Pizza is a treat for teens. But dosing for a commercial pizza is always a risky deal for us. So we often make pizza at home that has very little dosing risk, and tastes great.
The reason why commercial pizza is so hard to dose for is because it has enormous amounts of carbs, large amounts of proteins (cheese + meat), and enormous amounts of fat (cheese + oil). But Italian-style pizza has a lot less cheese and meat, and is delicious. So, at home, we often make our own pizza as follows:
use either premade or homemade crust. but use a recipe/ crust that does not have a LOT of oil
make a large amount of tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes, using little olive oil, and plenty of garlic, onion, and herbs
add other vegetables as wished for
add some strongly flavored meat (not much)
sprinkle strong cheese, such as Parmigiano, but in very limited quantity. You can get away with it because the taste is strong, in particular if you add it at the very end, just early enough to melt it.
The resulting pizza has plenty of carbs, but not an excessive amount oil or protein (the amounts the trigger special bolus procedures), and is very easily dosed for. It is delicious! I can post an actual recipe if anyone wishes, but the general principles listed above work every time for us.
We still occasionally get commercial pizza (typically Costco, because it’s so easy to pick up, 5 minutes from the house), but not very often, because much of the compulsion for pizza is taken care of by our easy-dosing version.
Well in the spirit of pizza, here is a super easy 5 minute pizza dough recipe that doesn’t use yeast or milk (the two no-no’s in our house) and would work well with your recipe.
2 Cups All purpose flour
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of water, plus two tablespoons
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Combine flour cornstarch, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
Combine water and olive oil in a measuring cup
Stir water/oil mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix until dough starts to come together. Turn onto floured surface and knead for 1 minute or two until it comes together.
Divide dough into 2 equal pieces. Roll into pizza circle on parchment paper.
Top with sauce and cheese and bake on a pizza stone in 475 degree oven for 11-12 minutes or until the crust is done.
Yummy and only has 94 carbs per pizza crust.
If you need less carbs consider the Fat-head recipe.
Want to reduce carbs more? My wife makes dough from cauliflower:
1 cup riced, then cooked cauliflower
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp italian seasonings
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp salt
Combine riced, cooked, drained cauliflower, the egg and parmesan cheese. Next, add Italian seasonings, crushed garlic and salt. Making sure everything is well mixed,
For variety… would kohlrabi work? I like to grow stuff but not cook… started peppers and onions under the light in the garage last week. Frost is unpredictable here… can be 70 in March or 20 in May and neither is weird. In addition to greens that bed gets broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels, and kohlrabi.
Want to reduce carbs even more? Switch out the tomato sauce for pesto or caramelized onions (the latter plus fresh rosemary plus gorgonzola = I will love you forever).
I’ve also made cauliflower crust and it tastes good. There’s also a “fathead” pizza crust that’s made mostly of cheese. I’ve never made it since I can’t eat dairy, but it’s apparently the best low-carb pizza crust out there.
I’ve wanted to try a fathead crust since I first heard about it…and of course every time I’ve been able to reintroduce dairy, I haven’t gotten around to it before I have to cut it out again.
Hmmm. Hard question. My guess is the texture of kohlrabi might a bit unyielding, but it might still work. If you rice it of course. It would be worth experimenting!
Unfortunately, the only thing I get from my wife when I try is: “gorgonzola breath”
@Beacher, I sometimes make something very similar, from Provence, with caramelized onions, strong oil-cured black olives, herbs and a few anchovies in salt.
We also do homemade pizza due to pain from dosing insulin for the crazy fat laden commercial version (and let’s face it there are some old people in the house who need to avoid the grease more than the kid does) but I am a slacker and use Trader Joe’s dough balls…they have the carbs on label so you know what you’re getting, not too much oil, and toppings similar to Michel, except our T1 son won’t eat meat so all the better. The dough freezes well til I need it and it costs $1.19, and I don’t have to clean up which is the beauty of weeknight pizza anyway! Not sure about dairy content, assume theres yeast though.
I love the cauliflower idea but if my kids ever caught me it would be all over…my amazing cauliflower soup is uniformly hated by the junior contingent around here
We just made @Chris’s 5-minute pizza dough into a thin crust, along with homemade tomato sauce and toppings. A timing error caused us to leave it in 5 minutes too long, but it still turned out great, although obviously cooked a bit too long:
Homemade tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes, garlic, caramelized onion, shiitake mushrooms, red and gold bell peppers, oil-cured moroccan olives, cappicola shreds, and grated parmigiano (I had bought grana padano, but my son decided that parmigiano was the right choice).
My son thinks this is way better than most of the thin-crust pizzas we buy: so it’s a win! I agree with him, although it would have been a lot better if I’d taken it out on time Thank you @Chris!
Thank you