Spring has sprung veggie pizzas!

Top your pizza with a salad and avoid adding the processed meats with high cholesterol and sodium contents.

How to decorate your pizza dough:

1. Start with a sauce: low sodium tomato/pizza sauce OR homemade heart healthy pesto sauce.
2. Vegetables:

• Dark leafy greens- spinach, arugula, chopped basil
• Tomatoes, olives, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, beets, scallions
• Sautéed mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower onions, peppers, asparagus

3. Cheese: low-fat mozzarella, parmesan/asiago, goat cheese, gorgonzola cheese
4. Optional Spices/Herbs: oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, garlic powder, red pepper flacks, cracked black pepper.

Add your favorite spring vegetables to this week’s recipe, Whole Wheat Pizza Dough!

Spring vegetables: asparagus, artichokes, spinach, scallions, radish, and beets.

Here is the zero cholesterol recipe of Whole Wheat Pizza Dough:

Pizza counts as one of your grain servings per day! Why not make it whole grain dough to exceed the recommendation that at least 50% of your grains should be whole grain!

Yield: 8  slices (1 serving = 1 slices)

Ingredients:

• 1 packages active dry yeast
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 1/2  Tablespoon sugar
• 2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1.5 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon of olive oil

Directions:
In a small bowl, stir together the lukewarm water, yeast, and sugar and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes until the activated yeast forms bubbles. In large bowl, mix together the whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour. Add the yeast mixture and olive oil to the dry ingredients and use your hands to form into a large ball of dough. Place dough on a floured counter top and kneed the dough until it is not sticky. Place dough back into the large bowl and cover with a towel. Let dough rise for about 45- 60 minutes until dough doubles in size.

Pre-heat oven to 450 º F.  Roll out dough onto a floured pizza pan/pizza stone. Place pizza in the oven for 5 minutes without toppings. Remove the pizza dough. Flip over the pizza dough and add your sauce and toppings.

Place the pizza back in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes. Remove and let pizza cook for 10 minutes before slicing the pizza.

Nutrition Information Per Serving:

Calories: 156 kca
Fat: 2g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Carbohydrate: 30g
Dietary Fiber:  3g
Protein: 5g
Sodium: 2g