Friday Foods: Pizza

You can think I’m crazy if you want to. I’m a busy lady and meal planning is one of those do-ahead kind of things that I like to check off my list and not worry about again. I will glance at it again to create my grocery list, but that is it! In light of that, I have actually chosen recipes for the entire year to fill my meal plan. Bear in mind I don’t cook every single night but still…
Friday night is pizza night. As a wedding gift, my husband and I received a pizza pan, a pizza cutting board, and a pizza cutter. It’s so cool because we get perfectly sliced pizzas every time I use them! (Thank you again, whoever you are!) I quickly found a pizza dough recipe we liked, and a few favorite pizza toppings, and the pizza night tradition was born! The great thing about making my own dough is that I’m able to substitute whole wheat flour to make it a little more healthy, and I can choose the nutritional content of my pizza. Of course I track all my recipes on Lose It and make sure I moderate my portions, but for the most part we have some pretty yummy pizzas that are fairly healthy!
So, here you go: a year’s supply of pizza recipes I have gathered from various sites!!
Plus! As a bonus – the dough recipe:

Pizza dough:
1 cup warm water
1 packet yeast (or just over 2 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons olive oil (the pure kind works just as well as evoo)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 whole wheat flour (freshly ground is best – so yummy)

Dissolve yeast and sugar in the water. Once it becomes foamy, combine all ingredients and knead for about five minutes in stand mixer with the bread hook. Done. Sometimes I let it rise for a little bit, this is usually all I do.  I almost always use this dough, even if the recipe calls for other kinds of crust.

Spinach and Mushroom Pizza – my NEW favorite (Pictured above)

Herbed Cheese Pizza

3 Cheese Spinach Flat Bread

Tomato Basil Pizza

Butternut Squash Pizza

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Pesto Chicken Pizza

Easy Calzones

Garlic-Ranch Chicken Pizza

Spicy Chicken and Pepper Jack Pizza

Chicken Fajita Melts

Seeded Pizza with Mushrooms and Taleggio

Grilled Heirloom Tomato and Pesto Pizza

3 Cheese Pizza with Pine Nuts and Tomatoes

3 Cheese Pizza with Pancetta and Mushrooms

Pepperoni Rolls 1

Broccoli Rabe and Smoked Mozzarella Pizza

Roasted Garlic Chicken Pesto Pizza

Southwestern Pizza

Broccoli, Artichoke and Mushroom

Pesto, Tomato, and Spinach

Portobella Mushroom Bruschetta

Italian Prosciutto and Gorgonzola Pizza

Rotisserie Chicken Pizza

Sicilian Style Pizza

Salami & Roasted Pepper Pizza

Chicken Taco Pizza

Sausage and Arugala Pizza

Easy Greek Lover’s Pizza

Sausage and Artichoke Pizza

Italian Sausage and Banana Peppers

Easy Pepperoni Rolls 2

Deep Dish Pizzas (2)

Thai Chicken Pizza

Martha Stewart 40+ Pizzas

Pizza Hut Original Pan Pizza

Grilled Tomato-Eggplant Pizza

Cajun Shrimp Pizza

Chili Bruschetta Pizza

Mexican Pizza

Margherita Pizza with Artichokes

More from Annie’s Eats

As time goes by, I will post my own reviews of these pizzas.  If you try some you like, feel free to post a comment about it! 🙂

Friday Foods: Breakfast and Lunch

So I’ve been asked what I eat since I generally have the same foods for breakfast and for lunch. Eating this way makes planning meals and having discipline that much easier.
For breakfast I have a smoothie everyday. In my last post I explained that I got the recipe from Alton Brown’s “Buff Smoothie“, but I portion it down to fit inside my Bullet. My husband or I prepare them the night before so they’re ready to blend in the morning. Next morning, we add wheat germ and ground flax before blending them up. That’s usually my breakfast, with some Greek yogurt or a hard-boiled egg for protein.  When I know I’m going to have a busy day, I will also have a piece of toast or half a bagel too.

For lunch, I usually have a salad.  I get the big packages of romaine and Spring mix at my wholesale store and cut up the romaine at the beginning of the week with a lettuce knife and portion the salad into baggies.  I also prefer whole carrots so I peel and cut those to portion for daily meals.

When I’m ready to eat my lunch, I pull out a baggie of salad, a baggie of carrots, and whatever toppings I like to have.  I pre-portion a serving size of walnuts into cups so I can just grab a cup to add to my salad.  A lot of times I’ll add to my salad things that I want to check off of my daily list of good foods to eat.  I always include a carrot and an apple, and nuts – or, if I don’t have walnuts, I might have avocado or tuna fish instead – something that has essential fatty acids.  I also include a hard-boiled egg or yogurt on the side depending on which I had for breakfast.  Any other toppings are just for variety and to help make the salad more palatable.  One of my favorite toppings is Goldfish crackers.  So yummy!  I also spring for the pricier dressings because that makes the whole difference to me.  If I don’t love the dressing, I won’t love my food and, “if I don’t love it, I don’t swallow” (Ratatouille).  I try to stick to the portion sizes for salad dressing though because by now, the calories are really piling on.  At this point, with the nuts, egg, apple, dressing, crackers, etc. this salad is around 500 calories, which is a decent-sized lunch.  Sometimes I have half a pb & j or a small portion of leftovers from dinner if I’m still hungry.

That’s it.  I will go into more of what I like to have for dinner in another post, but as a glimpse, my dinner schedule includes Crock pot Sundays, one vegetarian meal, one pizza meal, and one regular dish that can be anything.  The other nights, we have leftovers.  I think I fell into this habit because other diet programs I have observed are usually pretty strict for breakfast and lunch but relaxed for dinner.  It makes sense to me.  I prefer preparing meals in the evening when my whole family will enjoy them.  Plus, it’s easy to prepare breakfast and lunch ahead of time so I’m not wondering about it when I’m running around and stressed out.  This is how I avoid emotional eating I guess. (My emotional eating comes when I just don’t have an appetite and I look at the salad and feel nauseous.  That’s when I grab the bag of chocolates and skip lunch altogether.  I don’t recommend this.  However, when it happens, I have to get back into it the next day and try again.)

What do you do to keep your discipline during the day?  How do you avoid emotional eating?