The Crust

Part of embracing whole food and leaving gluten in your past is to change what you eat, not to mimic old favorites. Having said that, I am the queen of “clean” treats – I make a mean banana-coconut-zucchini bread (the banana adds the sweetness, and coconut flour and egg create structure), and can do some pretty amazing things with almond flour.

Some foods are really tough to ditch. While this list varies among people, certain “off limits” foods are more popular than others. For example, most people who ditch added sugars don’t crave soda after a while – it’s just too sickly sweet and tastes of chemicals. (When I get beverage-bored, lemon in water or plain old seltzer do the trick. Wine is another topic entirely, though.) Pizza, on the other hand, is really delicious and can include plenty of healthy veggies…snuggled in between a thick antinutrient-laden dough mattress and a questionable cheese blanket, and often polluted with added sugars and other nasty stuff.

What’s a college student to do?

You can find “cleaner” pizza dough recipes online. Here’s one that I like because it’s simple and fast to make. You can spice it up as desired.

• 3 eggs
• 2T coconut flour (or 1/4 cup almond flour)
• garlic salt, or fresh minced garlic and sea salt, to taste (technically salt is not your friend, so use your judgment here according to how strict you want to be)
• herbs – dried oregano or basil are good

Preheat oven to 400′.

Place 1/2 T of ghee (clarified butter) or butter or coconut oil or olive oil in a 10″ saute pan (the medium-sized frying pan) on medium heat.  Mix up the ingredients, and spread them evenly on the pan. Wait 4-5 minutes until the crust sets. Meanwhile, chop your toppings (see below) and get your sauce ready. When the crust sets, flip it over (don’t break it!) and let the top cook for a minute or so. Flip it onto a cookie sheet, top it (see below), and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the veggies are done and any cheese that you added is a little brown. Remove, let cool, and enjoy!

Toppings:

Starting with sauce…READ THE LABEL – many pizza sauces have junk (sugar is #1) hidden in them. You’re better off just chopping fresh tomatoes, or mixing a can of tomato paste and tomato sauce and adding some basil and oregano and garlic. (Yes, canned tomatoes have evils too, but if you use Trader Joe’s marinara out of the jar you are pretty safe.)

Next, the fun stuff: tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, olives, spinach, and even zucchini and jalapenos made good toppings. Pile them on!! I like plenty of meat too: sausage, pepperoni, browned ground beef, ham…just read the label (see a pattern here?) and avoid processed meat that has potato starch and other such crap added to it.

Cheese: dairy is generally not recommended and can be skipped altogether, but if you tolerate it and feel that pizza is incomplete without a golden layer of melted mozzarella, at least make sure it’s not full of added starch and preservatives.

Don’t forget the garlic. You can’t have too much garlic.

By the way, while we’re on the topic of Italian food, you can use thick-cut zucchini strips in place of lasagna noodles, spaghetti squash in place of spaghetti, and pureed cauliflower for polenta.

Enjoy!