Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Pizza.

I love pizza. I really truly do. However, my stomach doesn't seem to register the full feeling when I eat pizza. That is, until 30 minutes or so later when I bloat up like a big balloon after I stuffed my face with just one more slice, or two. Add on some of those little delicious breaded chicken bites and see goodbye to your daily calorie allowance. And possibly, your weekly caloric deficit.

As I mentioned in my check-in post, I like to splurge a little on Fridays. Get a little crazy with my menu, go off the wagon if you will. This past Friday I decided to use those extra points I had racked up with a nice bottle of Pinot with Jason, so I had to be a little creative with my dinner choices.

Enter cauliflower pizza crust. I have heard about this for quite some time and was intrigued to try it but had nightmares of the possible outcome. I mean, it is cauliflower after all. Considering cauliflower is not even on any pizzeria's menu as a possible pizza topping, how could an entire pie created with it be even remotely good?

But boy, was it good. So so good. And it was relatively easy to make, definitely no more work than tossing your own dough. I could even eat it like a real slice of pizza which just overall added to the appeal and made me feel like I really was eating a big, cheesy slice of pie! 

I kept it simple with the toppings for the first attempt, but I would definitely love to try it topped with some turkey pepperoni and maybe a few more veggies. I don't know how well it would hold up with an excess of toppings, but play around with it and see what you can come up with! 

Cauliflower Pizza Crust makes approx 10-12 inch pizza, serves 2 hungry adults (or possibly 4 with a large salad on the side)
1 small head of cauliflower
1 Tbsp Italian Seasoning Blend
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese (Use the good stuff, it's well worth it!)
1/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1 tsp jarred minced garlic 
1 egg 

Toppings of your choice. I topped our pizza with NoName pizza sauce and more mozzarella cheese. 

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
Wash your cauliflower and cut into pieces. You mainly just need the florets, so try to cut off as much stem as possible. Place into your food processor and pulse until you get a cauliflower snow/rice texture. I ended up with about 3 cups of cauliflower rice from my head of cauliflower, you may end up with a little less depending on the size head you use, but that's okay. Place the cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl & zap for 3-4 minutes.
This is probably the most important part of making your crust; once your cauliflower is done in the microwave, dump onto a clean tea towel and allow to cool enough that you can handle it without burning the skin off your hands. Once it is cool enough that you can safely handle it, wring the heck out of it and get as much water as you possibly can out of the cauliflower. This ensures you end up with a crispy pizza crust, instead of a soggy inedible mess. Unless you like eating your pizza with a spoon, I highly recommend that you do not skip or rush this step.

After you wring it out, add the cauliflower into a large mixing bowl and add the egg, parmesan cheese, italian seasoning and mozzarella cheese. Mix it all up and form into a ball.

I know what you are thinking- you are thinking it looks like a ball of seasoned cauliflower. Trust me on this one...

Now, you should have a baking sheet or pizza stone. Lining either with parchment paper, lightly spray with olive oil cooking spray and roll your cauli ball onto the baking sheet. You don't want it to be too thin, but not too thick either. This is one of those things I can't really provide an exact thickness or size for, as it largely depends on how much cauli snow you ended up with from your  head of cauliflower.

Put your crust into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. You want it to be nice and golden brown, but not burnt. Keep a close eye on it once you near the 15 minute mark as all ovens temp differently. 

You see what's happening here? Doesn't that look delicious? To be honest, I could eat the whole pan of just this just as it is. It smelled absolutely amazing when it was baking and it was a serious test to my self control to have to sauce it & dress it and put it back in the oven again.

Once your crust is nice and golden, take it out and dress your pizza as you desire. Place it back into the hot oven and bake for about 7-10 minutes.

Be sure to let your pizza sit for at least 2 minutes before cutting into slices & serving.

And voila- cheesy, goey cauliflower pizza that I bet you at first glance, even you will forget it was made with a vegetable as the main ingredient!  

Enjoy!

xoxo,
Amanda

Nutritional Information per serving: WW Points+ (crust only): 4
Calories: 195 | Fat: 8.2G | Carbs: 16.4G| Fibre: 7.2G| Protein: 16.7G

Workout of the Week | vol 1

Woo! I made it through my first week back at the gym.

I also survived a pretty big step for me and my daughter- she was in a daycare environment for the first time ever! Tuesday was her first day and she absolutely loves it. I feel so much better knowing that she is in the same building as me at all times and if anything happens, someone can come and find me but she has done so well. In fact, we've gone every day this week and she really seems to be having a blast playing with the other toddlers for the hour I'm getting my sweat on.

And sweat on, indeed. I found this total body blast routine on Fitness Blender and decided to give it a try. I knew it would challenge me to push myself because right off the bat you are doing 14 push-ups and as I have mentioned before- I absolutely loathe doing push-ups. I just jotted down the exercises in my agenda & brought it to the gym with me. This workout totally kicked my ass and I only used 5 pound weights for the circuit. I love that this works every muscle in your body and especially love that you get maximum calorie burn because you are doing compound movements.

I warmed up with 10-15 minutes of cardio & ended with cardio as well before doing a quick cooldown & stretch routine.

Let me know what you think of this workout if you try it or leave a comment with your favourite fast total body blast routines!

xoxo,

Amanda

Lemon Feta Chicken with Skillet Zucchini Sautè

Hey everyone!

Tonight I was absolutely starving! I had a killer workout this morning & was definitely craving something that would satisfy my hunger as well as provide lots of lean protein & complex carbs to help repair my aching muscles.

I love this infusion of herbs & fresh lemon juice. The feta cheese just adds such a wonderful flavour to the dish. Simple, easy and oven to plate in under 40 minutes for the whole meal including side dishes!

The entire meal, including a healthy 1/2 cup serving of organic black quinoa came in at 11 Points Plus. The black quinoa is a bit more crunchy than the normal white quinoa you buy at your local grocery store. I cooked up one cup and used the leftovers to make a delicious salad the next day and I loved the way that crunch worked in the salad.



Lemon Feta Chicken
(adapted from Skinny Taste)



For the chicken; serves 4
1lb Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin
1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
   Juice from one lemon
1/4 cup reduced fat feta cheese
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 clove of garlic, minced (I used the garlic packed in oil from the jar for this recipe)
olive oil cooking spray
salt & pepper, to taste

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly spray a baking pan with olive oil cooking spray.

In a small bowl, combine lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, thyme & garlic and whisk to combine.

Salt & pepper both sides of your chicken breast and place into the pan. Pour lemon juice mixture evenly over chicken. Sprinkle each breast liberally with feta cheese and place into oven and bake uncovered for 30 minutes.

Turn your oven broiler on and broil chicken for about 2-3 minutes until the feta cheese gets nice and browned.

For the zucchini saute; serves 4
1.5 cups of zucchini, chopped
1 tomato, diced
1/2 cup of red onion, sliced thin
1 tsp of Greek seasoning (you can make your own, for ease I just used Clubhouse greek blend)
1 tsp minced garlic
Splash of balsamic vinegar (optional)
olive oil cooking spray
2 Tbsp of feta cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Lightly spray a medium skillet with cooking spray and add onions, garlic & tomatoes. Over medium heat, cook until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add zucchini, greek seasoning, balsamic vinegar (if using) and cover, cooking just until zucchini is slightly soft, about 3-4 minutes.

Remove from heat and serve immediately topped with a sprinkling of feta cheese on top.

We loved this simple & tasty side dish and it was the perfect compliment to our lemon chicken!

Enjoy!

xoxo,
Amanda

Points+ Calculated using Weight Watchers recipe builder, Nutritional information calculated using My Fitness Pal.
Nutritional Info (Chicken):
WW Points Plus: 7
Calories: 204/ Fat 8.2g/ Carbs 2.2/ Protein: 29.1

Zucchini Saute
WW Points Plus: 2
Calories: 63 | Fat: 3.2g | Carbs: 6.2g | Protein: 4.4g

Two Week Weigh-In & Reflections

Two weeks down, 10 weeks to go!

I signed up for Weight Watchers for 3 months because they had a special where the activation fee was waived and it was only $3 more than a 1 month membership- not a hard choice to make. I honestly didn't think that I was going to love it as much as I do.

And I really, really do!

Last week at my weigh-in, I was down 3.5 pounds to 137! I really felt great about that progress as sometimes when you don't have alot to lose, it can be really tough to get that number on the scale to go down.

Today, I weighed in at 137.5 which I pretty much expected. You see, there is both a pro and a con to weighing in smack dab in the middle of the week. Pro? I have three full days to make up for poor dinner decisions made on takeout night or hastily eaten food on a hectic Saturday afternoon. The flipside to that pro, is that I was a little overzealous with my sushi portions this past Friday. We also had sushi the week prior but I kept it light & appropriately portioned and had a great weigh-in, so I figured what was a few more pieces of sashimi & a deep fried roll going to do?

Anyways, I compiled a list of my pros and cons so far of the Weight Watchers diet;

Pros:

1. You literally have free range of what you want to eat. If you want to blow your 26 points on one meal at the Pickle Barrel, go for it. 
2. It encourages you to eat a diet high in fruits and vegetables, as they are all 0 Points+
3. Carb friendly! You can literally eat your carbs to your hearts content and if you get smart about portion control, you can have them (almost) guilt free! Luckily, we were already mostly a refined flour-free household so phasing out the white carbs we were eating was relatively painless.
4. I personally find counting points is easier than counting calories & am starting to (sort of) understand how point values are calculated
5. I rarely feel totally starved & if I am hungry, I am now more likely to reach for fruits and veggies, fat free yogurt, or a hardboiled egg. Side note; one a day I do feel ravished- it is likely due to smoothies. See below.
6. I have more energy, feel better about my food choices and am drinking a considerable amount more water.
7. The website has a pretty impressive list of foods and some great resources. There are also A LOT of WW friendly blogs which make it easy to find new meal inspiration.

Cons:

1. I refuse to eat fat-free cheddar cheese and the Points+ value for a tiny piece of regular cheese makes me want to cry. 
2. Smoothies too. Seriously, fruit is 0. Yogurt is 1. But fruit + yogurt= 7-10 PP+? Say what!
3. Avocados need to be re-evaluated by the folks at WW. They are SO good for you, but the Points value practically scares you away from eating them. 
4. The WW iPhone app doesn't have the Recipe Builder, which I guess isn't the biggest deal but kind of annoying as I have to park myself down in front of the laptop and enter everything in.

So, as you can see- I definitely have enough pros to keep me going and really, only some trivial cons to the program. I really see why it works and am happy to say it is working for me and my family. Obviously, Jason and my daughter haven't joined me on this weight loss journey- but I am still able to provide healthy, nutritious and balanced meals from the program for them, which, for me is more important than what I'm eating.

I have also consciously moved towards a more "clean eating" approach which I will discuss further in another post. While I don't intend to purchase 100% organic, small changes have made a huge impact on other aspects of my life. With increased water, fruit and vegetable consumption, more lean meats & proteins and only whole wheat or whole grain rice, pasta & quinoa on the menu, my hair has been so much shinier, my skin has been clear & glowing and my overall energy levels has greatly increased!

I'm also still pushing through the 30DS. I did some seriously intense circuit training at the gym yesterday so I skipped the dvd when I got home but today I only got a 45 minute run in and 15 minutes of abs so I might pop it in tonight before bed. I am excited to finish round 1 but I took a peak at Level 2 and I am pretty sure I might just about die!

I'll try to get a before picture at some point too. I know I'm two weeks in already, but the weight loss has been minimal and I haven't lost any inches yet so I figure it'll do!

Thanks for checking in!

xoxo

Amanda

Hearty Cabbage Soup Recipe

This weather is driving me crazy. One day the sun is shining & it's relatively warm and the next day it's back to being bitterly cold. In honour of Meatless Monday, I decided to whip up a nice heart healthy soup to warm us up from the inside out!

My daughter has been eating her dinner a bit earlier the past few days which is why I opted to take this recipe for a test drive last night as this would definitely not be toddler friendly. Well, it *may* be toddler friendly, as I swear my child will eat just about anything- but it's not baby-led weaning friendly. My goodness, could you imagine the mess?

I'd rather not.

Cabbage soup is a staple in many a diet, and is defintely a very Points+ friendly recipe. You could add in some additional ingredients if you so choose, but I opted to keep it simple last night after I had a pretty points heavy lunch.

Feel free to make this recipe with green cabbage also, it would likely be a bit more appealing to the eye if you did but as yesterday was St. Patricks day, the local grocery store was completely sold out this weekend. I imagine quite a few people enjoyed some good ol' corned beef & cabbage last night. I am slightly jealous, though I thoroughly enjoyed our healthy dinner.

Cabbage Soup
Serves 6
*adapted from Prevention
Leftovers store well in the fridge for up to 4 days

• 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 4 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 stalks of celery, thinly sliced
• 6 cups of chicken or vegetable broth (I used fat free Chicken broth)
• 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon Fennel seeds
• 1 pound of cabbage, cored & chopped
• 2 cups of diced tomatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• salt & fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
• 1/4 cup of low-fat sour cream 

In a large stockpot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the celery, onion and garlic and saute until the onion is soft and translucent, about 10 minutes.

Next stir in the cabbage, vinegar & fennel seeds then cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

Add the broth, tomatoes and spices to the pot. Cover and simmer for an addition 40 minutes. Serve with a dollop of sour cream or greek yogurt if desired. I did account for the sour cream in my Points+ value.

This soup had such a great flavour and for only 3Points+, I had a hearty serving along with some toasted whole grain garlic bread. Leftovers for lunch today tasted even better!

xoxo,
Amanda

Nutritional Information:
Points+: 3
Calories: 87 | Fat: 2.7g | Carbs: 11.8g | Protein: 7.1g
*Points calculated using the recipe builder on the Weight Watchers website. Nutritional information is obtained using the recipe builder on My Fitness Pal.

Watching My Weight...with Weight Watchers!

Hey everyone!

Man, this winter has been brutal hasn't it? I know I am definitely going stir crazy and while I have enjoyed the new knitting & crochet hobbies I have picked up these past few months to help pass the time, the sedentary activities have taken a toll on my waist line.

Spring is finally just around the corner- I can barely wait for those beautiful days, open windows, fresh air & sunshine.

Admittedly, I never thought I would want to go on a diet like Weight Watchers. After my daughter was born, the baby weight literally melted off. And kept melting off until I was at my lowest weight since high school. I could barely believe it could be so easy to lose the weight I gained when I was pregnant and wondered how any nursing mother could struggle losing the weight.

I was pretty arrogant, I admit.

And then, it happened. When I weaned my daughter, I kept going about thinking I could eat whatever I wanted, and oh yes, I would like another glass of wine thankyouverymuch. One day, I noticed my jeans felt a little snugger than usual. Damn that dryer, eh? Shrinking my favourite jeans and such. So I stepped on the scale.

And shit, well look at that. 15 pounds crept on before I even knew what hit me.

I ignored it for awhile, just going about my normal eating habits and telling myself that once Spring was here, I would be more active again and the weight would come back off. I realized that I wasn't happy and was only kidding myself. Sure, I will definitely be more active in the Spring and Summer months, but that isn't enough. I need a healthier lifestyle altogether and I don't want to live my whole life being reactive.

I chose to do Weight Watchers because I believe that it is the most effective way to set myself up for a successful lifestyle change- not a *diet*. I want to eat carbs- I love them too much to put myself on some insane diet where I survive on nothing but cottage cheese and grapefruit. I also need to make sure that I am still providing healthy, balanced meals for my fiance and my daughter and really, I am not going to cook 6 separate meals every dang day. Ain't nobody got time for that!

In addition to Weight Watchers, I have also started doing Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. At the time of this post, I have just completed Day 8 and have been on Weight Watchers for 8 days as well.

My starting stats:
Weight: 140.5lbs
WW 10% Target: 126.5lbs
Goal Weight: 120lbs
Height: 5'5"
BMI: 23.4
Body Fat: 25.57%
Waist: 31"
Hips: 36"
Bust: 35"

I am allowed 26 Points Plus per day, with a weekly allowance of an additional 49 Points Plus to use as I chose. I also have a weekly activity goal of 16 Points Plus that if I choose to, I can swap out for extra food points. 26PP is the lowest possible points allowance for a women on weight watchers, so I obviously have to be verrrrrry smart with how I choose to spend those points. In addition to using Weight Watchers for the points system, I am also tracking my diet and exercise on My Fitness Pal.

I am so excited to continue on this journey towards a whole lifestyle haul! I am even rejoining a gym and I plan on starting C25K again this summer. Who knows, maybe I will run a 5K next fall! I plan on using this blog to motivate myself and maybe others will want to join me on this journey!

Move [more]
Eat [healthy]
Be [happy]

xoxo,
Amanda