Food for Fuel: Chicken Ratatouille Pizza

September 14, 2008 at 8:21 pm | Posted in Food, Nutrition, Pizza, Poultry, Vegetable Side Dishes | 5 Comments

I just had an amazing meal, and you must forgive any typos because I also had an amazing cocktail and have no tolerance (chardonnay mixed with Diet Cherry 7 Up. Try it).

Ratatouille is one of my favorite vegetable side dishes. However, one rarely has so many vegetables lying around, but I had an eggplant and was going grocery shopping anyway, so I put all the necessary ingredients on the list and got ready to go to Veggie Heaven.

I based my ratatouille on this recipe. In the past, I have also used this one, and it is also delicious, but I did not feel like buying the salad dressing. Anyway, I used the canned Del Monte tomatoes with garlic, basil, and oregano to enhance the flavor of the dish. In addition to the eggplant, zucchini, and onion, I used about 4 oz. of mushrooms and half of a large red bell pepper.

Ratatouille takes a lot of chopping time, as well as some time in the skillet and then the oven. However, I will probably use the leftovers at least three times this week, so it’s worth the up-front effort.

This dish is wonderful with cheese on top, and I usually include it. This time, however, I left it off and will add cheese as I use the leftovers. Ratatouille is wonderful as a side dish, over pasta, and especially…

On pizza.

While the ratatouille (so hard to spell, by the way) was in the oven, I topped my whole wheat pizza crust (1/3 of the recipe) with fresh basil, cooked chicken breast, and chopped kalamata olives. When the ratatouille came out of the oven, I scooped a bunch onto the pizza and covered it with a blend of bagged 2% Italian blend cheese, bagged fat-free mozzarella, and freshly grated parmesan (gotta have some of the good stuff). I baked it at 350* for about 20 minutes and then turned it up to 450* for a few more. It was wonderful and well worth the time spent making the ratatouille.

Just a note on the pizza crust: I haven’t been pre-baking the crust, but I suggest you do if your pizza has any liquid ingredients. I tried lowering the baking temperature to 350* this time because of the diced tomatoes, but I think the crust would have been better if I had pre-baked it for a few minutes before topping.

Nutrition of this Meal

This meal contains 12 ingredients on the World’s Healthiest Foods List:

• Bell peppers
• Eggplant
• Garlic
• Mushrooms
• Olives
• Onions
• Tomatoes
• Summer squash
• Chicken
• Low-fat cheese
• Whole wheat
• Basil