Happy Saturday! I hope you are having a great start to your weekend–and to November! Today we are heading into the homestretch of our seven-day review of The Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Solution: The 28 Day Kick-Start Plan for Lasting Weight Loss by Julene Stassou, MS, RD. It has been a busy week in the kitchen, to be sure, but I’ve enjoyed testing and tasting new recipes and meal ideas inspired by the sunny Mediterranean!

So let’s jump right into Day Five’s food log!

Breakfast: Breakfast Sandwich made with egg and lean bacon on whole wheat bread, mixed berries, and coffee with half and half

Lunch: Leftover Faki (Greek lentil soup) with whole wheat pita bread and grapes

Snack: Nonfat Greek yogurt with 1 tablespoon honey

Dinner: Sun-dried Tomato and Artichoke Pizza with Prosciutto and Greek Salad

Today’s meal plan was full of winners! It’s hard to go wrong with a breakfast sandwich and it was nice having easy options for both lunch and snack. Though the extra time spent prepping and preparing soups, salads, and snacky items can be tiresome, the reward of having a fridge and pantry stocked with tasty options packed with good nutrition is worth it.

Dinner today was definitely a highlight. Weekend pizza is a tradition at our house and most weeks, I make it from scratch. When I saw that Stassou included several Mediterranean-inspired pizzas, I knew I had to make at least one. Given my love of artichokes, the Sun-Dried Tomato and Artichoke Pizza was a no-brainer.

For the most part, Stassou’s recipe worked pretty well. The dough was a fairly standard “healthier” pizza dough made with half all-purpose and half whole wheat flour, though I did end up having to use more flour than the recipe called for to make the dough workable–I think about 1/2 cup more. The sauce was made with canned crushed tomatoes, some aromatics, and oregano and came together quickly.

When it came time to put it all together, I got the feeling Stassou may have not actually measured the amount of toppings she used. The recipe seems to indicate you’re supposed to use all of the pizza sauce, which would have completely flooded the pizza. As for the other toppings, the sheer quantity of sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts was also beyond excessive. I think I ended up using maybe half of what the recipe stated–certainly no more than 2/3. Her amounts would definitely have been better suited to a deep-dish style pizza.

The other issue I had with Stassou’s recipe was her instruction to somehow transfer this heavily laden, uncooked pizza to either your pre-heated pizza stone or (even more impossibly) directly to your oven rack. My friends, as you can see from the picture above, this pizza is fully loaded and I can tell you, attempting to somehow maneuver this uncooked mass would be a catastrophe–and I didn’t even use the full amount of toppings! Any attempt to slide (flop) this monstrosity onto an oven rack could only result in the most epic kitchen fail of your life.

Because I am not a glutton for punishment, I went another route. Having a bit of experience when it comes to making pizza, I decided to roll-out my pizza dough directly onto my unheated stone. I could have also used a metal pizza pan. Granted, it would be ideal to have the stone pre-heated, but there was no way I was going to attempt Stassou’s suggested method.

Otherwise, I cooked the pizza according to her instructions and the results really were delicious! This pizza had so many layered flavors and was a treat to eat. Though I also made a pizza with more familiar toppings for the rest of the crew, my artichoke lovers gave this one a try and really liked it! So despite the various hiccups with the recipe, I’d still call this one a winner for sure!

Alright, so let’s look at today’s nutrient breakdown. Across the 3 meals and 1 snack, calories came in at 1350 with 51% from carbohydrate, 27% from fat, and 22% from protein with 26 grams of fiber. I didn’t have any issues with hunger today and despite being in a persistent calorie deficit of 500-700 calories per day, I have yet to really feel it. Given that hunger is one of the number one reasons dieters throw in the towel, this is a huge plus.

I’m nearing the end of our seven-day test run of The Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Solution and I hope that, if you’ve ever considered trying a Mediterranean-style diet, these posts have been helpful! Tomorrow will be my last day following Stassou’s meal plan after which I will do a series of posts sharing my overall thoughts on this diet, discussing everything from the grocery shopping and food prep to the meal plan and my personal results after one week following it. By the end of this series, I hope you’ll have all the information and insight you need to decide whether a Mediterranean diet might by the right plan for you!

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Lately I’ve been seeing quite a few recipes for pizza made with a cauliflower crust, so when I spotted one in The Complete Guide to Fasting, I thought I’d better whip one up in honor of Pizza Sunday and June’s Diet of the Month! Around here, we have a tradition of pizza (usually homemade) for Sunday dinner and I was interested to see how this grain-free, cauliflower crust pizza would measure up against the more traditional crust made with flour, yeast, salt, and olive oil.

The recipe itself is super simple. You can either buy a head of cauliflower, chop it up, and pulse it in a food processor until it’s in small crumbles OR you can buy a bag pre-pulsed for you in the fresh produce section at pretty much any grocery store. In the recipe I used, you then take about 1 1/2 cups of your crumbles, mix it with 2 beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, and 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder. (Actually, the recipe in The Complete Guide to Fasting calls for a whole teaspoon of garlic powder, but I thought that was craziness so I used much less.)

Once you’ve got this mixture, spread it onto a pizza pan lined with parchment paper, roughly forming an 8″ circle. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven, add your desired toppings (I used 1/3 cup homemade pizza sauce, 3 oz mozzarella cheese, 12 pepperoni slices, and fresh basil). Bake for another 10-15 minutes and then serve hot!

I thought this recipe was pretty good! The boys were even willing to give it a try and my brave 10-year-old concluded that he’d be willing to eat it, if that was all he had. (Very gracious of him.) It helps that the cauliflower is covered with all manner of delicious toppings and makes a rather neutral (albeit floppy) base. I think if I were to make this again, I would try baking the crust on my perforated metal pizza pan. I think the holes might help the crust to crisp up a bit more, thus creating a firmer foundation. As it stands, this crust pretty much required a fork until the last few bites.

By using a grain-free, cauliflower crust, this recipe brings pizza into the low-carb, keto-friendly, reduced-calorie realm. Despite all this, however, I can tell you that this pizza was quite filling. Of course, being covered with cheese and pepperoni helps. The entire recipe comes to 530 calories, 34 grams fat, 17 grams saturated fat, 15 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams fiber, and 41 grams protein. I could only eat about 2/3 of the pizza though, less than 350 calories’ worth. Not too shabby if you want to have your cake (or pizza, as the case may be) and eat it, too!

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