Making pizza at home is not as hard as I thought. Home-made pizza is quick and easy recipes for fast, yet delicious weekday meals. Homemade pizza sauce is as easy as simply blending tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, basil or oregano. I make the sauce with fresh tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes drain a lot of water. For this reason, I cook till water is cooked off. You can make the sauce in advance and store for 10 days in the refrigerator. The raised dough can be made up to 2 days before. When the week is busy, time is short and you want to make home-cooked meals for yourself or family, pizza is the one. Making your own pizza gives you so many choices. Whole-wheat crust, vegetable crust, your favorite fresh toppings, high-quality cheese, vegan cheese, home-made sauce, a variety of sauces and much more. You’ll start wondering why you order expensive, takeout meals and will realize that making healthy home-made meals for yourself and your family is, in fact a great priceless experience!

Maybe you are a mommy, a daddy, a caring spouse, a good friend, a date, who need easy recipes to get thru a satisfactory dinner on the table. While food is a big part of most people’s lives, that doesn’t mean you have to go for the same unhealthy fare you grew up with. If you’re looking for a healthier way, check out the healthy Indian food found at ujwalasdelicacies.com. Motivate yourself, your family and guests with your healthy choices. Each of my healthy Indian recipes is made from fresh, whole-grain, never-canned, never-frozen ingredients.

’00’ flour typically used by restaurants to make pizza dough is high in carbohydrates, calories and moderate in protein. Making pizza base with whole-wheat will significantly improve the nutritional profile. 100% whole-wheat doesn’t make pizza as crunchy as pizza restaurants make. If kneading by hand, toss, rather than push, the dough onto the counter for about 10 minutes; this allows the gluten to develop without incorporating too much flour.

Many kinds of cheese are made with animal rennet, which is an enzyme derived from the stomach of calf or baby goat. For vegetarians, this is bad news. If you are vegetarian, there are cheeses for you, which are vegan cheese and dairy-based cheese made from plant rennet. Watch out for types of cheeses which are not vegetarian. Wikipedia link explains how rennet is extracted –  Calf rennet is extracted from the inner mucosa of the fourth stomach chamber (the abomasum) of young, unweaned calves as part of livestock butchering. These stomachs are a byproduct of veal production. If rennet is extracted from older calves (grass-fed or grain-fed), the rennet contains less or no chymosin, but a high level of pepsin and can only be used for special types of milk and cheeses. As each ruminant produces a special kind of rennet to digest the milk of its own species, milk-specific rennets are available, such as baby goat rennet for goat’s milk and lamb rennet for sheep’s milk. Reading this article just brought tears in my eyes.

Homemade whole grain pizza

 

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Prep time

1 hour

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

1 hour 25 mins

 

Homemade pizza sauce is as easy as simply blending tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, basil or oregano. I make with fresh tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes drain a lot of water. For this reason, I cook till water is cooked off. You can make the sauce in advance and store for 10 days in the refrigerator.

Author: Ujwala Chintala

Recipe type: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 2¼ tsp active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbs Olive Oil
• 2 cups Whole Wheat flour. Plus more if needed
• 1 tbs cornmeal or rava (semolina) for lining the pan
• Toppings
• 1 red onion
• 2 fresh tomatoes
• 15 spinach leaves
• ½ julienne cut bell peppers
• 1 sliced brussels sprouts
• 8 oz. mozzarella cheese. Sliced and patted dry with paper towels. Preferably use cheese made without animal rennet.
• For sauce
• 5 large tomatoes
• Salt
• ½ tsp sugar
• 8 garlic cloves
• 5 sprigs - fresh or dried basil
• 5 sprigs - fresh or dried oregano
• ⅛th tsp - pepper
• ⅛th tsp - chili powder optional

Instructions

1. Sauce:
2. In a pot, heat water. Drop tomatoes in hot water for 30 seconds to 1 minute.
3. Remove. Peel skin.
4. Add olive oil to a pot. Heat to medium. Add garlic, tomatoes, salt, sugar. Cook on medium heat for 30 minutes. Add pepper, chili powder, crushed oregano, and basil. Stir well. Cook on medium heat for another 1-2 hours until water evaporates and sauce becomes thick.
5. You can store sauce for up to 10 days.
6. Pizza dough:
7. In a small mix yeast and ¼ cup warm water. Stir and let it rest for 5 minutes until it is bubbly. Bubbling means yeast is working.
8. Mix 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 tsp salt. After 5 minutes add the yeast mixture to the bowl, and add ¾ cups warm water, olive oil. Mix well. Knead well with hand till you make the dough. Add more flour (up to 2 tbsp) if the dough is sticky.
9. Rub oil around dough, place dough in a bowl. The dough will double in size. Refrigerate leftover dough for up to 2 days.
10. Preheat oven to 450. I bake pizza in 8-inch cake pans.
11. Sprinkle a pizza sheet with cornmeal. Sprinkle flour, press and stretch the dough to form round base. Pinch the edges of pizza dough to form a crust.
12. Bake just the dough for 7 minutes at 450f.
13. Spread sauce, top with cheese and vegetables and bake for another 10 -15 minutes or until veggies are soft.
14. Slice and serve hot.

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