YOUR Homemade PIZZA GUIDE - How to have your slice and eat it too!

As part of the ongoing battle against North America's ever expanding waistlines, the government is planning to ask supermarkets and restaurants to shrink their products, in order to cull the calorie content in the food. Pizzas, ready meals and burgers will all be caught in the crossfire, but your guilt-free meals needn't suffer. Here, we'll serve up a pizza recipe that will mean you can have your slice and eat it too! Enjoy!

The Bulk-Up 'Zaa:

A decent slice of pie doesn’t have to be boxed in to your cheat day; at least, not if you banish Little Caesars from the Contacts list on your phone. In fact, with a few smart tweaks, pizza can become your perfect post-weight room muscle meal!  

This pan-cooked version packs a protein triple-threat with chicken, mozzarella and eggs providing 64 g of the stuff in just one man-size serving. Meanwhile, the oats in the re-imagined dough base will steadily replenish glycogen levels in your muscles while the manganese they contain will also ensure your frame can hold all that new, lean mass – the mineral is crucial for bone health. The spinach isn’t there just to make it look pretty, either- lab tests carried out at Rutgers University showed that it sped up the body’s conversion of protein into muscle mass. So think of this as your regular, blow-out Meat Feast, just minus the guilt and the shirt stains!

Ingredients

• Eggs, 4 whites, 1 whole

• Gluten-free oats, 120 g

• Coconut flour, 1 tbsp

• Tomato puree, 20 g

• Mozzarella, 50 g

• Chicken (cooked), 50 g

• Red onion, ½

• Spinach, a handful

Method

1. Put a non-stick pan on the burner with some coconut oil. While that’s heating up, take your egg whites, oats and coconut flour, and chuck them all together in your trusty blender to create a smooth batter. This would also be a good time to show your flair for multi-tasking by starting to fry an egg on the side.

2. Pour the mixture into the pan and spread it out evenly.  By now the pan should be hot, but you don’t want to carbonize your base, so turn down the heat once the batter has been added.

3. When you see bubbles appearing on surface of the base, flip your pizza base like a pancake and make sure it’s cooked evenly on both sides. Then take it off the heat and add the tomato puree, followed by the mozzarella, chicken, red onion, spinach and that fried egg you started cooking earlier.

4. Fire up the grill setting on your oven, then slide the pizza in to finish it off and melt the cheese. A couple of minutes should be all that remains between you and a pizza that’s more likely to add inches to your

chest than your waist.

Nutrition Info:

Calories: 892 Protein: 64.2 g Carbs: 109 g Fat: 30 g

The Slim down Slice = Deliverance from evil 

True, this leaner, greener interpretation of pizza couldn’t be further from anything to have graced the gloved hands of a Pizza Hut delivery boy. Hell, it might be enough to make an Italian weep openly. But trust us, it hits the spot!

Broccoli will help fill you up without filling you out, being a rich source of phytochemicals that keep obesity at bay. And if you chow down after working out, the beta-carotene in the sweet potato will help you get back to pounding the pavement faster (yes! better recovery from pizza!) – researchers at Japan’s Osaka Gakuin University found that it aided recovery after an intense bout of exercise. Meanwhile, simply replacing mozzarella with cashew cheese (it’s more yummy than it sounds, honest!) brings its own host of benefits to the table: a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that men who interchanged regular foodstuffs with nuts reduced their waist size by more than half an inch. It’s pizza, yes, but just the thin end of the wedge! 

Ingredients

• 1 sweet potato

• Eggs, 1 whole, 2 whites

• Buckwheat flour, 30 g

• Sundried tomatoes, 7

• Basil, 1 tsp

• Tomato puree, 20 g

• Mushrooms, 3 sliced

• Red pepper, 2/3 sliced

• Broccoli, 3 florets

• Cashew cheese, 30 g

Method

1. Peel, chop and boil a large sweet potato until it’s cooked – 10 minutes should do it. Add it to your blender along with one egg, the whites of two more eggs, the buckwheat flower, sundried tomatoes and dried basil.

2. Crank your blender up to full power, then transfer your mix into a non-stick baking tray and spread it out evenly to form the base. Slide the tray into the oven at high heat and bake it until the crust has browned nicely – this shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, so keep an eye on it.

3. Next, take the base out of the oven and add your toppings. Slather on the tomato puree, then artfully sprinkle on the vegetables and the cheese.

4. Switch your oven over to the grill setting and then put your freshly topped masterpiece on the top rack for a few minutes. Once the veg has been softened and the cheese has started to melt, you’re ready to get your 'zaa on!

Nutrition Info:

Calories: 473 Protein: 28 g Carbs: 69 g Fat: 10 g

#nutrition #bulkup #slimdown #recipes #musclefuel