Pizza, Pizza!

Ooooh, recipe share time!  I love Pinterest.  A LOT.  Like almost to the verge of obsessed with.  As I said, I'm currently unemployed so I have a lot of free time.  And there's just something slightly more appealing about Pinteresting than cleaning, doing laundry, etc.  I mostly pin about food and decor.  I love both.  And one of the things I love most about Pinterest is that it saves your recipes in a convenient location so even though I found a recipe 6 months ago, I can still access it without digging through a drawer.  Awesome.  Unfortunately, a lot of recipes you find online are unhealthy.  Not just slightly unhealthy, but totally bad for you, ruin your Weight Watchers week unhealthy.  But, I've learned from the best (Thank you, Hungry Girl), I healthify them.

Last night I did this to a Pepperoni Pizza Casserole recipe.

Don't tell me this doesn't look absolutely delicious?  Well, it's probably super fattening too.  But a few minor fixes and we're on our way to delicious and nutritious!  

Always be on the lookout for lower fat substitutions.  I no longer buy anything except fat free or reduced fat for dairy, meats, and sauces/dressings.  And I only buy 90% or more lean hamburger/ground turkey.  Oh, and those meatless crumbles work great in recipes where you throw a lot of stuff together.  They seriously taste pretty good too.  Add veggies where you can!  Casseroles are perfect because everything gets mixed together and often an extra serving of vegetables goes completely unnoticed.

Here's what I did:

• Halved the pasta - I used 6 oz rather than 12 oz and substituted regular pasta for the veggie/grain blend kind.  I also like whole wheat pasta and it works great as a substitute.
• Omitted the sausage altogether - Even though the recipe called for turkey sausage, any "sausage" product tends to have a good amount of fat in it.  Plus, I didn't have any.  Laziness won out because I didn't want to trek to the store.
• Added meatless crumbles for bulk - Since I took out the sausage component, I wanted more "meat" in the dish.  I heated up 1/2 bag (1/2 lb) of meatless crumbles and added it.  Oh, and for the italian flavor, I cooked them with a good amount of italian seasoning (blend).
• Added more healthy veggies - Let's face it.  Black olives are pretty good, but can't really be called vegetables, can they? Dave doesn't like them so I decided to leave them out but add in green pepper and onions instead.  Both are what I consider healthy veggies and the perfect pizza toppings!  I softened them up by cooking them with the crumbles for about 8 minutes on the stove.  
• Reduced the sauce - I only had one can of pizza sauce (12 oz) so I went with that.  To add more tomatoey goodness, I threw in a can of diced tomatoes.  I'm sure even canned tomatoes are healthier than sauce so I think it was a good compromise.
• Subbed pepperoni - I never buy real pepperoni, only the turkey kind.  I know there's a taste difference, but I'm immune to it now and think the turkey version are pretty good.  Instead of 4 oz, I just counted out 2 servings or about 34 pepperoni.  I also halved them with a knife so that you got more 'roni in each bite!
• Cheese Substitutions - I used part-skim Ricotta, reduced fat Mozzarella, and reduced fat grated Parmesan in the recipe instead of their full fat counterparts.  Still perfectly cheesy.
• Revised the serving size - FOUR servings?  Really?  Even with my changes, the recipe makes a pan-sized amount.  I revised the servings to SIX.

Original Recipe - 22 PointsPlus per serving

Healthified Version - 10 PointsPlus per serving

This recipe was a total winner.  Super yummy, super cheesy, super satisfying.  For dinner, we added a small side salad with light dressing.  I ate 1 1/2 servings, but my entire dinner still clocked out at 17 PP.  Not bad at all!