Recipe - healthy pizzas (with flatbread or eggplant)

After finding a cute photo of pizzas made out of eggplant the other day I got inspired to do some experimenting.  Regular pizzas from the pizza shop can be incredibly high in calories, fat and salt - as they are usually fried and covered in cheese, sweetened sauces and lots of fatty processed meat.  Wood fired gourmet pizzas are sometimes a better option, but the meat and cheese is still an issue. For people who can't eat gluten, pizza bases can pose an extra challenge, and for people wit diabetes the large amount of processed carbohydrates in the dough can be a nightmare. I love the flavour combinations, but pizza is just something I don't eat any more... until tonight! 

Tonight I made two different pizza preparations. One for me, that I made on eggplant slices, and one for the boys that I made on slices of large Lebanese flat bread. Alternately make individual pizzas on smaller pita bread.  If you prefer to make your own pizza bases that's easy to do, I was just going for a really easy option that would give a thin crispy and not too heavy dough base.

You will need:
One large eggplant
A pack of flat bread
sauce for your pizza (I used tomato paste and basil pesto on different pizzas)
Pizza toppings - whatever you fancy - feta, spinach, tomatoes, olives, capsicum, mushrooms, basil, artichokes, roasted root vegetables, anchovies, pepperoni (use anchovies and pepperoni sparingly!) pineapple, onions, whatever you like on your pizza!

For the bread pizzas
Heat your oven griller to 200C and use a baking tray or pizza stone
Place the bread under the grill until one side is toasted slightly - watch it, this bread cooks fast and it's easy to burn the edges.
Take it out and turn it over to the soft side
Add your sauce of choice - I made one pizza with basil pesto and the other with tomato paste
Add a sprinkle of grated cheese (not too much) then your favourite toppings. Health wise be sparing with the high fat/salt/calorie toppings like processed meat and go mad with the vegetables - lots of greens, mushrooms, tomatoes, capsicum, herbs and so forth
Back under the griller for 5-10 minutes at most and its done

For the eggplant pizzas
Heat your oven griller to 200C and use a foil covered baking tray
Slice your eggplant into 1-2 cm thick circular slices 
Spray your foil tray with olive oil spray, place your eggplant on, spray/brush with a little olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper
10 minutes under the hot grill until golden then remove.
Turn over as you did with the flat bread, coat with your sauce of choice and pile high with toppings, I used mushrooms , capsicum, tomatoes, feta, anchovies, basil pesto and a sprinkle of grated cheese.
Back under the griller for 10 minutes and its done.

Whichever way you make them, serve your pizzas with a lovely green salad for even more veggie goodness.

Bon appetit!!

Lyndal @ Lean Green and Healthy

Health news from the net 4 June 2014.

Health news 4 June, 2014.

Do you enjoy reading about health as much as I do?
Here are links to a few health and nutrition related articles I was reading today. Click on the links for the full article and to read them from the source. Hope you find them interesting.

Lyndal @ Lean Green and Healthy


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7 Harmful Diet Lies You Probably Believe
This article was originally published in Time 

As a culture, we go through phases with our diet preferences — low-fat gave way to low-carb, dairy-free begat gluten-free, and eggs (poor eggs) are either omega-rich wunderkinds or insidious cholesterol bombs depending on the current political climate and whether or not Mercury’s in retrograde. Yet, there are some out-there diet myths that we simply can’t seem to shake. Over the course of The Anti-Diet Project I’ve struggled to dislodge these false beliefs from my own diet-addled brain, but it’s not easy. When I’ve believed for 10 years that a potato is four points, it’s really hard to see it as a potato again. I still struggle with eating dinner, even when I’m hungry, and I’m fairly convinced it’ll take years of couples counseling for me to ever trust bananas again. We’ll get there one day, bananas.

Read more: http://time.com/106863/harmful-diet-lies/
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Feedback—Your FAQs Answered - GI values of fruit
This article was originally published in GI News

I have been hunting for the GI of blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, honeydew melon, tangerine, currants, crab apples, lemon, lime, cumquats, nectarine, plum, rhubarb and have had no luck.
Apologies, to our regular GI News readers who have seen this question in other guises more than once before – it’s a regular to gifeedback. To deal with the ‘where to hunt’ bit first. Check out the database at www.glycemicindex.com, The Shopper’s Guide to GI Values (it is updated annually), use the Google search facility in the right-hand column of every issue of GI News, or thumb through the ‘top 100 low GI foods’ section of Low GI Eating Made Easy. More importantly, we know that people who eat three or four serves of fruit a day, particularly apples and oranges, have the lowest overall GI and the best blood glucose control.

Read more: http://ginews.blogspot.com.au/2007/07/feedbackyour-faqs-answered.html
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10 Meals In Mason Jars You Have To Try

This article was originally published in Prevention Magazine

When the pickles are gone and the jam is scraped clean, what becomes of the humble mason jar? Make it your new favorite lunch box. Mason jar meals are unsurpassed in portability—and you can cram in way more nutrition than a brown bag could ever hope to hold. Try out these take-anywhere mason jar recipes today.

Read more: http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-recipes/10-amazing-mason-jar-recipes

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How to manage d-lunches ‘on the road’
This article was originally published in Diabetes Counselling Online

Quite a few of our readers have indicated that they find having a nutritious lunch to suit their diabetes requirements in their busy lives a tricky thing to deal with. Hopefully this blog will help with some practical ideas that you can implement whether you’re a truck driver, a shop owner, a school teacher, an office worker or even a shift worker.

Of course if you have ideas of your own that work, we’d love to have you add them at the bottom of the blog to help others too.

Read more: http://www.diabetescounselling.com.au/diabetes-and-weight-management/how-to-manage-d-lunches-on-the-road/