Not Your Traditional Pizza

While browsing through the library cookbooks, I found one featuring meals that are 500 calories or less. I’m not very health conscious when deciding what to make for dinner however I thought this book could teach me how to make a few healthier meals. Sharing a meal with my husband that’s only 500 calories sounds very healthy to me! There were many recipes to choose from but in the end I chose Black Bean and Corn Pizza. I know… not your typical pizza but the pictures looked very appetizing. I’ve made Mexican pizzas before with refried beans, so why not give this one a try?  Also, one of my all time favorite pizzas is bbq chicken pizza (topped with cilantro) and this recipe includes barbeque sauce. Yum!

One of the ingredients for this recipe is whole wheat pizza dough. I made the pizza dough a week in advance and froze it so that I could have it ready when I made this meal. This is definitely a time saver if you don’t feel like making everything all in one setting. You can reference my previous post, Homemade Pizza & Pizza Dough, for instructions on how to make the dough.

Overall this recipe is super easy once you have the dough ready to go. It’s just a matter of mixing and adding the toppings to the pizza. If you’ve never made homemade pizza before, you’ll see this makes a large size pizza. I used a 14.5 x 10 in. rectangular pan to bake the pizza.  When choosing your pan keep in mind the dough will fit up to this size pan with some work. By work, I mean that you’ll need to stretch and mold the dough to fit the size/shape of your pan (circulare pans will work too). At first you may think there’s no way it’ll fill the pan, but it can be done. Just be patient and keep stretching the dough. What I do is place the dough into the pan and press down with the palm of my hand, slowly inching the dough further and further to fit the pan.

Don't give up, keep stretching, it'll fill the whole pan.

This pizza cooked to perfection and looked just like the appetizing pictures in the cookbook. I liked the pizza and thought it was a good option to have as an alternative to our regular pizza/pizza toppings. It was filling as well.  This was my first time making wheat dough and it came out really nice.  My husband gave me kudos for how good the pizza looked when it came out of the oven and was excited to try it. However as we were eating, he said “It’s good but it’s not pizza.” We both laughed. So, my advice is this, if you’re craving a traditional pizza, use the whole wheat dough and stick with your favorite toppings. If you do this, you can’t go wrong. If you’re open to a healthier, non-traditional pizza then you should try this pizza.

Black Bean & Corn Pizza
Adapted from EatingWell 500-Calorie Dinners Cookbookby Jessie Price and Nicci Micco (Amazon affiliate link)
Serving size: 1 large pizza
Prep Time: 10 mins
Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup canned black beans, rinsed
• 1 cup corn kernels (fresh or frozen kernels that have been de-thawed)
• 1 plum tomato, diced
• 2 tablespoons cornmeal
• 1 pound prepared whole wheat pizza dough (see previous post)
• 1/2 cup barbeque sauce
• 1 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese 

Note: The original recipe calls for less cheese and bbq sauce.  This would add more calories if you're counting your calories.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. Combine beans and corn in medium bowl. Lightly sprinkle cornmeal onto pizza stone or baking sheet. Stretch and mold dough to fit large baking stone/sheet (approximately 14.5 x 10 in. rectangular pan or circular pan can be used as well). Dough will be thinner, if it breaks, mold back together.
3. When dough covers baking stone/sheet, bake in oven for 3-4 minutes until top of dough has slightly hardened and there’s a hint of golden color. Pre-cooking the dough prevents the pizza from getting soggy when cooked with toppings.
4. Remove pre-cooked dough from oven and spread barbeque sauce on top with a spoon.
5. Distribute bean mixture evenly on top of the dough. Sprinkle diced tomatoes on top. Top with cheese.
6. Return to oven. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cheese has a slight golden color.