New Year's pepperoni pizza

A homemade spicy pepperoni pizza is becoming a bit of a tradition for us on New Year's day. Perhaps after all the rich fare over the festive season, we just want something simple. I've missed crunchy salad vegetables too, and we made a large salad to serve with the pizza. What a great budget meal this is too - one large pizza costs around £2! Each pizza works out at around 750 calories - great for sharing.
As we return to our normal eating habits we will continue to eat whatever we choose to eat. Most diet constraints revolve around limiting or avoiding certain types of food. By not limiting the types of food we can eat, we've found this aspect of our weight loss method helps make it so much easier to lose weight and keep the weight off. We recognised eating is a habit, and drastic changes can be difficult to sustain so why not start with the idea you can eat whatever you want and watch the quantity instead.

PEPPERONI PIZZA

Ingredients (makes two 12" pizzas)

Base:

300g strong bread flour

175ml luke warm water

1 tsp sugar

5g dried yeast

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

Topping:

Passata

Garlic clove - crushed

Large red chilli (with seeds if you like heat)

Pepperoni slices (we used Sainsbury's Try Me £1 pack - 12 slices 42g)

125g mozzarella (or use your favourite cheese)
other vegetables e.g. sliced red onion, red & green pepper, mushrooms

***

Mix the pizza base ingredients together: water, sugar and yeast. Leave to activate (5-10 mins). Follow the directions on the pack.

Put the salt and flour into a bowl with the olive oil. Add the pizza base mix and stir thoroughly. Knead for up to 10 minutes. This is the difficult bit if you do not have a food mixer with a dough hook. But, it's a great workout that burns a few calories....

Leave the dough to rise for around an hour, or until double the original size. Knock the air out of it - ie knead it again until it returns to its original size. This will take a minute or so. 

Divide into two equal amounts and form into whatever shape you would like your pizza to be. 

Heat the oven to 200ºC.  Put your pizza tray in the oven to heat up too. TIP: We use an upside down (pre-heated) baking tray, lightly dusted with semolina to stop it sticking. 

If you want a thinner crust (as in our photo), then prick the base all over with a fork. 

Add the crushed garlic to the passata (plus any other flavourings you like). Spread the base with this passata mix.

Place all the other toppings onto the base - everything EXCEPT the mozzarella. 

Cook in the hot oven for 5 minutes.

Remove then add the mozzarella.

Cook for a further 5 minutes or so until the crust is nice and brown.

***

Each pizza works out roughly at 750 calories each. 

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REMEMBER:  - Do you know how many calories you are allowed each day?

Here's a link to our very first blog post in 2011 about our weight loss journey. We started this blog as a way of recording what we ate while losing weight. The blog is a food diary, and contains lots of recipes, tips and ideas about losing weight.

Copyright © forget dieting forever, all rights reserved.

Hot chorizo pizza

We fancied something simple and tasty but less rich than some of the dishes in the previous week. Pizza seemed to be the obvious choice! So we made this HOT & SPICY CHORIZO PIZZA. Add your own toppings and create something you will enjoy!
It's strange - but making pizza at this time of year seems to be becoming a tradition! Take a look at our pizza recipes and you'll see we began making them this time last year.
Each time we make pizza we improve slightly - so why not start making your own? Here's an internal link to a  GREAT PIZZA recipe and tips on how we've achieved successful results.
Even this time around we found the pizza dough resulted in a lovely chewy texture. All we did was leave the dough to rise for even longer than last time - about 4 hours in total. We also believe part of the secret to a good pizza is using the correct flour - a very strong bread flour.
So HOW MANY CALORIES ARE IN THIS PIZZA?
Well, the picture shows a whole 700 calorie pizza - which we shared…..
So each portion was around 350 calories - not bad for a great tasting meal.

****

REMEMBER:  - Do you know how many calories you are allowed each day?

Here's a link to our very first blog post about our weight loss journey, which we began in January 2011. We started this blog as a way of recording what we ate while losing weight. The blog is a food diary, and contains lots of recipes, tips and ideas about losing weight.

You'll find our WEIGHT LOSS PLAN here. 

Copyright © forget dieting forever (2014), all rights reserved. Please do not copy any of this material without my express permission.

Secret to great pizza

After experimenting, we think we've found out why our PIZZA has risen so much.
Just look at the results - a well risen, light and fluffy pizza.
No need for an expensive pizza stone to achieve these results either.
We made the dough and prepared the topping before going out for a couple of hours. When we returned, we turned the oven on and the pizza was ready within 20 minutes. No need to dial a takeaway and this pizza is less than £1.50 each!
Here's how we made this pizza:

Pepperoni pizza

We just couldn't resist making these again... Pepperoni pizza at around 550 calories made for a very filling lunch. We made our own pizza dough because we think the taste is exceptional.
Dinner is going to be a little less heavy - harissa chicken with giant couscous salad.
Some people gasp when we suggest pizza. Why? It's not an unhealthy food - unless of course it comes laden with lots of high fat cheese.
This home made pizza was delicious. For our pizza today we made less dough than previously. We used a basic pizza dough and added our own toppings. You can buy small packs of pepperoni and salami in supermarkets now - we share a £1 pack of pepperoni. Get the kids involved - be creative and add your favourite toppings - sausages, minced spicy chicken/pork etc.

We spread the base with a little passata (mixed with minced garlic) before adding the rest of the toppings. Depending on the toppings used, and particularly the amount of cheese, will depend on the calories.

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - and we like to post our main meals to show you what we are eating. You won’t find us posting every last morsel though – but we hope this gives you an idea of how far calories can go!

Read about OUR UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how we have lost weight eating the food we love.

Copyright © forgetdietingforever 2013, all rights reserved.

Meal ideas for the weekend

Saturday is here - along with the snow.....
After porridge for breakfast, we thought we would go to the fishmonger and see what was on offer. We bought some red mullet, scallops and crayfish tails for later. We were going to cook the scallops for lunch, but decided to make this pizza instead.
Make your basic pizza dough - you can buy ready made or search the internet. (I found this one which looks really interesting how to eat properly: basic pizza dough). We covered the base with passata, red and green chillies, pepperoni and mozzarella. I then began adding up the calories.... and realised we had done it again and overstepped the mark. A whole pizza/salad would cost us around 650 calories. Never mind we get a FULL calorie allowance today, plus we're going for a walk. As you can see, it's hanging off the plate - and I did leave some of mine again.
TIP: For a MEAT FREE option - just leave out the pepperoni. It was the chillies that made this pizza spicy and hot.
Tonight we've opted for a scallops starter with a difference. Dinner is the red mullet.
If you would like to know more about how we have achieved our fabulous weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2013, all rights reserved.

Pepperoni pizza

Our second attempt at pizza - this time using pepperoni instead of bresaola.
We spread the pizza dough with passata and garlic, topped with some red onion, green chilli and pepperoni/parma ham. This went into the oven to cook for 7 minutes at 220 degrees, when we added approx 65g of mozzarella to each pizza and a little grated cheese before returning to the hot oven for another 5 minutes.
We used 300g of flour for the two very large pizzas. I didn't realise just how big they would turn out, and my eyes were bigger than my belly for some reason! They didn't fit on the plate either. We should have made four smaller pizzas as I didn't eat all of mine despite it being oh so tasty. The green chilli exploded in my mouth - but I quite enjoy a bit of heat. Next time we make these, we will make four and freeze two of them.
Now down to calories. We calculated just under 1600 calories for the dough and toppings (using a dough mix with 300g of flour). Now if we had sensibly divided by four then each pizza would be a respectable 400 calories each - which is not bad. The photo shows around 550 calories worth of pizza - which I still couldn't eat as it was so filling. Very flavoursome and spicy. I can't understand why some 'low calorie' processed pizzas taste so disgusting and unlike a 'real' pizza yet contain a similar number of calories. I believe our pizza contains a lot less fatty ingredients and cheese than some shop bought ones - hence the lower calorie calculation. This has got to be one of the best pizzas I've ever eaten - and its fresh taste was second to none.
Tomorrow we will be back to a few 'good' days - with soup and a sandwich for lunch and peri-peri chicken for dinner.
If you would like to know more about how we have achieved our huge weight loss eating all this wonderful food - see OUR UNIQUE METHOD.

Copyright © (c)forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.

Bresaola Pizza

This home made pizza was delicious. The bresaola and mozzarella was a nice change, and because the pizza wasn't swimming in cheese, it was also quite low in calories. We used a basic pizza dough and added our desired toppings. This was my pizza where the base was pierced all over with a fork before baking to stop it rising too much and create a thinner crust. A little can go a long way.
The dough was deliciously crispy yet light and fluffy on the inside too, and we will be making it again. We spread the base with a little passata (mixed with minced garlic) before adding the rest of the toppings. Depending on the toppings used, and particularly the amount of cheese, will depend on the calories - this one was about 550 calories.

REMEMBER: We all have a calorie allowance - and we like to post our main meals to show you what we are eating. You won’t find us posting every last morsel though – but we hope this gives you an idea of how far calories can go!

Read about OUR UNIQUE METHOD of weight loss and find out how we have lost weight eating the food we love.

 Copyright © forgetdietingforever 2012, all rights reserved.