Soft Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

1 cup of warm water

2 TBS of Brown Sugar

1 TBS yeast
2or 3 TBS vegetable/canola oil

3 cups of whole wheat flour

1 tsp. Salt

Yield: One baker's half-sheet sized pan
Oven: Bake at 350-400 degrees (softer at lower temperatures) for 10-20 minutes

Directions: Get a cup of bath-temperature water and dissolve brown sugar.  Add yeast to water and set aside.  In a large mixing bowl, add whole wheat flour and salt.  When the yeast mixture begins to foam, add oil.  Pour liquid yeast mixture over flour, stirring.  Stir in the water.  If the dough is too dry, slowly add warm water until the dough is the right consistency.  Whole Wheat dough tends to be tougher than white pizza dough.  Allow to rise until the dough becomes more airy and a finger poke leaves a deep imprint.  Knead the dough with a little bit more flour.  Roll onto cookie sheet.  Top with desired sauce, cheese, and toppings and bake to desired doneness.

Tips: I substitute a little bit of the whole wheat flour for gluten flour.  This flour has not been chemically bleached, and it helps the dough become softer, stickier, and more elastic.

To make breadsticks, add a bit more brown sugar and shape into breadsticks.  Bake for 5-15 minutes.  For the best breadsticks, spread butter on the tops when they first come out of the oven and allow the butter to form a soft, great crust as the breadsticks cool.

Nutritional Information: (Bread alone w/ no butter or toppings) When dough is split into 12 equal portions, it has only 130 calories in each portion and is loaded with protein and fiber while being low in fat!
Pizza Dough Variation:
Preheat desired toppings in a sauce pan with cheese and sauce.
Begin baking thinly rolled pizza dough in a pie pan. 350 degrees
Add hot "topping" filling to pie pan and cover with thinly rolled dough.
Sprinkle cheese over the top of the crust.
Bake until done.
I had enough dough from the pie crust to make a quarter-sheet sized pizza too!  Part of making great things is to never be afraid to try new things.  I had never attempted to make pizza pie.  I just used what I knew from before to make judgments.  The filling had a little less sauce so that I knew the crust would not become soggy.  These pizza-pie and quarter-sheet pizzas were a great addition to our Girl's Night. 

Toppings we used: pizza cheese blend, spaghetti sauce from a jar, turkey Italian sausage from the freezer section, canned olives, frozen broccoli, onions, and mushrooms!

Gluten Free Reduced Fat White Chili

1 lb. small cubed chicken breasts (boneless skinless)
1 medium onion chopped
1-1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 TBS canola/vegetable oil
2 (15.5oz) cans of white, red, or black beans rinsed and drained
14.5 floz of chicken broth
2 (4oz) cans of chopped green chilies
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground oregano
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup fat free sour cream
1/2 cup of skim milk
Optional: crumbled bacon or ham

Yield: 5-6 generous servings

Directions: Prepare onion and chilies, browning the chicken with the onions and chilies.  Prepare chicken broth adding oil and then add chicken, onion, and chilies.  Add spices, salt, and beans (and bacon).  When mixture is heated, add milk and sour cream just before serving.

Tips: This is the lighter fat version.  If you prefer a different milk or sour cream, use them.  You may also use heavy whipping cream instead of milk for a thicker, creamier chili.  Also, our family loves using more beans than the recipe calls for.  We have used red beans, great northern beans, navy beans, and black beans.  Mix or select your favorite beans!  You do not have to use canned beans.  Since we use more beans than it calls for anyway, we usually cook and soak our own.

Pepper becomes stronger as it is boiled.  Those in my family that prefer less kick add pepper at the very end with the milk and sour cream.  Add the pepper at the appropriate time for your family.  I also like to double the cumin... just season to taste. :)

Explanation of Gluten, Bleach, and Such Things

The healthiest flour for you is freshly ground whole grain flour.  Therefore, cooking with whole wheat flour would be pretty healthy.  The problem is that freshly ground flours that we typically use for breads (wheat, oats, and barley to name a couple) are good because they have gluten in them.  Gluten (I have no allergies or intolerance to gluten) is a protein that provides bread with its essential elasticity.  Gluten, however, does not occur in large amounts in freshly ground whole grain flours.  Gluten is a byproduct of aging.  As flour ages, it gains more of this essential gluten, but it also loses many of the nutrients that make it so healthy.  This is why many wheat flours are enriched.  Because these flours have been aged, they now have gluten, but lack the nutrients that the wheat once contained.  These flours also become more pale as they age, turning whitish or grayish yellow.  Well, this process can be sped up through a chemical process.  Like aging, this process strips the flour of nutrients to give it great gluten content.  This is bleaching the flour.  It also makes the flour unnaturally white. 

Sugar becomes whiter as they take molasses out of it.  Brown sugar is light or dark depending on how much molasses is in it.  However, this sugar does not become as white as it is when we buy it until it goes through a chemical process to remove any stray bits of color.  Sugar crystals are naturally white, but there are other impurities that make it have bits of color.

I think we bleach rice because we're weird and like pale food.  Fun fact: if you rinse enriched white rice, you're rinsing off all the nutrients it gets coating with after they chemically strip the nutrients away in the first place.

(Sorry about sounding obviously biased... I guess it's the allergies.)  On an important note: gluten is great (if you're not allergic or intolerant as some people are).  It does great things for my breads and baking!  So, some of my recipes will call for gluten flour to make the bread dough stretchy.  Think cold sticky tack as opposed to cold sticky tack.  Cold sticky tack snaps while the warm stuff stretches really well.  It is also expensive and food can taste great without it, so feel free to add more regular flour instead.

My Story

Creating a blog of the recipes that I have come up with to compensate for my food allergies was one of my co-worker's ideas.  I also have a few past roommates that were hoping to get some recipes.  Here is an easy way to share one of my hobbies.

To begin with, I have an allergy to bleached foods.  This means that things like white rice, white flour, and white sugar have unpleasant consequences when I eat them or handle them too much. 

Growing up, I had an upset stomach ALL THE TIME!  My parents believed that I just got sick when I was stressed.  For many years, this was the answer that I accepted, but I still missed school for vomiting and stomach pains frequently.  In addition, I had red, enflamed hands that looked awful.  Because of the cracking and bleeding, we thought it was dry skin.  However, after years of dealing with the problem and realizing this was no ordinary dry skin, we believed that I was allergic to the cold.

Finally I turned eighteen and was still experiencing these "stress stomach aches".  When I said farewell to my parents and hometown to move to college, I also decided to give up some unhealthy eating.  I tried cooking with whole wheat flour.  Surprisingly, I was sick much less often.  Occasionally, it would flare up and I'd miss a class, but for the most part, the pain had improved.  My hands, however did not.  After one evening, I went out playing night games and returned with a bad rash not just on my hands, but everywhere!  I thought that I had really made myself too cold.  (In hindsight, I had made a white cake that day...)

When I moved back home between semesters, my healthy cooking gave way to the preferences of others in the house.  My stomach problems returned to their previous intensity.  Moving back to school and choosing to be healthy, I noticed the pains disappear.  Now, I was starting to wonder if there was a pattern.  One weekend, I went camping for my roommate's birthday.  We had pizza and store-bought muffins (junk food compared to what I normally eat).  I was sick when we got back.  I freaked out about all the junk food that I had had and began to worry that I was diabetic.

In talking to my mom and sister, I relaxed about the diabetes.  Some things that pointed away from diabetes was the fact that not all carbs made me sick.  I could eat brown sugar and honey without problems.  However, I now knew that the refined flours and grains seemed to cause illness.

After some trial and error, I recognized that unbleached (yet refined) flour did not make me feel sick.  After researching, I found that they actually use chemicals in the refining process to bleach these foods.  These chemicals are what make me sick.