Last night I had the kitchen to myself. I decided to take advantage of the peaceful situation and make one of my favorite foods for dinner: pizza!

Pizza is my ultimate favorite food. I love making pizza from scratch, and it really isn’t as unhealthy as many people think. A home made oven baked pizza loaded with vegetables and all the trimmings can actually be quite healthy.

I think pizza has a bad reputation from all the restaurants (in particular fast food places) that make their pizza’s with so much oil and grease. To top it off many of these places but few or no vegetables on their pizzas either. The pizza sauces and the dipping sauces only add to the unhealthiness of these pizzas.

My home made pizza’s are loaded with vegetables, and other low fat and calorie ingredients. From the low fat cheese to the low fat and calorie sauces (I used pesto and barbeque both low fat/calorie.

For the crust I used my mom’s pizza crust recipe that she has been tweaking for years. It’s made with half whole wheat flour which makes the pizza much more ‘filling’ they any kind of pizza you will ever find in a restaurant. I added many spices and herbs to the dough to make the crust extra zesty.

Here is my mom’s pizza crust recipe

Pizza Crust (makes 2 large crusts)

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp yeast
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
½ tbsp olive oil
1 1/3 cup skim milk (warmed for one minute in the microwave)
dehydrated onion bits (to taste)
garlic powder (to taste)
parsley flakes  (to taste)
basil flakes  ( to taste)
Oregano flakes (to taste)
Light parmesan cheese (to taste)

Place the flours salt and sugar in a large bowl and mix well. Stir in the yeast. Add the cheese, spices and herbs and mix well. Add the oil and the skim milk and knead the dough for 10 minutes. Set the dough in a warm place (cover with a towel )and let it rise for one hour. Roll the pizza dough into crust size and shape. Place on pizza pans and set aside. Cover with your pizza sauce and toppings. Bake the pizza for about 25 minutes in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F.

I made two different kinds of pizza with only slight differences between the two.
For one pizza I used barbeque sauce and for the other I used pesto. Both pizzas I used chicken breast which I cut up and spiced and cooked before putting on the pizza. I also used a small amount of cut up Ukrainian sausage on both pizza’s. For vegetables I loaded both pizza’s up with mushrooms, and red pepper. On the pesto pizza I also added lots of olive slices (I thought pesto sauce went better with olives then barbeque sauce). For the cheese I used low fat marble cheese on both pizza’s.

The pizzas turned out super yummy and filling. The crusts were thin and soft and super zesty. The toppings were combined created a melody of flavors.

What are your favorite kinds of pizza? Do you have a pizza crust recipe that you love?

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