Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Tasty Tuesday: Zoodles & Squoodles Pizza Casserole

Since my last update, we have actually been doing really good in keeping with our New Year's Resolution to try at least one new recipe each week. I have just been failing miserably at posting any of them. So here goes!

Have you ever heard of the "Paleo Diet?" I hadn't (either) until we went to visit Jesse & Patrick for Spring Break. I am not a believer in diets...I think "diets" are dangerous, because they are something you do for a short period of time, and then you quit and you likely will gain every bit of weight back that you lost...and then all that stress you put yourself and your body through while on said diet...absolutely worthless. I don't believe in diets...I believe in lifestyle. Eating healthy (most of the time), controlling your portions if you want to lose weight, and making sure you get the necessary nutrients your body needs to stay healthy. 

I don't know a whole lot about the Paleo Diet, but I do know this: you're not allowed to eat bread/pasta/rice or dairy. That pretty much knocks in completely off my list of diets to try, by the way (if I actually had said list...). Fiber is very important, and most of your fiber comes from grains. And well, I just love milk (they do allow soy milk, but I like cow milk)! And ice cream. And cheese. Yeah...I couldn't do no dairy. But I do see some benefits of the Paleo diet...namely high protein, and lots of fresh veggies. Veggies are good for me. They also tell you not to eat anything that's processed or has added preservatives, which is also good (although sometimes impractical, for me at least). But Jesse made and fed us a couple of different "Paleo-allowed" meals while we were in North Carolina, and while I would never do a strict Paleo diet myself, I found a recipe that actually sounded pretty good when I got home, so I decided to make it:


I'm not going to write out the entire recipe and ingredients because they are listed directly on that blog, but i will share a couple tips I discovered: For the pizza sauce, I used Classico brand. It was really good, and they actually don't use preservatives, which is nice. And for the sun-dried tomatoes, I do have a recommendation: make sure they are buried in the sauce somewhere. The ones embedded within the casserole were delicious, but the ones that just kinda landed on top were burnt to a crisp...not so yummy. 

Here is how mine turned out:

It was pretty yummy! We are glad we gave it a shot! But I'm pretty sure I made a glass of milk later that evening, so I definitely don't do all Paleo...haha :)