Delicious, authentic thin-base Italian pizza for the weight-conscious

neuro-praxis

Pizza is always a real killer when you are counting calories. I have included the calories, fat and WW points in this recipe FYI.

So try this. The recipe yields one large pizza, enough for two people, and great with a big salad and a glass of wine. It takes a little work but is really worth it. My husband prefers this to any of the local pizza places...although he could eat a lot more than half the pizza.

Preheat the oven as high as it will go.

Base:
125g strong white flour (455 calories, 1.2g of fat, or 6.5 WW points)
Quarter pint of warm water
7g of dried yeast (negligible)
Pinch sugar (negligible)
2 teaspoons of olive oil (80 calories, 9g of fat, or 2 WW points)
Whatever you like to flavour the dough - I use garlic granules, Italian herbs and salt (negligible)

Sauce:
1 onion, finely minced (I used my food processor) (44 calories, 0.1g fat, or 0 WW points)
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced (9 calories, 0g fat or 0 WW points)
1 carton passata, or one can tomatoes whizzed in the food processor (128 calories, 1.1g fat or 0 WW points)
1 tablespoon tomato purée (11 calories, 0.1g fat or 0 WW points)
1 teaspoon Italian herbs (negligible)
Salt and black pepper (negligible)
Pinch sugar (negligible)

Put your warm water in a bowl or jug. It should not be too hot, this will kill the yeast. Add a pinch of sugar and stir. Sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water and whisk very briefly until dissolved. Allow bubbles/foam to form on top (this should take about 5 minutes).

Put your flour and other dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix and form a well in the centre. Add 1 teaspoon of olive oil and the yeast mixture and bring together with a spatula until it forms a dough. Dispense with the spatula and use your hands to bring it together into a small elasticy ball.

Turn onto a floured surfaced and knead for 3 minutes to work the yeast into the flour. Lightly oil a bowl using half a teaspoon of olive oil. Mark the the top with a criss-cross using a sharp knife. Place your ball of dough in the oiled bowl and top with a clean, damp cloth. Put the dough into a warm place to rise (I use the hot press). This will take about an hour, sometimes less.

Prepare your sauce. Using cooking spray or a light mist of oil, briefly sautée your onion and garlic. Add the rest of the ingredients to the saucepan and stir until well combined. Allow to simmer until thick.

Retrieve your dough from the hot press. It should have doubled in size. Turn it out onto a floured surface and punch the air out of it. Knead for a minute or two, and then carefully roll and stretch it, using a rolling pin and your hands, until it's 12 inches in diameter or larger. (When I first started making this pizza, sometimes I had to redo this part a couple of times because I got holes in my base.) Using the last half a teaspoon of olive oil, grease a pizza pan. I find the best utensils to use for this pizza are large, square, flat cookie trays. You can get great ones in Tesco. Carefully transfer your pizza base to the tray. Top with tomato sauce. I usually bring it right out to the edge as I don't like crusts much.

Now you can add your toppings. I like to add 60g of Lidl grated mozzarella (200 calories, 15g of fat or 5.5 WW points), a slice of ham (variable, but usually around 1 WW points worth) and lots of thinly sliced vegetables like mushrooms, peppers and onions. Remember to add your calories/points for every topping you add.

Then I stick it into my very hot oven and it's cooked when the edges are slightly browned and the cheese is melted and beginning to brown. I add lots of black pepper, cut it into slices and eat. It's really excellent.

For those using Weight Watchers, if you cook it just as I do (including the ham) the whole pizza comes to 15 points. Halve that and you get a really delicious pizza dinner for 7.5 points, alongside a crispy salad.

I hope some of you will be delighted to learn that pizza can definitely be part of a healthy diet (no comments from the low-carbers)!

Jwacqui

This sounds delicious! I think I will Definately be making this during the week!!
Thanks!

J xx

barbiegirl

me too!!

Eastofeden

me three.

rubadub

Sounds good, do you know if you can you use wholemeal flour in bases?

I make pizza type things on ryvitas, just spread tomato puree on top, top with cheese and finely cut chorizo and grill them. Problem is the ryvitas are too dry and can burn if exposed. I ran some under the tap to wet them like you do with pitta breads, but I over did it and they were soggy, I might try it again but bake them.


Be careful calculating points up. I warned about the rounding of points of multiple small portions in the "WW points thread". It is always best to add up all your kcals & fat up at the very end and stick those values in the calculator.

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Sauce:
1 onion, finely minced (I used my food processor) (44 calories, 0.1g fat, or 0 WW points)
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced (9 calories, 0g fat or 0 WW points)
1 carton passata, or one can tomatoes whizzed in the food processor (128 calories, 1.1g fat or 0 WW points)
1 tablespoon tomato purée (11 calories, 0.1g fat or 0 WW points)

These tot up to zero points, but 192kcal and 1.3gfat. That is 3points on this calculator http://points.ogo.ms/

neuro-praxis

I hear you rubadub, but all vegetables are 0 points on the Weight Watchers plan, as you'd have to eat a literal mountain of them to affect weight fluctuations, so I am happy to stick to 0 when it comes to veggies. Also, I'd estimate that approximately one third or half of the sauce is used on any given pizza, and that portion is then halved again when you split the pizza with someone. So you'd end up eating closer to 43 calories and 0.3g of fat (none of it saturated), which is less than an apple.

As for the wholemeal flour, I used to make wholemeal scone-type bases before I started using yeast. I have never used yeast with wholemeal flour but I suspect it would work fine, although you might have a hard time getting it to the elasticy consistency of the white flour, as it has less gluten. Therefore it might make a nice pizza, but probably smaller and thicker, as it wouldn't stretch quite as thinly as the white flour dough.

mloc

neuro-praxis wrote: »

no comments from the low-carbers

I was going to say something until I saw that

Still, sounds delicious. Perhaps PWO for me though

Penn

Just tried this. Fantastic. I wasn't too fussed about the whole weightwatchers aspect, I just wanted a good recipe for pizza. And I got one.

Random

@neuro-praxis
There's no photos ?

neuro-praxis

I know...I've deleted the post you're referring to.

I downloaded picasa and I made a web album of the photos, each of which has a separate url. I loaded the urls into the "insert image" function on boards, and it came up blank.

I'm not sure what to do. I can attach all the photos but it's not quite the same.

neuro-praxis

What Random is referring to is a post I made earlier with what I thought were all the photos of the preparation of this pizza. However I then deleted the post because I couldn't for the life of me get this post to show up the images, despite uploading them one at a time.

Anyway, the first five are attached now:

neuro-praxis

Part II

neuro-praxis

Part III

neuro-praxis

Part IV ... phew!

neuro-praxis

Ok...and as an addendum (and this is the last you'll hear from me on this subject, I swear!), I initially advised using a quarter pint of water, but this is actually too much. Half or two thirds of that amount should be fine.

Greenmachine

It's not a pizza without cheese.

neuro-praxis

Um, it has cheese on it. You'd see that both in the ingredient listing and in the photos.

Greenmachine

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Um, it has cheese on it. You'd see that both in the ingredient listing and in the photos.

Now you can add your toppings. I like to add 60g of Lidl grated mozzarella (200 calories, 15g of fat or 5.5 WW points), a slice of ham (variable, but usually around 1 WW points worth) and lots of thinly sliced vegetables like mushrooms, peppers and onions. Remember to add your calories/points for every topping you add..

Damn you hid it in the steps no mention of cheese at the beginning. Just base and sauce

Random

Do you deliver?

neuro-praxis

Always.

Time Magazine

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Always.

I'll hold you to that, sista.

Bring some over to my gaf on Saturday night. And some banoffee pelase. You can bring that boy you like with you.