Making a Healthier Pizza

Sunday night is pizza night.

So, I need to make a healthier pizza.

The get this started...let's look at the end result.

The components:

The crust I make myself.  I start with one cup of warm water and a package of yeast.  Once the yeast is dissolved, I add some salt, some olive oil and one cup of whole wheat flour.  That goes in the mixer on low (2 on the Kitchenaid) for a minute or so.  Once that's good and incorporated, I start adding regular all-purpose flour until a recognizable dough is formed.  Sometimes I need to add a touch of water.  I really just eyeball it.  It usually ends up being about 3 cups of flour altogether.  Just don't go with all whole wheat flour.  I then take the dough ball and put it in a bowl sprayed with canola oil spray and cover with a towel.  I put it on the oven on the middle rack.  Then I take a deep pan full of hot water and put it in the oven also, as a way of raising and regulating the temperature.  The dough gets an hour to raise.

Once there's about ten minutes left, I start cooking up the Italian Turkey Sausage.  Go with Gianelli's.  The crew and I like it in bigger chunks.

Once the hour is up, the dough gets punched down, and is stretched into the pan, or as near as possible.  I've found the whole wheat dough to be a little less stretchy.  Not sure how to counteract this, maybe add some baking powder next time?  I'll take any suggestions here.

The oven gets preheated to 450.  While that's preheating, I take a couple tablespoons of olive oil and mix in some italian seasonings, red pepper flake, and garlic salt.  This gets brushed onto the crust, and the crust goes into the oven for five minutes, to set it in place, pretty much.  Proofing it, in a sense, I guess.

Once it's back out, now comes the sauce, part-skim or full-skim cheese, turkey pepperoni (Margherita brand is the best I've had so far) and the sausage.  Then a touch more cheese on the top, and it goes in the oven.

Bake it until it looks like this:

Ok, so I wanted to see it again.  Sue me.

Anyway, this is a VERY savory pizza.  And healthier than a normal pizza.  Not really healthy in and of itself, but anything in moderation is ok, as far as I'm concerned.  And trust me, one slice of this pizza is filling.  Damn filling.  If my kids weren't included in this dinner, I would probably go with peppers and onions instead  of the sausage.

Here's a hint:  Turkey pepperoni takes getting used to.  You can pre-toast it in the oven or the microwave a bit to help it out.  That's really the only way it will crisp up.  My method adds a few calories.  Once the pepperoni is on the pizza before the sausage, I give it a quick spray with canola oil.  That helps it crisp somewhat.

Burn Circuit 1 tonight, once the kids are in bed.  Maybe I'll check in after, and I need to come up with the motivational montage of the week.

Later.