Pizza is super easy and fun to make and is a great way to get the kids to eat lots of veggies.  This pizza is high in fibre , vitamins and minerals and low in sodium.  If you’re not going overboard with the amount you’re eating, and your toppings are fresh and mostly veggies then pizza can be healthy.

I made my own base and sauce but you can get them ready made.  Try to avoid the bases and sauces with too much salt, preservatives and additives in them.  Lebanese bread is a good option as a base, or you can buy spelt and gluten free bases from some supermarkets or online. If you don’t want to use tomato sauce, you can use a pesto made with basil and/or coriander (again, avoid preservatives) or make your own pesto – below is the ingredients for both sauces.

Ingredients

To make 2 large pizzas

Pizza Base

1 7g sachet dry yeast

1 tsp honey

3-4 cups spelt flour or strong unbleached flour

Tomato Sauce

1 brown onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1kg tomatoes

Handful basil

Salt and pepper, to salt

1 tsp dried oregano

Pesto Sauce

2 cups packed fresh basil leaves

½ cup packed fresh coriander leaves

2 tbsp sunflower seeds

2 tsp capers

4 kalamata olives, pitted

4 sundried tomatoes

2 garlic cloves

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Pinch of sea salt

Pizza Toppings

Add as many veggies as you can, this is a great way to get some extra veggies into the kids.

Choose from:

Finely chopped kale, Onion, Capsicum, Eggplant, Shiitake mushrooms, Swiss brown or button mushrooms, onion, thinly sliced sweet potato, thinly sliced and chopped radish, olives, chopped green beans, corn, broccoli, spinach, asparagus.

Top with mozarella cheese or a vegan alternative such as tofutti

Method

To make the dough:

Start this at least 90 minutes before.

Dissolve yeast sachet in a glass or pyrex (not metal) bowl with a glass of warm water and a tsp honey.  Add 1/2 cup spelt flour and stir.  Let it sit for about 10 minutes to activate the yeast, it should become bubbly and foamy.

Gradually stir in the rest of the flour until it becomes a good dough consistency (smooth and stretchy, a little sticky but not too wet).  Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes or let your food processor knead it for you with the dough hook.  If you’ve used the food processor, transfer the dough back to a glass bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil to stop it drying out, then cover the top of the bowl with a plate.  Let it sit somewhere warm for at least an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Separate the dough into 2 pieces and pull into a rough circle shape.  Roll out so it’s a few mm thin.  If you’re talented you could throw it around like this guy.

To make the tomato sauce:

Cut a cross over the top of the tomatoes. Blanch them in boiling water for one minute so the skin is easy to peel off. Allow them to cool and then peel the skin off, discard the seeds and roughly chop the flesh.

Gently fry the onion over a medium heat until soft in a little olive oil.  Add the garlic and fry for a futher minute.  Add the tomatoes and oregano and bring to the boil.  Reduce to a simmer and cook for approximately 30-40 minutes.

Puree with a stick blender until smooth.  Season to taste and add the finely chopped basil.

To make the pesto sauce:

In a food processor, combine basil, coriander, sunflower seeds, capers, olives, sundried tomatoes, and garlic; pulse a few times.  Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream with the food processor running.  Stop to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula.  Add a pinch of salt to taste.

Assembling the Pizza

Preheat the oven to 200C.

If you are making the dough from scratch and like me you’re not amazing at throwing dough around so it’s crazy thin, you’ll need to precook the dough for 10min so that the dough isn’t soggy.

Once you’ve done that, spread on your chosen sauce, and layer on heaps of veggies.  Sprinkle with cheese and cook until it’s golden brown.

 
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(not zucchini with pasta, zucchini AS pasta!)

Ingredients

• 2 zucchinis
• juice of half a lemon
• olive oil
• 1 tbsp capers
• 1 garlic clove

Method

1. Using a vegetable peeler, peel  your zucchini into long strips.

2. Saute the garlic, then add the zucchini.  You really don’t need to cook the zucchini for long, maybe 20 seconds.

3. Take off the heat and add the capers ( you can roughly chop them or add them whole), lemon juice and then season to taste. You can serve this as an accompaniment to a meal.

Tips

This is really taste and low carb. 

You could add some chilli or even chop an anchovy finely and cook it with the garlic for a bit of a different flavour. 

Add fresh herbs if you like!

Zucchini and summer squash have cooling properties, and according to principles of Chinese Medicine are good to overcome summer heat.  They also have a diuretic property, making it useful for fluid retention.

The post Zucchini pasta appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Recently I asked a question on my Facebook page:  What is the hardest meal for you to eat healthy? The overwhelming majority of people said: Snacks!  Even though when I review diet diaries and see that it’s the snacks that tend to sabotage a good day’s eating this still surprised me, I guess because I’m generally not much of a snacker.  So I had a think about why this is such a hard meal to eat healthy:

• Snacking is often mindless – you grab something to snack on without thinking about it, and it’s only after it’s in your belly that you say ‘oh… whoops’.
• Cravings, especially sugar cravings make you reach for the chocolate bar or sweet biscuit over the vegetables.
• It’s easier to justify snacking on junk food because you’re eating it in smaller portions.
• Foods packaged as ‘healthy’ snacks are often crammed full of sugar and preservatives, and unless you’ve studied nutrition it can be difficult to analyze labels and know what products are lying to you.  A common example is the myriad of supposedly healthy ‘low fat’ snacks available which are teeming with refined sugar.
• Snack choices are often controlled by our emotions.  If you’re doing some serious emotional eating, then snacking is probably happening more often than morning an afternoon tea as well, so quantity becomes an issue here too.
• Boredom makes you eat more.  Watching mindless TV shows is often accompanied by binge snacking.
• You realize that your blood sugar level has dropped so you think you need something sugary to pick it back up again.  Yes, something sugary will get you out of a slump but it will then send your blood sugars on a rollercoaster of highs and lows, meaning that you keep chasing them all day.
• You’re really hungry and you don’t care what you eat as long as it’s now!  This usually happens if you’re not prepared or haven’t eaten a good breakfast.
• That chocolate bar looks so good….

Ok, wow.  It seems that there’s a lot of reasons why snacking is hard to get right.

If you take some steps to plan ahead for the day and understand where your snacking weaknesses lie, it can be easier to make good choices, and you’ll feel and look much better for it.

There’s nothing wrong with snacking.  Having a small bite to eat between meals is a great way to give your metabolism a little kick and keep you from becoming ravenously hungry later, which can lead to overeating.  Snacking is also fun and tasty, helps you to regain focus and concentration and can be a great way to socialize.

But there is a difference between snacking and compulsive, emotional or hormonal eating. There is also a difference between snacking and bingeing.

Snacking Strategies

• Eat a good breakfast.  This will help you keep your blood sugar levels balanced throughout the day to reduce cravings from dropping blood sugar levels.  Aim to eat a balance of protein, good fats and complex carbohydrates.  An example is muesli with yoghurt (not low fat) and berries.
• Instead of saying “I won’t eat biscuits/lollies/chocolate today”, make your goal a positive one, such as “I will eat 2 pieces of fruit today” or “I will eat 5 green things today”.  Research has shown that if you focus on avoiding a food, you’re more likely to eat less healthy.
• Identify your snacking weaknesses and think of a strategy to avoid it.  Do you eat unhealthy snacks because it’s on the bench at work?  Keep your healthy snack food on your desk so that you can see it and remember your goal.  Do you eat when you’re bored?  Take up a hobby (e.g. knitting) which you could also do in front of the TV.
• Get organised. Part of the reason our snacking habits wreak such dietary havoc is that we make our choices haphazardly, leaving us highly susceptible to whims.  Instead, plan your snacking into your day: decide in advance what you’re going to eat, and set up a plan as to how you’re going to make it happen.  Look at the list of snacks below.  You’ll find many are suitable to keep in your handbag or desk drawer, so they’re available when you need them. That way, when stress strikes, you’ll have something healthy on hand to counter the urge to indulge in something fatty or sugary.
• Keep temptation out of reach.  If you know that you have difficulty resisting certain snacks, keep them out of the house! You’re less likely to eat chocolate at 10 o’clock at night if you have to get in the car and go to the shops to get it.
• Choose high fibre and protein.  A nutrient-dense snack keeps you satisfied for longer, so you’re less likely to over-eat later in the day. Your best choices are snacks that are high in protein and/or fibre. Compared to those that are fatty or sugary, these snacks also improve your glucose and insulin balance throughout the day. Include a few serves of whole grains in your main meals every day for the same reasons – they’ll help you feel full, and improve your insulin sensitivity.
• Think about what you’re eating.  The worst culprit for mindless eating is the TV.  When you eat in front of the TV your brain is less able to recognise that you are full, and you don’t digest your food as well.  There’s a time lag of up to 20 minutes between your tummy becoming full and your brain realising that it’s had enough food. The faster you eat, the more calories you guzzle down before that signal gets through.
• Turn the TV off.  The more you watch TV, the more you’re likely to snack, and the less likely you are to realise when you’re full.  Plus more viewing exposes you to more advertising, and guess what?  That makes you more likely to buy and eat junk food.  Research shows that vividly recalling your last meal helps to decrease your food intake later. That’s one of the reasons that eating while watching TV increases subsequent snacking – if you’re too distracted to pay attention to what you’ve been eating, it’s almost like it never happened. Mindless eating, such as in front of the TV contributes to an enormous number of weight problems and has even been documented in preschool-aged children.  It’s scientifically proven that the transfixing effects of television make you eat more. In part, the distraction of the TV dampens your brain’s ability to register that you’re full, so you just keep on putting food in your mouth. However, the calorie promoting effects persist even after you’ve turned the telly off. For example, when offered a snack of cookies in the afternoon, women who had watched television while eating their lunch ate more than women who had eaten their previous meal without TV.
• Aim for adaptability.  Be flexible. Life is for living, so if you really do feel like hot chips occasionally, don’t deprive yourself. You’ve got a better chance of maintaining healthier snacking habits if you allow yourself a little indulgence now and then!

Some snack options

• ¼  cup almonds and piece of fruit
• Natural yoghurt and a piece of fruit
• Natural yoghurt with grated apple and pecans
• Cottage cheese + tuna with a raw veggie serve
• 1 piece of fruit + 1 hard boiled egg
• Hard cheese (matchbox size) with a piece of fruit
• Miso soup
• Muesli bar
• Trail Mix
• 1/2 raw veggie serving and hummus or baba hummus
• 1/2 raw veggie serving and cottage cheese

Whenever veggies are mentioned, choose from:

• 2 medium carrots (can be sticks, grated or whole)
• 1 cup green beans
• 1 cup red or green cabbage
• 1 cup broccoli
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 asparagus spears
• 1 cup cauliflower

Whenever a fruit is mentioned, choose from:

• 1 apple
• 1 pear
• 2 small plums
• ½ grapefruit
• 1 orange
• 1 kiwi fruit
• 1 fig
• 2 small clementines/mandarins
• 1 ¼ cup strawberries
• 2/3 cup blueberries, raspberries or blackberries
• 1 peach

The post Snacks appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

Ingredients

• ½ cup brown rice syrup
• 2 tbsp coconut oil or unsalted butter
• ¼ cup almond butter or organic peanut butter
• 1 cup corn flakes
• 1 cup rolled oats (large oat flakes)
• ¾ dried fruit (raisins, chopped dates, apricots)
• ¼ cup sunflower, pumpkin, or sesame seeds
• ¼ cup chopped almonds

Method

1. Roughly chop up your mixed fruit and mix with the seeds in a bowl.

2.  Add almonds, oats and corn flakes and stir.

3.  Gently  heat syrup, coconut oil or butter, and almond butter in a large sized saucepan until melted.  Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients quickly.

4. Turn out into an 8 inch x 8 inch pan and press down with the back of a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.  Refrigerate at least 1 hour and then cut into 2 inch by 1 inch bars.

Tips

This recipe is a real winner.  Make a double batch and freeze. 

These should be kept in the fridge.
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