Piiiizza!

Once a week, at our place, is Pizza Day. Just so there´s one evening a week I won´t have to cook.
For me, that meant having just half a pizza , and watching DH eat a whole one. Not what I liked, really.
Yesterday, the prospect of having to carve a frozen pizza in half started me thinking about what it really was I like about pizza, apart that it´s a fast meal.
And I had a revelation of sorts.
What I like about pizza is...the toppings.
Not the doughy, carb-laden crust. The vegetables on top, the melted cheese, the tomatoes. All things I may eat. The crust, on the other hand, is no different from eating a piece of bread where the effect on my weight is concerned. And bread, along with potatoes, is holding the top place of Things I Shouldn´t Eat, based on two years of observing how my body reacts to certain foodstuffs.
Eat them, and gain. Don´t eat them, and maintain or lose.
Whenever I was having a pizza, I was eating something I should be avoiding just because it came with something I like to eat and may eat.
Which, in turn, engineered a bit more of practical thinking.
If I don´t like to eat the crust anyway...
...why not prepare just the toppings?

And that´s exactly what I did.

Take an ovenproof dish (about the size of a pizza). Put a few slices of roast turkey (thin-cut) or lowfat salami (watch out for sugar) on the bottom, covering it. From the freezer, pick up about a pound total of mixed, cubed frozen veggies (I took onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and yellow corn, but any veggie you would also find on a pizza will do), put in a bowl and mix with a tablespoon of olive oil, a bit of salt and a generous sprinkle of Italian herb mix. Spread the mix over the dish, sprinkle a bit of grated cheese on, and put in the oven at the setting you´d use for pizza, just about twice as long as you´d keep a pizza in.

Voila- crustless pizza. As tasty as they come. The only disadvantage is that, of course, you´ll have to eat it with a fork and knife out of the dish instead of hand-feeding yourself off a platter. But then, sitting down at a table for dinner is a good idea anyway.
I´ll definitely do this more often. 


Julia