the flour. Add more flour if it is too moist. When it is a reasonable consistency for kneading, do so. Knead the dough into a ball, adding more flour as necessary, but remember that a slightly moister dough makes a better pizza (or bread). Knead until the ball of dough is elastic, then place in a bowl with a touch of oil coating to bottom and sides to prevent sticking, cover with a cloth or plastic wrap and place in warm spot. It should actually rise a bit. "No-rise" means you just don't need to leave it for hours and hours. 10 minutes does the trick.

While the dough is rising you can make your sauce. The can of Red Gold I reviewed yesterday for a giveaway (go enter - it's free food!!) was a perfect start to my ultra fortified pizza sauce. You can choose whatever vegetables you want to sneak into your children. Literally, anything works because you're going to blend it up anyway, so use whatever fresh veggies you have. Just watch how much green you put in because you want to keep it looking like pizza sauce.

I usually add a bit of :

Red Bell Pepper
Carrot
Zucchini
Broccoli stems (tops optional - think texture)
Mushroom
Garlic
Onion
Coriander (we always have this on hand)

And it looks like this! Let everything cook together just long enough to soften the firmer veggies, about 10 minutes. Turn the burner off and leave it for another 10 minutes to cool.

Your dough is ready now, so roll it out to the desired thickness. This recipe can make one large thick-crust round, one large medium-thick rectangular pan, or one medium-thick round with a few breadsticks (after trimming off the excess crust and rolling it into a new ball). Or, a couple of smaller pizzas. After you roll the dough, put it onto a non-stick pizza or cookie sheet.

Back to the sauce. Time for blending. I have a hand held which I can just plug in and turn my chunks into a smooth sauce. You can also pour it into a blender, or use whatever means you have. Afterwards, it tastes like a very good tomato sauce and it looks like this:

Time to put together your pizza. Kids love to do this, so you can let them choose their own favorites. I tend to avoid pepperoni because it is so processed. Instead, if we have it in the house I'll use salami (yes, it's also processed, but much less than pepperoni!). Otherwise, we top it simply with shredded cheese (your choice - as natural as possible) and sliced tomatoes. Sometimes when my girls are really getting into the cooking thing they'll add whatever fresh herbs we have on hand, olives, fresh cracked pepper and artichoke hearts.

Once assembled, cook on 450 (I have gas oven and all ovens run differently, so adjust time and temp as necessary) for 15 minutes (give or take 5).

And out it comes, looking like pizza man pizza, or much better when they get daring with the toppings, but you know exactly what is, and isn't, in it! I forgot to snap a picture when it came out and it didn't last long at all! The whole process takes just 45 minutes to an hour before your children are happily consuming all sorts of veggies they swear they hate!