In Our Year of Eating Healthy—Yes! You can eat Pizza!

Pizza has got to be one of the most popular meals on the planet, and once you’ve got the base you can make it anything you want. But for those of us who are gluten free it’s not so easy to get a take-away pizza, so 99 per cent of the time we’re up for making our own, which is more fun than getting a take-away anyway. For a super-healthy (and ethical) pizza get over to Capital Region Farmers Market on Saturday mornings and get some great organic meats, and visit Choku Bai Jo (Lyneham and Curtin) for the freshest organic veggies.

Anyway, here are a couple of LFW’s favourite easy-peasy recipes for anyone to try, including regular and GF, plus a terrific ‘from scratch’ recipe from FEEDinc. Trust me, once you make your own, you’ll never get a take-away again!

Click for what you need, what you do, and recipes! What you need

First up you need a really good pizza baking tray or stone. Invest in the best one you can find—it does make a difference. You can get a reasonable pizza stone from around $25. If you’re really ‘into’ pizzas you can also go for a pizza oven, but personally I think you’d probably need to eat pizza two or three times a week to get the value from the outlay. A fan-forced oven works well if you set the right temperature and don’t overcook.

Pizza base—anyone who has ever tried to make a GF pizza base from scratch knows exactly why I’m recommending buying ready-made GF bases. You can buy bases almost anywhere and they come in a range of shapes and sizes, and dietary requirements. In Canberra you can get GF from most major supermarkets, Deeks (Pearce and Dickson), and TwentyOne Café and Groceries in City West.

That said, our FEEDinc recipe offers you the opportunity to try making your own base, and proving that pizza really is eating healthy!

What you do and recipes

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees. If using a fan-forced oven place the pizza on the middle shelf.

Mediterranean Veggie Pizza

Spread salt-free tomato paste over the base, or use a couple of tablespoons of our home-made salsa recipe*. Popular veggies include cooked potato/sweet potato and/or pumpkin, capsicum, mushrooms, artichokes, sun-dried tomato, Spanish (red) onion, and olives.

Sprinkle with low-fat grated cheese (grate your own off the block as ready grated cheese often has additives to stop the cheese from clumping), and bake for 10 – 15 mins. Decorate with baby spinach leaves and rocket.

Moroccan Lamb Pizza (a great way to use left-over roast lamb)

Spread hummus over the pizza base. Cover with pulled or thin strips of lamb, green and red capsicum, sun-dried tomato, and plenty of cubed or crumbled feta cheese or goats’ cheese.Sprinkle lightly with Moroccan spice mix and bake for 10 mins.

FEEDinc Super-healthy Pizza!

This is super-tasty and super-healthy. If you’re GF/WF substitute GF flour for white flour and buckwheat for wholemeal, or buy your favourite ready-made base.

What you need

Pizza base (serves 4): 1/2 cup white all-purpose flour/GF flour; 3/4 cup wholemeal flour/buckwheat; 3/4 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon yeast; 1/2 cup warm water, and 1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

 

Topping: 1 can chopped tomatoes; 1 teaspoon dried oregano; pinch of salt; 1 medium ball mozzarella; 2 slices lean/low salt ham; vegetables as desired (e.g. artichoke hearts, olives, capers, onion, dried tomatoes, mushrooms etc), and fresh rocket to add on top after cooking.

What you do

Sift the flour and salt and make a well in the centre. Whisk the yeast in the water until frothy and pour into the well. Incorporate the flour with your hands to make a soft dough. Knead well for around 10 minutes. Shape into a ball, cut a cross on the top and cover with cling film. Sit in a warm place for around three hours until the dough has doubled in size.

With a stick blender puree the tinned tomatoes with a pinch of salt and dried oregano. Pre-heat oven to 200 celcius. Remove the dough from the bowl and need for a further five minutes. Roll out the dough until 0.5cm in thickness and place on a baking tray. Spread over tomato sauce mixture and arrange sliced mozzarella/vegetables/meat toppings as desired. Cook in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

What’s your favourite pizza recipe? Try a few variations and post your comments and recipes here.

*You can find our home-made salsa recipe at Eating Healthy—Chips and Dips!

Enjoy!