June 21, 2013 June 21, 2013/ Morgan
YUM! It’s Friday! For many people that means PIZZA NIGHT! How about make some healthier fun pizza at home tonight? (Or whatever day you feel like having pizza!)
Have you ever had polenta as the pizza crust? It’s kind of surprising how great it can be. See, I’m following Dr. Mcdougall’s Maximum Weightloss guidelines (no flours is a big one!) and this fits the bill. It is more processed than what you want to be eating most of the time but it does work in this plan. So I’ve been eating pizza and losing weight – how awesome is that? 🙂 And check out the nutritional information. I was shocked when I figured it out. 100 calories for a slice of pizza? Uh, YES PLEASE!
Now you can top your pizza with whatever you want – don’t feel that you have to do what I did. Of course if you do top it with what I topped it with you won’t be sad. Unless you don’t like lots of yummy toppings. I do. Of course I’ve got kind of a problem with overloading sometimes so this pizza was hard to eat without a fork! YEAH, by the way, you can eat polenta pizza like regular pizza. Especially if you make a big rectangle pizza instead of a circle and cut it into square slices. Then it works perfectly!
Man, I never thought that vegan pizza would be so freaking awesome. It is. There’s so much going on that you don’t need anything else. Let’s get cooking!
BBQ Polenta Pizza
- 1 cup coarse ground cornmeal (polenta grind)
- 3 cups water
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt (use a bit less if you use another kind of salt)
- your favorite bbq sauce
- 5-6 mushrooms sliced thin
- 1 red bell pepper sliced
- 1 zucchini cut in half and sliced thin
- 1/2 onion sliced thin
- 1/2 cup corn (frozen works well)
- 2-3 cups fresh spinach
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Bring the 3 cups of water to a boil and add in the salt. Whisk in the cornmeal and stir continuously. If the bubbling starts to pop at you turn the heat down a touch and keep stirring. You want it to thicken up to the constancy of whipped potatoes. (As thick as you can get it.) It shouldn’t take a terribly long time but make sure you can keep stirring during this time.
Pour onto your parchment lined baking sheet and spread it out into your desired shape (rounds or rectangle or be crazy and make something else.. I don’t know.. an amoeba is kind of my style haha) Put the baking sheet into your refrigerate to set up the polenta.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Now get a nonstick skillet and place it over medium high heat. Add in your peppers, onions, mushrooms and zucchini. Cook until the onions are translucent. Add in the corn and garlic and cook another 3-4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Once your polenta is cooled down and set (15-20 minutes works fine for me but you can always wait longer) put it in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. Now take it out and flip it over. The easiest way to do this is to place another piece of parchment paper on top, flip it and slide that new parchment onto your baking sheet. Trust me, this step is essential (I tried without it!) but not that big of a deal. Now bake your polenta for another 10-15 minutes.
Take the polenta crust out and spread it with your favorite bbq sauce (I used about 3/4 cup but you may need more or less.) Add a layer of spinach on top and then sprinkle with your vegetable toppings. Place back into the oven and bake 5-10 minutes or until everything is nice and toasty.
Slice up, serve up and enjoy!
Nutritional information per serving : Serving size: 1/8th of the pizza
100 calories, 0.8g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 20.3g carbohydrates, 2.2g fiber, 3.1g sugar, 2.9g protein