After a huge brunch this afternoon of hangover eggs, toast and hash browns, I wanted to make something lighter and remotely healthy for dinner tonight. Also because all of yesterday’s calories were spent on a yogurt, brown rice, a Mallow Cup and Jameson. (Mostly Jameson.)
Enter this pizza boat recipe from Budget Bytes (adapted from Green Lite Bites), which reminded of the pizza stuffed mushrooms I made during the playoffs. All three of our recipes called for a lot of cheese, so why not cut back on the dairy and make it lighter? Will our pizza substitute miss the extra cheese?
Nope. Not at all. You could probably omit the cheese and not even miss it.
Probably.
Football Off-Season Diet Food: Stuffed Zucchini Pizza
You will need:
2 pounds of medium sized zucchini (146 calories)
1 8 oz can Pastorelli pizza sauce (160 calories)
1/4 cup bread crumbs (110 calories)
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (110 calories)
1/4 cup shredded mozzerella cheese (80 calories)
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1-2 tsp dried oregano, crushed to release the flavor
dash of onion powder
couple of cloves of garlic, finely minced (Or a teaspoon or so of garlic powder.)
dash of crushed red pepper flakes
You might be asking, doesn’t fresh garlic have calories? Yes. 4 calories a clove. Guess what? I never count garlic calories. Foods that fight off vampires get a pass.
Preheat your oven to 425º.
Clean and slice each zucchini in half. Scoop out the insides with a spoon and set the zucchini shells on a lined pan.
Chop up the zucchini innards and place in a medium bowl. Mix in pizza sauce, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, garlic, seasoning (whatever you like, you don’t have to follow my seasoning guide), salt and pepper.
Spoon the zucchini innards/sauce mixture back into the zucchini bodies and top with mozzarella cheese.
Bake for about 20-25 minutes and serve.
I tweeted that these had 59 calories for each zucchini half, but a small error on my spreadsheet was found. True calorie count is 60.6 calories each, and I guess if you wanted to be technical with the fresh garlic they we’re probably closer to 61.4 calories each. If you’re worried about an extra 1-2 calories each, then you probably should have skipped that 100 calorie Mallow Cup yesterday.
(Calorie count will vary per serving as my two pounds of zucchini equaled five squashes. Take 606 calories and divide it by the number of halves you end up with for semi-accurate, garlic-free calorie counts.)
Let’s Go Pens! I’m going to need this recipe after the endless amount of playoff heart attack fries I’m going to need this Cup run.
(Posted the recipe because after I mentioned these on Twitter, I was flooded with requests.)
