Do healthy people eat pizza?

This Healthy Homemaker says, "Yes!"

Pizza is a treat in this family. It is not a Friday tradition. It is not an everyday lunch choice. It's a treat for special occasions.

Last night Braxton choose pizza as his, "first week of Kindergarten" meal.

The thing you have to remember is that I live in the same society that you do and unfortunately when you are raising kids in this society it's really difficult to eliminate things like pizza completely. Plus, it tastes good. Everyone loves pizza! So we compromise over here.

We rarely buy pizza. I try to always make it from scratch because then of course you know what is in it. I don't add the sugar, corn syrup, or preservatives that are usually in store bought or take out pizza.
Yes, it's a lot more work but food is not supposed to be easy. Think of the pioneers.

I also involve the kids in making the pizza. I've found that when they make it, they eat it. Sometimes no matter what it is. There is a huge power in creation.

Last night for example. We are making the pizza. The kids chose what toppings they wanted and out of the blue my five year old suggests, "mom, have you ever put zucchini on pizza?" "Can we try it??" No joke people!! This is my little son suggesting a green, healthy, vegetable be added to his pizza. So we tried it. I'd never done it before but it was delicious and the kids totally ate it! These types of experiences make it all worth it to me. I am raising health conscious people here.

Lastly we always have a vegetable with our pizza. Last night was fresh celery and cauliflower. We don't eat the whole pizza in one sitting. We are allowed to eat a couple pieces and then if we are still hungry we can fill ourselves up with veggies and dip.

Oh and for the dip, here is my little secret. I buy the dip powder and instead of adding it to mayonnaise and sour cream I use plain Greek yogurt. Then I add the seasoning and last I add my children's multi-vitamin. Yep. It's a powder and I just add it right in the dip and they never know.
Sometimes you've got to pull out the tricks!

Being healthy can be delicious!

My friend Kaitlyn shared her pizza dough recipe with me. I made a few alterations.

Our pizza dough recipe is as follows:

1 1/2 cups warm water. I use really warm and I pour it into my kitchenaid.
2 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast, add to warm water
1 Tbs. pure, raw honey. Add to warm water and yeast.
Mix together and let sit until yeast activates (gets foamy and bubbly about 5 minutes)
Add:
1 tsp. sea salt
2 Tbs. Olive Oil
2 cups flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
Mix together. On my kitchenaid I use the knead attachment.

Put in a warm oven (100 degrees or so) let rise until double in size.

Roll into two pizzas.

Add toppings of your choice. Some of our favorites include:
zucchini now! :)
pepperoni and pineapple
canadian bacon
spinach
artichokes
fresh tomatoes
olives
red pepper
red onion

Bake in 450 degree oven for 13-15 min.
Enjoy! (a piece or two ;)