1. The stuff they sell at Domino’s is *not* pizza. I don’t even think it qualifies as “fast food” as I’m not sure it qualifies as food at all.

2. I agree about using tortillas for pizza crust. A good low-carb pizza is a Mission low-carb tortilla placed in a cast-iron skillet, topped with a bit of a mild marinara, a big mound of mozzarella, a bunch of pepperoni and baked at 350 for about 15 minutes. I do this when I haven’t had time to cook and don’t have leftovers handy as it’s the fastest meal to make with stuff I always have on hand. The tortilla crisps up much like a thin-crust pizza (though admittedly, if you put enough real fullfat mozzarella and pepperoni on *anything* it’d taste pretty good).

3. A very good comfort food when sick is egg-drop soup. You can make it with either a chicken or turkey soup, a clear vegetable soup, broth or even bouillon, depending on what you have on hand. It’s dead simple, you just crack and mix an egg or two and pour it through a colander into the simmering liquid and whisk it and the egg cooks almost instantly. It’s nice bland food, but you can add more eggs to make it more substantial as needed.

Hi jpatti–

Thanks for the recipes.

Best–

MRE

The lowcarber.org kitchen forum has a ‘deep dish pizza quiche’ thread, amazing. Tastes nothing like quiche, is almost infinitely versatile as a recipe, and amazing –even highcarb eaters love it. When I used to make this (I’m just re-beginning LC) I would use some kind of meat like the large deli pepperoni, have it sliced super thin, and bake that first so it was overlapping crispy, then put the contents in the muffin/cake pan and bake again, so the crust was meat. I realize pepperoni’s probably the worst meat you can eat for health reasons, but maybe that idea can be toyed with for other variants.

I modified that recipe to add in a little bit of grated cauli, protein powder, and finely chopped meats to the main ‘bulk’ part and even that comes out firm and yummy. The stuff freezes and reheats great too. Hope this helps at least one person get a pizza fix at home in a healthy way.

Hi PJ–

Thanks for the recipe. Sounds delicious.

MRE

Hi Martha–

Thanks for doing the analysis. Maybe I’ll hit a Chinese restaurant the next time the junk food demon pulls my chain.

Cheers–

MRE

The crust being my least favorite part of a pizza, I can do without it. Occasionally we make what we call “that pizza dish” by putting pizza sauce on the bottom of a large pan and then layering our toppings on it (usually crumbled Italian sausage, red onion, red pepper, mushrooms and chopped black olive) and pop into a very hot oven sans cheese for about 10-15 minutes to cook the veggies and then throw the cheese on it and return it to the oven until the cheese is melted and nicely browned. You do have to use quite a bit of cheese as it’s what holds everything together; however, we get 8 servings out of it and it makes for yummy lunches the rest of the week. Unlike regular pizza, it reheats very well.

Another place the burger beats the pizza is you can order the burger without a bun but you can’t order a pizza without a crust. I’m celiac, so I can’t just eat the toppings off of a pizza. It’s gluten infested at that point.

Hi Ryan–

Thanks for the info. I may give the pork rind version a try the next time I have a pizza urge.

MRE

Anyway, while I was still in school, I remember having a dispute with a boy friend. He insisted that pizza was better for you than a burger….and that milk made you fatter than beer! I tried over and over to explain the process I was taught….that excess sugar was much more likely to cause weight gain than fat was. I guess this was the beginning of the whole low fat craze, but it certainly wasn’t what I was taught in school!

Years later I remember my mother in law raving about how pizza was much better for you than a red meat meal!!! I didn’t even bother that time.

Thanks for your posts! Thanks for your book! And, my latest discovery, thanks for your cookbooks!

I make a Mexican pizza with tortillas….little bit of salsa, good cheese, meat, veggies, a dollop of sour cream and a handful of black olives! Yummy!! Sometimes I put a top tortilla on it and call it a quesadilla!

Hi Alcinda–

Thanks for the kind words about the books and cookbooks. Glad you’re enjoying them.

We also use the tortillas for pizzas. See MD’s blog from August 12, 2005.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmd/archives/2005/08/Low_Carb_Pizzas.html#comments

Best–

MRE

I knew it was pretty high carb, which is why I chose it as my night-before carb up.

I have low-carb pizza crust mix in my cupboard, and it doesn’t make a half bad pizza for those times when I want the taste without all the carbs. The brand is Carb Sense, which recently changed its name to Eat Well, Be Well. I buy from Netrition.com.

Off topic, two things:
1) I just finished the Protein Power LifePlan – great book! I loved it.

2) I started taking magnesium like the book recommends and my headaches have reduced in severity. I suspect that if I take a bit more they will go away all together. THANKS for that advice! I have had nearly daily headaches since last year and have no idea why.

Hi Victoria–

Thanks for the compliment on the book. I’m glad the magnesium is working for your headaches. We have certainly given a lot of it for that (even IV sometimes), and it works well.

Best–

MRE

It should be obvious why pizza gets the free pass. What is the center of a hamburger? It’s the “evil” beef made from the “evil” cow! Pizza, on the other hand, can be vegetarian, etc. You don’t usually think of “beef” when you hear the word pizza. Since going zero carb, I really don’t miss pizza much to be honest. I just realized that the crust and sauce is just a facilitator to get to what I really love, the meat and cheese!

Hi Rob–

I’m sure you’re right. Burgers equate to beef, and, God forbid that we should eat that.

MRE

Interesting article. Goes along with much I’ve read in the medical literature.

Thanks–

MRE