Parties, Pizza and Parfaits, Oh My!

I went to bed last night dreading tomorrows weigh-in so much.  This week had seemed to get away from me and even though I did my best to count the points of every single thing that went in my mouth sometimes in some situations that amounts to a big fat guess! Take for instance the first P of today's post -  Parties.  We had a major holiday this week, Easter.  What did Easter bring, big buckets of candy sitting around my house and Sunday all you can eat brunch buffet with family.   While I had to do a lot of guessing (did my dollop of mashed potatoes look like about 3/4 cup?) or estimating (are all types of balsamic vinaigrette's made alike?) I still managed to come up with an estimate for my Easter dinner and I kept myself to one plate.  However when I came home and calculated this I had managed to use a large portion of my weekly points (which usually I hardly ever use).  After I made it through Sunday I still had other reasons to have a sense of foreboding about today's weigh-in.  First there is the candy, although I counted carefully every point of candy I consumed.  I don't know if that is exactly the right way to end every day using your point allowance leftover on these "empty calories."  Also we had such a busy week rushing around I had (for shame) Pizza hut twice this week and McDonalds and Arby's and even Kraft Mac n' Cheese (don't get me started on this one today!).  Nice.  This is why you haven't heard from me much, I haven't been cooking!!! Again I worked hard to count all those points but really can you eat these foods and still manage to lose weight?  I don't think that is exactly what they had in mind!   Well I am here to tell you that....YOU CAN! I prayed that I would at least break even when I stepped on the scale, I wasn't ready to suffer the blow of GAINING weight.  And lo and behold I lost approx 1 more pound.  I am just shy of 12 lbs now.  So I am here to tell you, you can survive parties.  I am sure being aware of how much I was planning to eat and counting every point despite worrying if they weren't the best use of my points helped me not just mindlessly eat with no awareness of what I was doing. 

This brings me to my next P....Pizza!  Although sometimes nothing hits the spot like a warm ooey, gooey greasy piece of pepperoni pizza.  After a cold miserable day in the garage during my Mom's garage sale (my mom is a trooper, she did two full days and I only did part of one day) we had a pepperoni pizza delivered to us in the garage and man it really hit the spot.  However, I was super interested in a recipe from my California Pizza Kitchen cookbook for Greek Pizza.  This yummy pie was packed with lots of fresh veggies and good for you proteins so although not much less in points then the regular greasy pizza I know this really is better for you by the merits of the fresh ingredients.  As an added bonus I was at Costco this week and they had a HUGE container of premade tzatziki so I didn't have to make that from scratch.  Man I love Costco!  Anyways this pizza is what was for dinner tonight, italics are my modifications. 

California Pizza Kitchen's Greek Pizza

Ingredients

• 1 pkg whole wheat pizza crust boboli
• 1 medium cucumber
• 2 medium tomatoes 
• 2 small cans sliced black olives (for authentic Greek I would typically use kalamata olives but my kids can't handle those and they love black olives so I stuck with black, which I like too!)
• This was my addition but I took 6 large artichoke hearts and chopped them coarsely and threw them in the salad 
• 1/4 cup feta cheese crumbles
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 3 tbsp lemon juice 
• 2 chicken breasts, seasoned, grilled and chopped (they recommend buying Greek seasoning however they only had one on the shelf at the store and it was of course full of MSG so I used italian seasoning -- yea Mrs Dash! -- and added a little extra oregano and garlic and of course some salt and pepper) 
• 2 cup finely shredded mozzarella
• 3/4 cup tzatziki sauce (I highly recommend trying to find prepared, then I just added a little feta to mine and mint leaves)
• 2 tsp Italian flat leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped scallions
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• pinch each of salt, pepper and oregano

Directions

Preheat Oven to 450*.

Greek Salad Topping: Mix together Lemon Juice, Oregano, Vinegar, Sugar, Garlic, Salt, Pepper and Oil. Dice Cucumber, Artichokes, Green Onion and Tomatoes and Toss in Lemon Juice Mixture along with Feta and Olives.

Add  mozzarella cheese and cooked chicken to crust and bake 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and cut into 8 pieces.

Top pizza with greek salad topping. Drizzle with 1/2 Tzatziki Sauce and sprinkle parsley over pizza.  Serve with the rest of the sauce on the side.

For 8 pieces they are 6 pts each (although I ended up with a little of the salad mixture left over - nice little side salad tomorrow night!) so I say have a couple pieces with all those veges and that greek yogurt in the sauce and the grilled chicken - yummy and nutritious!

The last P is parfait and I want to share a yummy little treat that I learned from the hungry girl, it makes a delicious treat for an afternoon snack or for breakfast of if you are having an early morning Princess Party to celebrate the royal wedding as shown here:

(Don't judge me, it was 8 am and I was being festive for my girls!)

Anyways I learned this little treasure watching Hungry Girls show and it sounded too good and I have tried it several times mixing and matching the yogurts and fresh fruits as I see fit.  It is named after a very popular sandwich and I thought it would be both pretty and yummy (plus when you have little Princesses in the house the word Parfait just sounds exciting, I know Fancy Nancy would approve!) Here it is...

The PB&J Parfait

Ingredients:

One 6-oz. container fat-free strawberry yogurt (like the kind by Yoplait Light)

1/2 cup chopped strawberries (about 3 large strawberries)

1/4 cup peanut butter cereal with 3g fat or less per serving (like Cap'n Crunch's Peanut

Butter Crunch)

1 tsp. peanut butter chips, chopped up so you get tiny bits in every bite!

Optional: additional strawberries

Spoon half of the yogurt into a parfait glass (or any glass).

Top with half of the strawberries, followed by half of the cereal and half of the chips.

Continue layering with remaining yogurt, strawberries, cereal, and chips. Serve with

additional strawberries (or not; your call). Dig in!

MAKES 1 SERVING

HG FYI! Find the peanut butter chips in the baking aisle of the market.

(I have tried several fruit mixtures like I said but my favorite so far is the one in my picture with fresh raspberries and raspberry yogurt but I guess maybe that's because I like raspberry jelly on my PB&J's best! The kids dig for the Captain Crunch cereal and the PB chips!)

This super yummy satisfying treat - 5 pts, dig in!

So those are my three P's for the day! Today was also a beautiful sunny day which adds to the list words like Pleasant and Perfect! I hope yours was too.  Promising to cook more this week and hoping to bring you some more exercises too! See you soon!