Homemade Pizza--The Healthy Version

inner last week was Homemade Pizza Day, the first of many Homemade Pizza Days to come, and I decided to go a healthier route and bake a whole wheat crust. Let's just say....I won't make THAT mistake again! Maybe when I have kids and I want them to believe that whole wheat is the only type of carbohydrate that exists, but until then...whole wheat pizza is not really for me. I love whole wheat bread and most whole wheat foods but there are a couple of things that I can't seem to budge on. Such as cookies, pasta, and now pizza dough. I think the farthest I'll go (and probably will do the next time I make pizza dough) is mix half white and half wheat flours. I used a recipe from All Recipes.com.
I started off with my ingredients: 1 pack (.25 ounce) of active, dry yeast, 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of warm water (110 degrees), 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp olive oil, and 2 tsp white sugar. I dissolved the yeast in the warm water and let it stand until creamy (about 10 minutes). I have to apologize in advance for my photos, it was a dark night.

Next, I combined all the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and stirred until I created a well mixed and stiff dough (no dry spots).



I covered the dough with a wet paper towel and left it alone for about 30 minutes (should double in size). During this time I preheated my oven to 350 degrees.



While waiting for the dough to rise I went to work on the topping. I was going to make an arugula topped pizza but I had a lot of random things in the fridge to use up before they went bad. A block of bleu cheese from Thanksgiving, shredded chicken from a roasted chicken, mushrooms, onions, and cherry tomatoes. Oh and the arugula. I knew each of these things had only about 2 days left in them and I hated to see them at the bottom of my trash can. So I made a bleu-cheese-chicken-mushroom-and-tomato-pizza-with-carmelized-onion.....pizza.
I chopped thin rings out of the onions and thin slices of mushrooms and carmelized. Then I sliced the cherry tomatoes in half. Once the dough was ready I rolled it out into a rectangular shape to fit my baking sheet. I laid out a pizza sauce I bought at Trader Joe's for $1.60, topped it with bleu cheese and added the rest of my mix. Into the oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown and voila! Pizza! (not the greatest photo, I know, but I was really hungry by then). I also ended up using only half the dough for my pie and froze the rest.



The great thing about this recipe is that it's really easy, requires minimal ingredients, and the dough does not need to be refrigerated overnight. This doesn't make the best dough in town but it definitely does the job. Next time I think I'll leave it in the oven for a little longer to get a crispier center! It's a great dish to pour your leftovers on and it's also a creative way for kids to get involved in what they're eating. You can pre-make the dough and store in the fridge for emergency use. Bon appetit!