So I haven't posted a recipe in forever and since I'm always looking for low calorie alternatives to my favorite foods I thought that I would share how I get through a pizza craving with my tortilla pizza recipe. I call it tortilla because I use a tortilla wrap as the crust but I think that it falls into the flat bread pizza category ultimately and who wouldn't want a piled with veggies flat bread pizza for a mere 270 calories? When we are on a limited calorie budget getting creative with meals is a must and I think that this one fills a void that so many people have with pizza where the normal would be to go without, I say why go without? just adjust it around what we can have! so let me get right to it with the ingredients.
The ingredients are as follows
2 Tortillas/wraps I use Smart Delicious because they are only 100 calories each.
1/4 cup Spaghetti sauce
3 T Parmesan cheese
Garlic powder
2oz Mozzarella cheese
1oz Green bell pepper
1oz Red onion
1oz Black olives
1oz Baby Bella mushrooms
Jalapeno
Black pepper
Pinch of Splenda (optional)
Let me start by explaining some of my choices because most if not all of these ingredients can be customized to what you like, my choices are based on caloric value and price. The tortillas that I use are only 100 calories and there eight huge tortillas in the package so its a good bang for the buck in calories as well as price, besides that they taste really good and I use them for lots of other recipes too. I use Spaghetti sauce in place of pizza sauce mostly because its cheaper to buy a big jar of sauce rather than the smaller pizza sauce jars and again I use it for other things and with a tiny pinch of Splenda it tastes like pizza sauce which is something that I have been doing forever and that explains where the Splenda comes into play as well and also why its optional. All of my veggie choices are because they all lend huge flavor benefits while having a very low calorie value per ounce besides the olives so I can use them pretty much at will, the pepper came out of my garden so it was free of charge and that's always a plus for me too. The Mozzarella cheese is your run of the mill part skim milk Mozz and was chosen on price and calorie value, it happens to be stop and shop brand and has a very average 80 calories per ounce and I prefer it to the fat free or full skim milk variety because of flavor and the rest of the ingredients is just what I happened to have on hand.
Okay, at some point we will want to chop up the veggies and weigh the cheese out so that making the pizzas goes smoothly and the above photos show what I ended up with after that step. My daughter was my assistant and insisted on using her little cereal bowls when she saw me snapping pictures and in that second photo you can see the amount of Jalapeno that I used as well as what 2oz of Mozz cheese looks like on a saucer. This is how I assemble the pizzas and in what order the items go on.
1.) I start by preheating the oven to 425 degrees and spray a very light film of low calorie cooking spray onto the baking sheet while I create the pizzas.
2.) Lay the tortillas onto the sprayed cooking sheet and measure out 1/4 cup of the spaghetti sauce and split it equally onto the two tortillas spreading it around evenly followed by a couple pinches of Splenda on each one to give it that pizza sauce taste that I like.
3.) Shake 1/2 T Parmesan cheese over each sauce covered tortilla and add a shake of garlic powder and the Jalapeno at this point, I like the jalapeno under the Mozz but on top of the sauce because it seems to put the flavor into the sauce a bit more that way.
4.) Put 1oz of Mozzarella onto each of the pizzas and shake some black pepper on top of the cheese once its spread evenly over the sauce and jalapeno.
5.) Now add 1/2 oz each of the Bell pepper, Red onion, Black olives and Baby bella mushrooms to each of the pizzas and then shake 1oz of the Parm cheese onto each pizza and you should end up with something pretty close to the image below.
6.) Place the pan into the oven for 10-12 minutes, depending on your oven cooking time may vary a bit but I just keep an eye on them since the tortilla is pretty thin and can burn easy if not watched. I prefer mine slightly more crisp than my daughter does so hers was done in 10 minutes while mine took 12 minutes and you can see from the picture below the edges were beginning to darken up on mine and that's how they came out of the oven, perfect.
7.) The final step is to cut it up and enjoy! below is the finished product just seconds before it found its way onto my plate and into my gut, it was a mighty tasty little alternative to its high calorie cousin if I do say so myself.
My entire dinner which consisted of both of the pizzas that you see in the second to last image was only 542 total calories which is as I stated earlier only 270 calories per pizza. I was full when dinner was all said and done while my mouth was left with the flavor of some pretty good pizza in it all for a measly 542 calories, in my book that's one for the W column and us calorie counters. The next time that you crave some pizza give this recipe a try and I think you might just find that it hits the spot! The next time someone asks you how you lost all of your weight you can then reply with "by eating pizza of course!", but seriously don't think that you can't have your favorite meals just because you are "dieting" its all about how we make our food choices work for us because this is a lifestyle and eating well can and should be a part of it.
I hope that you enjoy it if you try it and please let me know if you do in the comments, if I get a good response I may just start posting my recipes regular like because I hardly say it but I love getting feedback from you who choose to read my chicken scratch each day.
That's all I got.
As Ever
Me
