Breakin' In The Mixer: Multigrain Pizza Crusts

I mentioned in my last post that I'd be making these pizza crusts when my Kitchenaid mixer arrives. Well, yesterday when I came home from work, I had a pleasant surprise at my front door!

Needless to say, everything I originally planned on doing (cleaning, calling my parents, etc.) was thrown out the window and I got to work on those pizza crusts!

It definitely tested my patience with this recipe. I'm not use to working with yeast... and it requires a lot more waiting than I'm used to! I followed the recipe almost exactly, save these minor changes:

• I didn't have any sesame, poppy, or other seeds on hand, so I omitted them.
• I didn't have dried onion, so I used 2 heaping tablespoons of Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb.
• I used ground flax meal instead of flax seeds.
• I only had 1/4 cup of oil (not 1/3).
• I brushed the top of the crusts with vegetable oil and sprinkled dried oregano on top before baking.

Regardless, they were yummy! The recipe yielded 16 individual-sized crusts. I saved 4 in some parchment paper, 1 in the fridge, 6 in the freezer, and 4 I brought to work for a friend of mine. Yes, that only adds to 15... so what did I do with the 16th one?

I made a pizza, of course!

Green Monster Personal Pizza

Serves One

1 Multigrain Pizza Crust

1/2 haas avocado

2 tsp minced garlic

5 asparagus spears

8 leaves of baby spinach

1 oz. feta cheese

Top the crust with garlic, followed by spinach and asparagus. Crumble feta cheese on top as evenly as possible. Bake at 400 degrees F for 5-7 minutes or until crust gets golden on the edges. Remove from oven and top with avocado.

Yum!

One Big Lesson Polenta Has Taught Me

I attempted making polenta for the first time tonight and learned a few things along the way.

I used a 4-to-1 water-to-cornmeal ratio that I found in my Joy Of Cooking book for making polenta, cutting it down to two 1/4-cup servings. Browned 3 tbsp minced garlic, wilted some baby spinach, then added 2 cups of water on top. Brought it to a boil, added 1/2 cup of cornmeal, stirred constantly until thickened, and stirred in some black pepper and dried basil.

My original goal was to bake it, so I poured the partially-cooked polenta in an 8x8 glass dish, topped it with 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, and put it in a 350 F preheated oven for 30 minutes. I cut it into quarters and sandwiched some pan-seared tofu that I crumbled and added to tomato sauce (a fake-"meat" sauce, I guess, haha) to make it like lasagna.

Believe me, this is not a success story! Here's the #1 thing I learned from this: Patience.

I started off good. Really, I did! I patiently stirred the polenta as it cooked in the boiling water for exactly 10 minutes. I patiently waited the full half hour for it to bake in the pan. I even waited for it to cool to room temperature before cutting. Go me! However, The polenta was still runny on the bottom when I cut it, so I put it in a 400-degree oven on the bottom rack for 5 minutes. I saw it sizzling and took it out... then I was impatient.

I cut it again and it looked, uh, better (I guess). I tried using a spatula to take the first 1/4 of it out and onto my plate. I basically slopped it on there and rearranged it into the square it once was. While moving it from the dish to my plate, it started dripping off the side of the spatula and, stupidly, I tried catching it. Because I was too impatient to wait for it to cool this time around, the molten mush burned a few of my fingers.

After assembling the layers of "meat" sauce and polenta (and taking the photos) I was so freaking starving that I shoveled the first bite into my mouth. You'd think the feeling of the semi-burned dots on my hand from the previous incident would have told me, "Hey, stupid! Blow on it, or just wait a second for it to cool down!"

Nope, I burned the hell out of the roof of my mouth. Fan-freaking-tastic! (Note the sarcasm...) This was a yummy dish, flavor-wise, but definitely needs some perfecting before I'm confident enough to share it with others!

Facelift Number Twelve - [vegan!] Calzone

As I said in my last post, I am challenging myself to eat a vegan diet (note: not a moral thing, just a dietary thing) so I've made over a huge-portioned dish from one of the largest pizza fast food chains: the P'Zone from Pizza Hut!

BEFORE THE FACELIFT



(click to view full-sized image)

And that's just half a calzone!

INGREDIENTS

1 bag Trader Joe's Whole Wheat PIzza Dough
2 oz Trader Joe's Soy Mozzarella Cheese
4 oz Gimme Lean Ground Sausage Style
3 cup Spinach
.5 cup Tomato Paste (so salt added variety)
1 cup Zucchini, sliced
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tsp Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb
2 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (more or less, to taste)
1 tsp olive oil
a bit of whole wheat flour (for dusting your work surface)








LET'S COOK!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.


Cook the spinach, zucchini, and Gimme Lean in a pan. (I cooked each separately, despite being shown together here.)


Lightly flour your working surface and flatten out half of the pizza dough into a circle, like a mini-pizza. Hopefully yours will be rounder than mine, haha.

Then top half of the round with half of each of the following ingredients...


garlic...


tomato paste & seasonings...


spinach...


zucchini...


Gimme Lean...


and cheese!


Fold the empty side of the dough over, roll the edges, and press with a fork to seal. Brush a little olive oil on top and repeat all of this with the other half of the ingredients.


Lightly flour a cookie sheet and put the calzones on it. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden. But... keep an eye on them! When I was baking them, about 10 minutes through I noticed they were browning really fast, so I put foil on top for the rest of the baking. I liked them when they looked nice and golden like this...


Of course, the best part is the inside...


Now, eat!!! This makes 4 servings (1/2 calzone per serving, just like Pizza Hut). Yum!

FACELIFT RESULTS

Though it varies on which P'Zone you compare it to, this vegan version has around half the Calories, 1/4 the fat, ZERO cholesterol, twice the fiber, and even though the sodium is much higher than I like to have even in two meals, it's still between 200 and 600mg less than Pizza Hut's P'Zone! There's a bit less protein, but when you're not eating a half-pound of Italian food, that should be a given! Think about it: ignoring the sodium, you could basically eat an entire vegan calzone (2 servings) and still be consuming less fat, Calories, cholesterol, and carbs as well as more than quadruple the fiber than Pizza Hut's!

You can find the full recipe HERE!

Enjoy, and continue sending me emails at FastFoodFacelift[at]gmail[dot]com and commenting in this blog!