Zucchini Boat Pizza

Why is eating something out of an eatable boat so fun? And if it tastes like pizza, count me in! Cooking healthy CAN be easy and so yummy, it just takes some planning. This took me about 15 minutes of prep and 20 minutes in the oven. It's low-carb and full of zucchini, how awesome is that?? Originally from Budget Bytes, I added turkey pepperoni and more parmesan, and skipped the olives and bread crumbs. I <3-ed these!
Here we have a little picture tutorial to show how this works. I used a spoon to scrape out the zucchini and roughly chopped it into bite-sized chunks. Those chunks mixed with the rest of the ingredients to make the filling.

The filling was placed back into the hollowed-out boats and sprinkled with chopped turkey pepperoni and cheese. After about 20 minutes @ 350 degrees, the pizza boats were soft, not slimy, and the cheese perfectly toasted.  These boats were in the harbor, ready to be served! (I'm such a nerd about my food passions, sorry.)

Zucchini Pizza Boats

6 med. zucchini

1-8oz can tomato sauce

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or 1/4 cup parmesan, 1/4 cup bread crumbs)

1-1/2 tsp Italian seasoning blend

1-2 cups grated mozzarella cheese

  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Wash the zucchini well to remove any grit. Slice the zucchini lengthwise and, using a spoon, scoop out the flesh from the center. Leave about one centimeter of zucchini around the edges. Save the scooped out zucchini flesh in a bowl.

Place the scooped out zucchini halves on a baking sheet. Dump the reserved zucchini flesh out onto a cutting board and chop it into smaller pieces. Return the chopped pieces to the bowl and stir in the tomato sauce, bread crumbs (if using), parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning.
 

Refill the zucchini halves with the prepared mixture. Top with mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. Place in the oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until the cheese has melted and is slightly browned. The longer the zucchini are in the oven, the softer they'll be so if you like firmer zucchini, bake for a shorter amount of time.

Chicken Bacon and Spinach Pizza

This is my favorite pizza, by far. Even my vegetable-fearing kids will eat all the toppings. It takes a little preparation, but from start to finish in about an hour. Make it your own by using a different crust, a smokey Gouda, or some red onion. 

Pizza Crust

2 1/2 cups bread flour

1 Tbsp dried rosemary

1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp salt

2 1/4 tsp yeast or 1 yeast packet
1 cup warm water
3 Tbsp olive oil

Mix 1 cup flour and the next 4 ingredients in a mixer with a flat beater. Slowly add the warm water and oil while mixing, until most lumps are gone.

I switch to my dough hook on my Kitchen-Aide mixer at this stage and add the remaining 1-1/2 cups flour. Mix for 4 minutes until soft and smooth. 

Put into a greased or sprayed large bowl and let rise 30 minutes.

For the Pizza:

3 slices turkey bacon (I like oscar mayer), cooked and diced

1 chicken breast, cooked and sliced into 1/2" pieces

1 jar Classico Sun-dried Tomato Alfredo sauce (the SECRET ingredient!)Only use as much as you need, the whole jar would be WAY too much

1/2 6 oz bag of baby spinach

Handful of cilantro, minced

8-10 oz. of mozzarella cheese

Grated Parmesan cheese

1.Start by cooking the chicken. Throw it in a crockpot with some garlic salt in the morning on LOW and forget about until you're ready to make the pizza. Very tender.

2.Next cook the turkey bacon until crisp.  Then use the same pan used to cook the bacon, to wilt the spinach.

3.Throw the raw spinach into the hot pan and stir around until shriveled and much smaller, only 2 minutes or so.

4. Preheat the oven to 375, and roll out the crust. Oil the pan with a drizzle of olive oil and parmesan. Place crust in pan of your choice. I use a deep-dish pan, about 18" diameter.

5. Cook the crust for 8 minutes (give or take depending on the thickness of crust and pan-type).

6. Remove the crust from the oven and spread with sun-dried tomato alfredo sauce. Add remaining toppings, ending with the cheese.

7. Cook for another 8-10 minutes until cheese is slightly golden and crust is cooked through.

This is the pizza before adding the cheese. I start drooling at this point, it looks so good!

Hope you're hungry!