Welcome back to another episode of Safe Foods Eelevated with Basil Bass. In this episode, we will discuss how to make an all-time safe food more nutritious. Pizza is a beloved food by many, even those who are not neurodivergent. Learning to make this food more nutritious will serve you and your family well in the long run. The first tip I will give you is to make your marinara sauce or pizza sauce from scratch and pick vegetables to go in the sauce. Some of my personal favorites include spinach and carrots. If you’re feeling adventurous, some peppers add an extra flavor to your pizza sauce and sneak in some extra nutrients without clueing picky eaters into your intentions. I recommend tomato paste or tomato sauce for the base of said pizza sauce.
Tomato sauce will have more seasoning and be a little bit thinner, and it’s my favorite consistency, but feel free to use tomato paste if that is what you prefer. It’s also a good idea to add some fresh herbs, basil, oregano, garlic, etc into your tomato mixture. Once seasoned to your liking, add the vegetables, which you will blend into the sauce. It’s a good idea to chop vegetables very finely, so it’s easier for the blender or the food processor, whichever you are using, to mix into the pizza sauce. Now, one, two, three, and hit liquify on your blender. I had a sister growing up who was quite sensitive to textures and food, and boy, did the liquify feature on our family blender come in handy for my mother. Now, the extent to which you want to blend your sauce depends on how smooth and texture it needs to be. Once it has reached the proper consistency, remove it from the blender or food processor and set it aside.
I recommend using a multigrain or whole-grain pizza crust to be slightly more nutritious than a plain white flour pizza crust. Once you have your crust and sauce, it is time to decide on toppings. If you are a picky eater who only wants cheese, then that is what you should put on your pizza. Now, even for fussy eaters, I recommend putting new toppings on the pizza part, just a tiny part, so they can sample it and see if they like it. Do you ever know what someone’s going to want? For example, I will add grilled chicken to this pizza to add protein. It’s food that is safe and liked by most people, so I will sprinkle it on before putting it into the oven on top of our pizza rack at 4:25 for, say, 20 minutes. We will come back and check on our pizza. The show’s goal is not to shame anyone for being a picky eater. The hope and the desire is to slowly introduce more foods to people who have difficulty trying new things and slowly expand their palate. Now it’s time for a commercial break, and when we come back, we will check on our delicious pizza.
Welcome back. Our pizza has just come out of the oven, and I will sample it. I will try the slice with the grilled chicken I added to a quarter of the pizza and remember carrots, peppers, and spinach in my sauce. Next time, I’m going to add mushrooms to the chicken. And this pizza is delicious. Well, this is all we have time for on this episode of Safe Foods Elevated. Next time, we will discuss making a baked potato more exciting. I can’t wait to explain in detail how to make a delicious baked potato bar until then, so keep exploring with food bon appetit.
Living on the Spectrum 
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