Good friday!
Today I have for you, our favorite pizza crust recipe. Of course, it is gluten and dairy free, and it's also easy and quick to prepare.
Here at home, we have a tradition called "Friday movies", which means that every friday afternoon, all 5 of us have a nice family moment watching a movie we all choose (after a closed voting, lol!) and we eat something we consider delicious.
Note the highlighted expression above..."we consider delicious".
One of my foundation principles to coach my clients into erasing the diet mentality, is Unique Nutrition.
And to understand what a unique nutrition is, you must find out if you are making your choices led by your real desires or influenced by your environment.
Sounds tricky, I know, but Mindful Eating can explain it better.
In mindful eating, one of our most powerful hungers is "EYES HUNGER". Our eyes want beauty, so giving beauty to your eyes is the way to feed you eyes hunger.
Now, think. When you see an ugly picture of a plate of food that a friend of yours posted on social media, do you think "that's yummy"? or you immediately say "that looks gross"?, even though your friend's description says "best enchilada ever!". He is telling you that the dang plate was amazing! But your eyes were not fed with the beauty they needed to feel SATISFIED.
We massivley tend to find "delicious or desirable" what have been presented to us using beauty.
And the way to achieve the goal to conquer an entire continent's eyes is...guess how?...
With high impact images, like videos or pictures. Images that show you extremely beautiful images of foods and, also, images of people being so overwhelmingly happy that you cannot wait to try that food that promise to help you feel that joy!
And even some companies tell you that, if you hold their cup of coffee walking in the street, you'll look like a successful Executive, CEO or Business person, isn't that right?
Do you get the picture? Do you see how we are influenced on our food choices?
The beauty of mindful eating, is that it allows you to clear your mind from external influences and lead you to choose the foods you really want to eat.
The market offers what is PROFITABLE for them, because they are not running a nutrition consultancy business. They're goal is to SELL. Yes, it's true that nowadays more and more healthy brands are appearing, but I'd always recommend not to just go and buy products blindfolded.
When you finally comprehend that the market's goal is to sell, not to take care of your health, you're going to understand my modjo, and it goes like this: "I can't be a zombie follower of whatever the market offers, because my health is priority to me".
The moment you understand that you have the power to choose what to buy, you start reading labels and you start to question what you've been offered and what's in those products.
And, as a logical consequence, you wield your power of decision.
Because up until today, none of us are freely deciding on what we buy at the food stores. Whether we like it, or not.
Give it a thought, and mean while I'll write my next post related to "the importance of reading food products' labels".
About today's recipe.
When I had to ditch gluten, I thought I'd never enjoy a good pizza ever again! But it turned out to be quite the opposite.
And, using mindful eating wisdom, I was capable to erase mental formations in regards with "what a pizza must look and taste like" and it turns out that I can make a unique pizza, with ingredients no other restaurant are offering to me that I actually love and want to see in my pizza!.
This recipe uses whole oats flour (you can also use whole wheat flour if you don't have glute intolerance).
The fiber present in whole grains, actually prevents me from eating more and more and more until I finish the whole dang thing, like I used to do before (this is one of the reasons why I got 12 kg overweight, by the way!).
This is basically because one of the jobs of fiber in the body is to keep glucose levels more stable. And, by being more stable, your insulin is regulated. And by regulating your insulin, your metabolism begins to heal. And, since your metabolism is responsible for keeping you at your healthy weight and in general health, it's crucial that we pay attention to how glucose is behaving in our bodies.
Now let's go with the recipe!
Pizza Crust
2 medium pizza crusts (16 portions aprox.)
Total prep time: 45 min
You'll need:
- a stand mixer or a food processor with the kneading accessories - a roller pin
- parchment paper.
Ingredients
5 cups of whole oats flour
2 tsp baking powders (aluminum free and gluten free)
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp granulated garlic (remember it cannot be white, choose a good quality one)
Black pepper to taste
3/4 cup luke warm water (warm it up about 1.30 minutes)
4 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
Instructions
Preheat the oven at 392°F.
Place all the ingredients in your mixer. I recommend you put first the dry ones, just look at the list of ingredients and you'll notice they are organized separately. And next, add the wet ones.
Start mixing until you get an even dough. It can't be mushy, if you need to add more flour, do it 1 tbsp at a time.
Open your mixer, take the dough and form a ball with your hands. Let it rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare your filling ingredients (those are to your personal and unique taste).
Take the dough and cut it in two equal peaces.
To roll it out, I use 2 peaces of parchment paper. One at the base and one on top of the dough.
First, place one piece of paper on the table. Put the dough and flat it down with your hands forming a circle. Then, put the other paper on top, and roll it out using a roller pin. The shape you give it is up to you. I like to shape it like a rectangle because it's easier to make it fit in the oven tray. Repeat the process with the other dough ball.
Take it to the oven keeping the paper on the base (it prevents your crust from getting stuck in the oven tray).
Bake for 15 minutes (or 20 minutes if you want it a bit more crunchy). Add tomato sauce and cheese and put it in the oven again for 8 minutes more.
Health tips!
- Add your favorite green leaves to top your pizza. This is a great way to lower glucose spikes.
- If you are dealing with insulin resistance, remember to drink your apple cider vinegar water.
- And the most important, remmeber to chew every bite very well. Release all flavors so you can enjoy this delicious preparation.