Carb Free Pizza – Cheese IS the Crust

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted. It’s not that I haven’t tried anything new in all this time. Actually, I’ve tried quite a few things and I hope to backtrack and post about some of them. Since I last posted, my wife and I have really tried to eat healthier. One thing we have been doing is trying to cut down on carbs. Since pizza is one of our favorite dishes, we figured a healthier pizza would be a great thing to add to our meal plans.

This pizza really struck us as odd since it contains no dough. The crust is literally made of cheese.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese – or more if desired
• 4 oz shredded cheddar cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp basil
• pepperoni

Directions:

1. Mix the cheeses, eggs and garlic well
2. Spread the mixture on a 16 inch baking sheet lined with parchment paper
3. Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes – but watch after 10 and remove when golden brown
4. Add some additional mozzarella cheese as desired
5. Add your toppings – we used pepperoni
6. Broil on the center rack for around 5 minutes until additional cheese is melted and toppings are cooked

The idea of using cheese as a crust seemed very odd to me. I wasn’t quite sure how it would work. We saw several recipes for this kind of thing and this one used the fewest number of eggs. We figured we wanted to avoid an egg flavor to our pizza so we went with this one.

Once the crust was cooked, we could kind of see how this was going to work. My only concern was how firm the crust would be.

So we continued making the pizza pretty much the way we would if it had “real” crust. I’m not really sure we needed to add additional cheese after the sauce since the crust was cheese, but we did it anyway.

Next we added a whole bunch of pepperoni. Never hold back on pepperoni. The way I see it, every bite should have some. Unfortunately, we ran out so the last little bit was plain.

As you can see, it came out looking really good. However, my concerns about the firmness of the crust were valid. You will pretty much need a fork to eat this pizza. Either that or cut it into much smaller pieces. That is what we chose to do. It made a great Super Bowl meal along with some cheese fries we made. Cheese, pepperoni, fries, bacon and Patriots win were all I could ask for.

We didn’t finish the pizza last night, so I heated it up again for dinner tonight. I was really curious how well it would hold up as leftovers. I knew microwaving it would be a bad idea, so I tossed it in the oven at 400 for a few minutes.

It actually hold up pretty well the next day. Well, the crust was still not as firm as an actual dough crust, but it tasted just as good as the night before. I must admit that I am not really sure of any of the nutritional info for this pizza, except that it uses no carbs. If that’s what you are looking for in a pizza, this one definitely gets the fussy eater seal of approval.

 

Flat-bread Pizza

It’s no secret that my wife and I love pizza. It was our first date meal (pizza, Con Air and The Rock – how that that miss?). It’s our typical anniversary meal. It’s our go-to fast food. Unfortunately, pizza isn’t exactly the healthiest thing to eat. Well, we’ve found a way to at least push things a little more in the right direction and that’s flat-bread pizza.

Most pizza has a thick crust. Even the thin crust pizza is far thicker than a piece of flat-bread. That’s a lot of unnecessary carbs and calories. So take a piece of flat-bread and spread a small amount of pizza sauce on it. Don’t use spaghetti sauce –  no matter who tells you they are they same, they are not and a fussy eater can certainly tell the difference (and probably an Italian too). Now take some 2% mozzarella cheese and cover the pizza. We like pepperoni on our pizza, but it isn’t really healthy. We figure that it’s still better than we would order from a pizzeria. Just go a little light on pepperoni or other unhealthy toppings.

 

OK, so maybe we didn’t go that light on the pepperoni. Like I said, it’s still better than pizzeria pizza. Get over it. Not everything I eat is going to be healthy. You do need some comfort food. If you can make it healthier than it was before, you are still helping yourself out overall.

Once the pizza is prepared, pop it in the oven at around 400 for around 8-10 minutes depending on how you like your cheese.

As you can see, I like my cheese just a little bit browned.  It’s nowhere near as good as the local Vintage Pizza, but it is pretty close to a Newman’s Own. If you are looking for a way to eat pizza and not get all the carbs and calories, give it a try. It gets this fussy eater’s stamp of approval. What about your fussy eater?

 

Newman’s Own Pizza

It’s no secret that my wife and I love pizza. Heck, it’s even our standard anniversary dinner! We even have a usual order at a local pizza place – Vintage Pizza. The only problem is that pizza doesn’t really fit well into a healthy diet. Like many people, we don’t want to have to sacrifice taste in order to eat healthy. Perhaps I shouldn’t use the word healthy to describe Newman’s Own. Rather, it is a healthier alternative to the pizza we would normally order which has a much thicker crust and a lot more cheese.

As far as frozen pizza goes, this is one of the best we have found. It’s reasonably priced and lower in calories than many of the others including DiGiorno. Newman’s Own comes in at about 320 calories for 1/3 pizza, but DiGiorno has about the same in 1/6 pizza. I must admit that 1/3 pizza seems like a pretty small serving. Usually the two of us split one pizza into 2 slices each. On a rare occasion we may even get one pizza each, but that’s not very common.

We find that a Newman’s Own pizza is a nice thing to keep on hand for those days we are just too worn out to bother with cooking or cleaning. The best part is that it is still better than getting fast food or ordering a pizza.

DiBella’s Subs

Nine years ago today, my wife and I got married down the street from where we live in the backyard of a Justice of the Peace. It was a nice informal wedding that suited us perfectly.

Usually we have lunch separately during the work week. We don’t have a traditional lunch for our anniversary, but I decided it would be nice for us to have lunch together at my wife’s office.

I stopped by DiBella’s Subs on the way to pick up a Ham and Swiss for her and a Chicken Philly for myself. The subs there are made fresh right there in front of you including the hot subs like my Chicken Philly. We enjoyed a nice lunch together which was a welcome change of pace for both of us. I’m not sure if this will become a new tradition for us, but we both really enjoyed it.

We did, however, have our traditional anniversary pizza tonight. You may recall me talking about that  back on the 10th. That’s because we celebrate both the anniversary of when we met as well as when we got married. Not only did we order our pizza, but afterwards my wife called them back to thank them for being such a big part of our lives together.