Pizza From Scratch, and Being Active at Work

I hope you are all having fantastic weekends. Mine has been productive, and relaxing. Today I'm planning on doing some cooking for the week, and working on some blog posts for our workplace wellness company. For today's post, I'm finally celebrating "from scratch weekends"! Melinda, this one is for you.

Quick, Cheap, and Healthy Recipe #14

Oat Bran Pizza Crust

Ingredients
3 cups oat bran flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 t oil (for your fingers when spreading the dough)
1 t salt
1.5 T sugar
1 cup warm water

Possible Modifications

• Use whole wheat flour, or all purpose flour (less nutritious if you use the latter)
• Use canola oil or just regular olive oil

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2) Combine and mix the flour, salt, sugar, and the yeast in a medium sized bowl. Next, add the EVOO and water.

(It sort of stuck to the side of the bowl. I just scrapped it off and put it back into the ball.)

3) Coat your hands with some oil, or non-stick spray. Use your hands to spread the dough evenly on a pizza pan, the larger the better.

4) Add topping as desired. Cook for 20-30 minutes (depending on your oven and how crispy you like your pizza!)

I put pizza sauce on Nick's half, and EVOO on my half. Pizza sauce has spices in it that I cannot eat, as they are part of FODMAPS.

I ended up putting sauce on 3/4 of the pizza, because that's how much Nick typically eats. One-fourth (or two large pieces) of the pizza is always sufficient for me, especially because I usually have pizza with a nice beer. On this particular night, it was a Great Lakes Burning River (pale ale).

Toppings

• Sauce or EVOO

• Mozzarella cheese (Organic, I usually buy organic dairy) (~3/4 cup)

• Chunks of grilled chicken (Trader Joe's) (~3 ounces)

• Green pepper (~1/2 cup, only on Nick's side)

• Spinach (~1/2 cup, only on my side)

• Tomato (~1/4 cup, only on my side)

Basil (~1 T)
Garlic (~2 t)
Cayenne (~1/2 t)


Nick's Rating: 10 out of 10


My Rating: 9 out of 10
** While this pizza was AMAZING I will use a larger pizza pan the next time I make it. The pieces were really thick and that made it difficult to get the middle crust completely cooked. It was so thick I could barely eat my two pieces, and in fact, Nick only had two pieces himself!! I have never seen him eat only two pieces, EVER. **


Nutrition Facts for the CRUST Only
(Serving Size: 1/8 of the pizza)
** This crust received a C+ rating, but once you add some healthy toppings, like lots of veggies and calcium-packed cheese, it will be a healthier meal!! Also, it is better than a crust made with white flour, as this one provided almost 5 grams of fiber per slice! **

Being Active During the Day

Many people responded to the comment I made on my post a couple days ago, regarding the fact that working out once a day isn't necessarily the end all be all when it comes to weight management and overall health. Some people think they can workout for an hour, then sit on their butt all day, but this just doesn't cut it! I'm not saying you need to be walking and moving all day, but if you workout for 60 minutes, then go to your job and sit all day, that's a problem. What can you do to get a little more activity into your day?

• Park far away whenever you go anywhere. This will force you to walk more.

• Get up and walk to the furthest bathroom whenever you have to go.

• Get up and walk to the furthest drinking fountain, whenever you need a drink.

• Instead of paging someone, get up and personally tell them the message.

• Walk to your car and back during your lunch break.

• Do a set of push-ups (10 slow) every 30 minutes

• Ask about getting a Wii for the office!
  

• Ask your boss about sitting on a stability ball during work. Sitting on a stability ball, rather than a chair, will require the use of different muscles, rather than sitting in a nice relaxing chair, which requires use of very few muscles.

Question: Are there any other ideas you would like to add to this list?

Have a great day everyone! As always, thanks for reading :)