Meatless Monday with Green Goddess Pizza!

I have toted the benefits of having my own bread making machine before, but for the first time I recently made pizza dough, and now I can say I have tried one of the best pizzas ever! Yes- I am not shy to say I did an amazing job on this little dish that I can't wait to make for a future dinner party. Who's coming???


This recipe uses whole wheat pizza dough, caramelized onions, and plenty of green goodness. I hope you like :)


Green Goddess Pizza

Ingredients:


Dough: 

• 1 cup room temp water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 ½ tsp yeast

Topping:

• 2/3 cup tomato sauce (I used from my own recipe) 
• 1 4 oz package mozzarella or 1 cup fresh mozzarella
• 1 cup kale, de-ribbed and chopped
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 1/4 arugula
• 1/2 cup broccoli florets
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 
  

To make the pizza dough, place all dough ingredients into bread maker according to bread machine directions (mine has wet go in first, with yeast on top). Press the button for the "Dough" setting and choose the "1.5 lb" setting. Press start and let the 

machine do the rest!

Meanwhile, it's time to caramelize the onions using these instructions. Since we are only using 1/2 a cup of onions, it will only take about 15-20 minutes until the onions are ready. Just don't let the onions get too burnt and crispy! It's important to stir frequently! Caramelized onions are a really nice touch to this green pizza, so I wouldn't recommend skipping this step even though it can be a bit of a pain to caramelize onions. I have found that it's always worth the wait and effort!

Nice and brown, but not too crispy

Once the onions are caramel brown and fragrant, put aside in a separate bowl, then in the same pan you used to cook the onions, add the other tbsp of olive to it and heat over low heat for a couple minutes, then add the kale, spinach, and arugula. Saute stirring until greens are well-coated with the oil for about 5 minutes, or until slightly wilted. Add more olive oil as needed. Set aside if the dough is still working.

Preheat oven to 425. Once the dough is ready, take it out and knock it back on a lightly floured chopping board. Next, roll it out with a rolling pin, then place it into whatever shaped pan you're using to bake the pizza in. I used a basic 15.5" x 20" cookie sheet. If you roll it out and have any dough left over, just pop it in the fridge for later or make garlic knots with it!

melty cheese 

Once the dough is flattened out to your liking, spoon the tomato sauce over it until covered until about 1" away from edge of dough as shown in picture above. Next top that with the mozzarella cheese, oregano and basil, then pop in oven for about 7 minutes, or until cheese is just starting to melt. remove from oven then top with the remaining ingredients, along with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Put the pizza back in the oven for another 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before serving. Enjoy!

About to go into the oven 

Fresh out of the oven

This pizza is loaded with plenty of good-for-you goodness! Greens, whole wheat, homemade tomato sauce, garlic, olive oil...and it tastes incredible! Seriously, if you have the means and find the time to make this, you won't be sorry. The basic pizza dough recipe can be made with white flour as well if you prefer, and you can just put on whatever toppings you like! So easy! Just a bit time-consuming, but not really when you remember the bread machine does most of the work. If you don't have a bread machine, here is a recipe for making pizza dough with your hands. It's fairly simple either way you make it.


Lily loved this too- what kid doesn't like pizza? Broccoli is one of her favorite veggies, and combining that with gooey cheese and tomato sauce which she also enjoys, this dish may become one of her favorites. I've only made it once, but plan to make it again very soon, possibly using different toppings. Paul said it was the best pizza dough he ever tasted, so that made me feel pretty good too :)


Normally I do a recipe link-up, but like I said in my last post, the free trial for my Linky Tools is used up and I'm saving every bit of cash I can, so hopefully the link-ups will be back soon, but for now just enjoy this extra special Meatless Monday recipe. Have a great week!


P.S. I apologize for the weird spacing in this post, I can't figure out why Blogger is making it do that because I didn't mean for it to be double-spaced and can't figure out how to fix it. If anyone has a clue, please fill me in, thanks!