Friday fakeaway!

How many calories do you have? Would alternatives be just as satisfying to you as the conventional foods?
Sometimes I find it better to just go for the conventional food when I weigh the calories and satisfaction. Some foods are surprisingly doable on a diet (like pasta in my case). With some other things, a modified version satisfies me just as well for lower calories, so I go for that (like oven fries).

A general guideline for modifying recipes for lower calories:
- Use less fat (baking/roasting potatoes instead of frying)
- Bulk with vegetables (more vegetables in pasta, for example)
- Smaller/thinner things that are not as essential to the recipe in large volumes (thinner crust pizza or going lighter on the cheese)
- Substitute when the result will be just as good (some like cauliflower mash just as much as potato mash and it hits the same notes for them, not in my case, I usually just go for mashed potatoes)

I've crumbed chicken breast pieces in crumbs (you can use almond meal, breadcrumbs, quinoa flakes, etc for the crumbs - whatever works for your macros), then freeze.

I bake them in the oven (you could lightly spray with oil) - because they're frozen, you can cook them long enough to get them to go brown and crunchy without drying out the meat too much.

pizza....just make your own. use low fat cheese, get a thin base or pitta bread/wrap (or dough and roll your own), lean meats, loads of vegies.

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katherineleggett wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

Have you tried broadening your palate? You may be surprised with the new favorites you might find if you try something new every now and then. Eating in a limited way while modifying everything may be a little bit hard if you eventually get bored and unsatisfied with it and have nothing but the real thing to fall back on. Don't get me wrong, I eat fast food sometimes, I eat modified versions of fast food sometimes when the modification is satisfying, but I also eat loads of dishes that are naturally lower in calories without modification which I absolutely love.

Don’t get me wrong. I love food. I think I have a fairly varied diet and will eat pretty much anything. Pizza is just my weakness and I crave it so need a way of having it without the naughtyness

Makes sense. I don't eat pizza often, but when I do I usually order thin crust (which, interestingly, I discovered I like it better). I have seen interesting pita pizzas. I made a breakfast one the other day which was great.

I'm also considering this (thin crust, less cheese), but have yet to get around to it:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/mini-garlic-pizzas/cb2d0355-379e-4f55-893d-89655dd799d1

I like to make my own thin-crust pizza - mine comes in at something like 230 cals a large slice... It comes down to working your base and your cheese down and your cals will drop with! The pizza that my husband and I prefer specifically is a bbq-sauce, bacon, pineapple, and onion (which may sound kind of gross, but it's become a favorite of our friends). Easing up on the cheese and making two large pizzas out of a 2-lb dough I make in my bread machine makes it completely reasonable to eat 2 slices with a nice salad and be stuffed. If I wanted to drop the cals even more, I could swap out the bacon and make it a veggie pizza (but bacon!).

I've also made pizza using homemade naan as a base, which was also delicious (although I like to flip it and make an alfredo pizza on the naan), as well as using tortillas, which for me didn't hit the mark - I think it was an issue with execution though, as the tortillas were floppy and I like a firmer crust.

I have recipes saved for all kinds of different pizza base recipes on Pinterest - that could be a great place to start as well!