Recipe: Pizza-Inspired Low-Carb Frittatina

I told you, we're pizza fanatics. So here's another way to enjoy my favorite meal while sticking to a low-carb diet (for me, South Beach). I made this after being a little disappointed in my choice of toppings for the summer squash crust I made. I wanted to just do it with tomato sauce and mozzarella, but I didn't want to shred another squash and go through all that, so I just decided to make the "crust" out of eggs. Kind of like a frittata, but super thin and covered with toppings. Pizza toppings. Hence my wonderful name "Pizza-inspired Frittatina."

INGREDIENTS
3 eggs
1/2 t dried thyme
sea salt
fresh cracked pepper
1/4 C tomato sauce
1/4 C lowfat mozzarella
toppings (I used deli pepperoni and sliced olives)

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Coat pie dish evenly with olive oil cooking spray.
2. In a bowl, beat eggs, thyme, and salt and pepper (base amounts on your preferences, I just used a little bit of each). Pour eggs into pie dish and bake for 5 minutes.
3. Prepare your toppings (I used 5 black olives, sliced, and 3 paper-thin slices of deli pepperoni). After 5 minutes, remove dish from oven. Spread tomato sauce on top and sprinkle with mozzarella. Add toppings and return to oven for 2 minutes.

Word of advice: orange is not the best color as a background for photographing pizza.

It's that easy! Nutrition facts will vary depending on what you use, but mine came out to 400 calories, 9 grams of carbs, 29 grams of protein, and 24 grams of fat. If I had planned ahead of time and gotten low-carb tomato sauce, it would have only had about 6 carbs total. But I just used what was open in the fridge. Also, I know turkey pepperoni would have been better for me and had fewer calories, but I decided to let myself indulge a little. It's a lot harder to stick to a diet when you feel deprived, so little indulgences are important for the overall picture!

Recipe: Low-Carb Summer Squash Pizza Crust

So Friday night, I made an amazing low-carb pizza with a cauliflower crust. Saturday night, my husband was in the mood for pizza again. We're kind of pizza fanatics. We have eaten entire large pizzas on more occasions than I can count or remember. (No wonder we've both gained so much weight since getting married!) Anyway, I didn't have more cauliflower, but even if I did, I wanted something that wasn't quite so time consuming. I found a bunch of recipes and decided to try to make a crust using a summer squash I had in the fridge. The crust turned out all right, but it was very soft and had to be eaten with a fork. Also, I tried to mimic the toppings I used on the cauliflower crust, but the flavors didn't work as well together. But I am going to try making this again using tomato sauce and mozzarella (instead of the cottage cheese sauce), and I think it will be really good then.

SUMMER SQUASH PIZZA CRUST

 INGREDIENTS
1 summer squash
2 eggs
oregano
thyme
salt
pepper
toppings

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Shred squash, lightly salt, and let sweat in a colander for 10 minutes. Place squash in a cotton kitchen towel and squeeze to remove excess moisture.

2. Combine squash with eggs and seasonings and pour into a greased pie pan. Bake 5-6 minutes, until eggs are set on top.
3. Add your toppings and return to oven for 5 minutes. Let stand 1 minute before cutting and serving.

Recipes: Cauliflower Pizza Crust and LC Ranch Chicken Pizza

Well, my friends and I had an epic girls' night in. Complete with homemade pizza. Only, normal pizza doesn't exactly fit into the South Beach diet. At least not Phase 1. And at least not if you want more than a couple bites. So I had my own special pizza. Okay, I'll be honest, when it was sitting next to the cheesy pepperoni pizza the other girls made, mine looked a little sad. But I actually loved the way it turned out and will definitely make it again! My whole 9" pizza, with toppings, had only 33 grams of net carbs! Also, I didn't check all the ingredients (particularly the cottage cheese and ranch mix), so I'm not 100% sure, but I think this could be a gluten free meal too.

Let's start with the crust. I looked around at different low-carb recipes and my favorite one was by Detoxinista. But since I'm also limiting my dairy, I didn't want to put cheese in my crust. So this is what I did.

CAULIFLOWER PIZZA CRUST

INGREDIENTS
1 head cauliflower
1 egg, beaten
1 t oregano
a pinch of salt (I forgot to add it, but I won't next time!)

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Cut florets off cauliflower and discard stem. In a food processor, "rice" the cauliflower (see link to original recipe for more detailed instructions).
2. Put 1" water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Add cauliflower rice, cover, and boil for 5 minutes.
3. Strain cauliflower. Once cooled, place in a cotton kitchen towel and squeeze all the excess moisture out of it.
4. Combined squeezed cauliflower with remaining ingredients until you get mushy, but uniform dough.
5. Line a baking pan with parchment paper and press dough on to form pizza. (I made mine into a circle, even though I was baking it on a jelly roll pan.)
6. Bake 35-40 minutes until crust is firm and golden brown.

Okay, so the best part about this dough is that you can make it in advance. Which is what I did. You can freeze it, if you think that far ahead, but since mine was only done a day in advance, I just kept it in a dish. Anyway, the next part can be done immediately after cooking the crust, or whenever you feel like pizza and pull it out.

LOW-CARB RANCH CHICKEN PIZZA

INGREDIENTS
1 prepared low-carb pizza crust
1/2 C lowfat cottage cheese
1 T dry ranch mix
6 oz grilled chicken
mushrooms
olives
spinach

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Combine cottage cheese and ranch. Spread evenly over crust.
2. Slice toppings (I really liked the combination of all of these, but feel free to mix and match veggies according to your preferences) and put on pizza.
3. Bake 5-10 minutes so everything is hot.

It really was delicious. I ate 3/4 of it and felt full, but had the last piece a few hours later. The whole thing had about 600 calories, so a moderate-sized dinner. But it was pizza! And it was delicious! And it filled me up! So, all in all, I'd say that was a success.

Recipe: Almost Lasagna

I made lasagna for the family, but had to make some alterations so it would be South Beach friendly. (See the regular lasagna recipes.) I've made it in the past by substituting roasted squash slices for the noodles, but I couldn't find any squash at the store. Same thing with eggplant (which I actually really like as a lasagna noodle substitute). So I came up with this lasagna-inspired mini casserole. I put it into two of these personal baking dishes and had one for dinner tonight. I now have dinner for tomorrow too! (FYI, each serving had about 200 calories). I ate it with a big side salad with a little bleu cheese dressing.

INGREDIENTS

MEAT

1/4 lb lean ground beef

fennel seed

crushed red pepper

thyme

oregano

sea salt

fresh cracked pepper

SAUCE

1 large slicing tomato

1 T dried minced onion

1 T onion powder

2 T garlic powder

1/2 packet Stevia

thyme

oregano

sea salt

fresh cracked pepper

CHEESE FILLING

1/4 C lowfat cottage cheese

1/4 C nonfat plain Greek yogurt

basil

LAYERS

1 C thinly sliced mushrooms

1 C baby spinach leaves

1/4 C lowfat mozzarella

DIRECTIONS

1. In a skillet with 1/2" water, brown meat with seasonings. I didn't measure how much I put, I just went by the aroma it was giving off. The fennel seed makes it almost taste like Italian sausage, and the crushed peppers give it a bit of heat.

2. Chop up tomato and add seasonings to taste. The Stevia helps to balance out the acidity of the tomato. It's totally optional, but most tomato sauces you buy have some sugar in them. It should look kind of like pico de gallo.

 3. Combine ingredients for cheese filling (again, to taste).

4. In each dish, layer 1/6 of sauce, 1/4 of spinach, 1/4 of mushrooms, 1/4 of meat, 1/4 of cheese filling, 1/4 of remaining sauce, 1/2 of remaining spinach, 1/2 of remaining mushrooms, 1/2 of remaining meat, 1/2 of remaining cheese filling, 1/2 of remaining sauce. Top each dish with 1/8 C mozzarella.

5. Bake for 10 minutes at 350.

Recipe: Taco Salad

So my big challenge this week is finding meals that are easily adapted to fit Phase 1 of South Beach (without having to make my husband suffer with me). So here's a super easy fix: taco salad. While hubby had three carb-loaded tacos (20g carbs and 120 calories in each tortilla), I made a giant taco salad. You can't really tell from the picture, but that bowl is 9 inches across. This is what I put in there:

5 cups lettuce (mixture of red leaf and green leaf)
1/2 pound lean ground beef, browned and seasoned with taco seasoning
2 T salsa
1/8 C Greek yogurt
5 black olives
guacamole made from 1/6 avocado with lemon juice and garlic salt

I stirred it all up (about 100x less photographic at that point) and had one of the most filling dinners I've had in a while. I honestly think it would be fine with half the meat, but I've been counting calories (even though you don't have to on South Beach) and was worried that I was eating too little, so I added the extra meat.

Recipe: Turkey-Avocado Lettuce Wraps

Here's another South Beach Phase 1 meal I came up with. I had it for lunch today. It was quick, easy, and super yummy!

INGREDIENTS
2 large leaves lettuce (I used red leaf)
1/2 T mayonnaise
2 slices lowfat turkey
1/6 medium avocado
fresh cracked pepper

DIRECTIONS
Spread 1/4T of mayo on each lettuce leaf and top with 1 slice of turkey. Split the avocado equally between both wraps, top with some fresh pepper. Roll and enjoy!

Recipe: Turkey-Spinach-Mushroom Omelet

Okay, first of all, I can't make omelets. They always fall apart. So this is actually a picture of a scramble. Not as pretty, but still delicious! Anyway, I started the South Beach diet on Monday. That means severely limited carbs for the first two weeks. It's a lifestyle change, but I am managing to find delicious ways to satisfy my hunger while sticking to the diet. This is what I had for breakfast (Phase 1 friendly), and it was super filling too!

INGREDIENTS
1/2 C mushroom slices
2 slices lowfat turkey, chopped
crushed red pepper (optional)
2 cups (loosely packed) spinach
3 medium eggs
1/4 C lowfat mozzarella cheese
fresh cracked pepper (optional)

DIRECTIONS
In a dry, nonstick skillet, heat mushroom and turkey until mushrooms start to soften, stirring frequently. Season with crushed red pepper (I added about 1/4 tsp) and add spinach. Continue to stir and cook until spinach wilts. Remove to plate. Add 3 eggs to pan (if you're like me, just scramble them, otherwise make them into an omelet). When eggs are almost cooked, add turkey and vegetables back in. Serve on a plate, top with cheese and pepper.

I couldn't taste the mozzarella as well as I'd hoped. I really think swiss would offer a much better taste. But I didn't have any lowfat swiss on hand (cheeses have to be lowfat during Phase 1 of South Beach).