English muffin pizza

My english muffins that is! If you read my profile, you know that my favorite food (by far) is pizza. I realize with all the good flavors out there that pizza may sound a bit boring.  If you think about it though, its a very versatile food type...if I could eat only one thing for the rest of my life it would be pizza.  I dont discriminate either...I enjoy taco, all meat, cheese, veggie, thin crust, thick crust, chicago style, frozen, delivered, or homemade.  If calories were not an issue I would eat pizza 4-5 times a week guaranteed.  But they are an issue (sigh)...so I have to find ways to work around my craving.

The best way Ive found are english muffin mini pizzas.  I have discovered that its usually the sauce I am craving more than anything and I can get my fix with only a couple hundred calories.  I eat these a lot at work for lunch since we have a toaster oven that cooks them to perfection.  I have them cooking right now actually!  These light english muffins pictured are only 90 calories and I am usually full enough with just one full muffin (or two halves).  The squeaze bottle sauce works best for me since I dont use a whole jar for myself in one day, and Ive found this it the best tasting sauce compared to other brands Ive tried.  AND its only 30 calories for a quarter cup (which is about all you'll need even if slathering on your muffin).  I usually keep canadian bacon or turkey pepperoni and a jar of mushrooms on hand but today we're just going with cheese.  The 2% cheese has 90 calories for a quarter cup and its easy to keep under that amount for one muffin.  So we're looking at 210 calories and virtually no fat for a cheese mini pizza and 230-240 if you add turkey pepperoni or canadian bacon.  I usually add a little chalula (you will hear me mention this all the time, I love this hot sauce), crushed red pepper (this is by far my most used spice, right up there with cracked black pepper), and reduced fat parmesan cheese.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!  Much better than the Lean Cuisine, Smart Ones, or Healthy Choice prepackaged pizzas Ive tried to murder my cravings with. 

My girlfriends and I have talked about getting together and having a pizza night where we just have a bunch of ingrediants and make our own pies but we havent gotten around to it yet.  I have done these at home with jalopenos, sour kraut, chicken, tomatos, onions, mushrooms, and any other toppings I can find floating around in the fridge and everyone just loves them.  This would also be a fun activity for kids to do on a Friday pizza night instead of ingesting a million calories and buckets of grease shipped in from the local Pizza Hut.  Not that I dont indulge in a nice grease laden Caseys pizza from time to time...but these get me through the week so I don't feel so bad wolfing full fat 'za like a 300 lb man on my Sunday cheat day.  Enjoy!