Whole Wheat Pizzas

One of my goals this year is to replace some of our favorite meals with a healthier alternative - lower calories, higher fiber, remove or reduce white flour and white sugar.


My first task was to make Monday night pizza night something I could look forward to and enjoy. I have an abundance of wheat berries that a friend has given me and my sister graciously ground for me in her electric grinder. It has been stored in the freezer for a couple of months now, and I figured it was time to get it out and start using it.

I found this recipe for a "no rise" whole wheat pizza dough:

1 c warm water
2 c whole wheat flour
1/4 wheat germ (extra fiber...I like that!)
1 T honey
1 t salt
2 1/4 t yeast (or, one packet)
3 t wheat gutten (this was not in the original recipe, but I add this to the dough)

Since I need this to be easy, I dump this all into the bread machine and set it to the dough setting. Now, the recipe said it was a no rise dough, however, since I am using the bread machine, I do let it rise for about 20 minutes and it is easier, more elastic to work with.

Once the dough in done, I divide it into four individual pizzas. This recipe will make (2) 12" thin crust pizzas or one deep dish pizza, but since everyone in our house likes different things on their pizza, we opt for personal pizzas.

Here you can see that each pizza is pretty loaded (except for Grace, who only likes cheese) AND...each pizza is only 500 calories! Not bad...in fact, they are actually very good.

UPDATE: I opened a jar of the coleslaw yesterday and it was fantastic! It was still crunchy and had a taste similar to bread and butter pickles (only with cabbage, of course.)

I think I'll try some on my hamburger tonight.....

Winter Canning

Many will think that canning is only done in the summer and fall, but for me, it is a year-round adventure.

One item I can regularly are beans, specifically pinto beans for our Mexican feasts. Canning beans is really quite easy, and they taste much better that the refried beans from the store. I also can red beans for chili, and northern beans for ham and beans.

Today, I was anxious to try a recipe that I had found at the Creative Canning Blogspot. It was for coleslaw. (http://creativecanning.blogspot.com/2009/01/coleslaw.html)
I've tried freezing coleslaw in the past, but found it was not only too sweet, but a little too soggy. This recipe also uses a sugar syrup, but suggests to rinse off the syrup, and then adding your favorite mayonnaise based dressing, BRILLIANT! Since cabbage was one sale this week for New Year's, I decided to try it. I'm going to let it sit a week or so before opening up a jar to see if it really does stay crisp.