Our Hot Hawai'ian Pizza (796 calories per half pizza)

As I've said before, I love pizza.  As I've also said before, the Carryout and Take-&-Bake are practically salt licks.  They taste delicious, often, but, they will make you spend the rest of the night guzzling water.  The ONLY way around this is to make your own, so you can control everything that goes into it.

Out here, in the Fresno, California area, we have a pretty good, if not grammatically challenged, local chain, called, "Me 'N Eds."  They make tasty pizza, for the most part, though overly salty, IMHO.  One of our favorites, is their "Hot Hawai'ian" pizza.  It has chicken, pineapple, cheese, ranch, and BBQ sauce, to name a few.  It is, frankly, delicious.  Kasi and I decided to make our own.

First, place a pizza stone in your oven, or on your grill, and preheat the oven or grill to 400 degrees.

Using the Olive Oil Dough we wrote about here, we rolled our pizza dough out on a floured surface, to a rough 16" round.

We then transfered it to our pizza peel, covered in cornmeal (to enable it to slide onto our pizza stone easier), and rolled up the edges to create a nice crust edge to hold on to, and give a border to any sauce used.  In this case we laid out a layer of Light Buttermilk Ranch Dressing as a sauce.

On top of the sauce we distributed, evenly, sliced mushrooms and red onions.

Some cooked and diced boneless chicken breast.

Then added shredded mozzarella cheese.

A smattering of pineapple chunks and jalapeno slices.

Crisscrossed the top with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce.

And then placed it directly on the preheated pizza stone, and baked it for 14 minutes.

I just love the way this pizza crust crisps up, and how the edges rise and bubble, and get crisp.  The pizza itself was delicious.  Sweet and tangy, with the bight of the jalapenos on every piece.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 portion Olive Oil Bread Recipe

2 Tbs Light Buttermilk Ranch dressing

5 button mushrooms thinly sliced

1/3 cup red onion, thinly sliced

1/2 cup diced cooked chicken breast meat

1/2 cup diced pineapple chunks

1/4 cup pickled and sliced jalapenos

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup Sweet Baby Rays BBQ Sauce

One pizza feeds two people @ 796 calories for each half of a pizza.

LeKue Steam Case prepared Mustard Encrusted Tilapia Filet

Some of you may know that one of my day jobs is selling cookware for Sur La Table's fresno store,  In the last two weeks we started selling a very interesting new line of products by LeKue.  These products are manufactured from 100% Platinum Silicone, a medicinal grade of silicone, and are BPA free.  They claim they will cook efficiently in the microwave, or, in the oven, placed on a middle rack.  Needless to say, I was intrigued.  I purchased the 1 quart "Steam Case with tray."  It comes with a few recipes, and I decided to try a fish filet in the microwave.

Out of the box it looks like this, green, with two wing like covers, and a clear silicone tray in the middle.  I took a frozen Tilapia filet from the freezer and let it defrost along side the steam case.

I removed the tray to get ready to cook.

I poured a little balsamic vinegar in the bottom of the steam case (their recipe called for white wine, which might have worked better, but I didn't have any) and added 3 peeled garlic cloves.

I replaced the tray, over the vinegar and garlic, to wold the filet.

I added the defrosted filet, and added salt & pepper, like their recipe suggested.

Their recipe called for spreading "Ancient Grain Mustard" on top, but I don't have any handy.  I chose to use my Guinness Stout Mustard, that I told you how to make in a blog post, here.

Then, I closed the wings, put it in the microwave, and cooked it for the 5 minutes the recipe called for.

During the 5 minutes of cooking there were some ominous popping and gurgling noises coming from the microwave, but there were some delicious aromas emanating as well, so I let it run, assuming it was the mustard seeds exploding.  I removed it from the microwave and placed it on the counter, opened its wings, and admired the finished product.

I removed it from the steam case, placed it on a plate, and poured the balsamic vinegar and garlic cloves over the top.

The nicest thing is that clean up is simple.  I just threw it in the sink, rinsed it a little, and placed it in the dishwasher - and it came out perfect.

As for the food itself, it was, for the most part, perfectly cooked and delicious.  My only complaint was there was a hard crust that formed on one edge of the filet.  The center, and the other 80% of the filet was cooked perfectly, but there was a tough portion.

Was that a function of the filet, not enough liquid, or now an even spread of the mustard, it is hard to tell without further attempts.  It was tasty, efficient, with minimal prep or clean up, and that is hard to argue with.

I will keep using it, and consider the other pieces in the line as well - the steamer pot insert, a silicone cooking pot, and a 1.5 quart steam case, designed to cook 3-4 servings.

It is an excellent product when you are in a hurry, for sure, or when you are slightly ill, and lazy, like I am right now.  :)

Enjoy!

 Ingredients:

1 6oz Tilapia Filet
3 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar
3 cloves Garlic
3 Tbs Whole Grain Mustard

Serves 1 by itself, or two with a salad and a starch.  I'd suggest Couscous.

One again, I'm back.

I started this blog in mid July, when I weighed 272 pounds (I now weigh 222 pounds, and was down to 218 twice during the Thanksgiving to New Years holidays).  It wasn't the heaviest I'd been - that was about 305, in the late 1980's, but it was far more than was healthy for me.  I was determined to lose the weight.

I graduated high school in 1974 as a skinny guy, 6' tall and 180 pounds.  From there it was a slow, but steady up, with a few diet downs along the way - classic yoyo action from fad diets, and silly exercise strategies.  I never once tried counting calories.

When I started this weight loss journey, I began with a three day juice cleanse.  I lost 8 pounds during the cleanse, felt 100% better, and was convinced of two things; juicing is hard, and I still wanted to lose more.  My girlfriend, Kasi, suggested that we try counting calories using the MyFitnessPal website and app.  I agreed to try it.

I set the system's parameters up to reach 225 pounds, while losing 2 pounds a week.  The app limited me to 1800 calories a day.  I decided I would take it very seriously and track as much as I could, and eat as well as I could.

I also decided that depriving myself was the quickest way to fail on my weight loss journey.  So, if I truly wanted something, I planned for it.  Pretty soon, I stopped wanting most treats, but I never stopped wanting chocolate.  I now eat a small amount of dark chocolate most evenings.

Anyway, on August 20th, my 56th birthday, I got a job as a line cook, making a lot of tasty, but not so healthy food.  It used up my blogging time, and my personal cooking time, and while the weight continued to come off, I don't feel the food was as healthy for me as I had been eating.

The line cook job is at a local university.  we are closed until Mid January, so I am turning my attention back here - and to my FoodieLite Facebook page (www.facebook.com/foodielite).

I am sick today, and not cooking, but hopefully soon, I will.

My new goal is 210 pounds.  I am only 12 pounds away, now, but I've changed the system's parameters to lose 1 pound a week, so now I am allowed 2350 calories a day.  Frankly I can't imagine eating that much every day, anymore.

It's time for round 2.  I hope you will choose to come along on this journey with me.