It's like a game for me now! I take unhealthy things I used to love and buy from fast food/take out places and find ways to make them at home for considerably less calories using healthy, tasty alternatives.

Here are a few that I've done recently:

I was craving a burger so this week I found a recipe for a Low-fat Southwestern Burger. It was delicious! I put it on an Arnold's Sandwich Thin and added salsa on top. I do WW, so the whole burger was only 4 points! OMG. Here is the link to the recipe:
http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/su...estburgers.htm

I love pizza. I used to get the Lean Cuisine ones, but now that I have to cut down on my points, I don't eat them any more because they were just too many points! So, I created my own instead using:
Arnold's Sandwich Thins for the crust (1pt)
Ragu Light Pasta Sauce (1/4 cup for 0 pts!)
Mozzarella made with 2% (2 pts for 1/4 cup)
Turkey Pepperoni (1pt for 8 slices)
Red Pepper Flake

I baked it for about 10 minutes at 350 (although next time I may up it 375). It was also delicious! And only 4 points...so much better than the 7 point LC pizzas! And it was like having 2 mini pizzas!


So, I was wondering what are some of the unhealthy things you've turned into healthy things! Post some recipes here and maybe we can give each other ideas! (Personally, I'd love to see a low-cal Mac and Cheese recipe!)

Speaking of Mac N Cheese...

I found a vegan Mac N Cheese recipe that used veggies in the sauce. I ended up changing the recipe a bit and its pretty awesome. The sauce is basically veggies and cashews. Its really good, here is my post about the recipe and what I did to modify it:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=163640

Im not a huge pizza fan, but you can guarentee about 2 weeks into being On plan I CRAVE it. So we are now making our own, they are fantastic, we have even had pizza parties where everyone brings toppings, I made about 4 batches of dough and we had a free for all, it was great!

Pizza Dough for thin crust
1 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar--add to water
1 pkg yeast, sprinkle ontop of water and set for 10 minutes

2 1/2 cups flour, ( use 1 1/2 cups white and 1 cup whole wheat)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder (optional)
1 tsp italian seasoning--or more (optional)
1/2 - 1 TBL olive oil

When yeast has sat ontop of water for at least 10 minutes, and it is foamy, add your dry ingredients and your oil. Mix together until formed into a ball. Turn out onto a floured board and knead about 5 minutes. Let set 20-30 minutes, then roll out into your crust. This makes two 12-14 inch pizzas

When rolled out put on a cookie sheet or stone. I add a sprinkle of corn meal onto of the sheet before adding dough. I like a crisp crust, so I prebake. I brush some olive oil on the crust lightly, and add more garlic powder, or crushed garlic! Prebake about 8-10 minutes on 400, until starting to brown.

Add sauce, and toppings! Bake again until toppings are just right (about 10 minutes) Prebaking is the only way to go for us, I hate soggy crusts, or doughey in the middle!

Favorite topping combinations: red sauce, chopped onions, spinach leaves, bell pepper, black olives, crumbled feta chese, light motzerella, and then kalamata olives on top---high in sodium, but man this one is good!

Red sauce, canadian bacon, olives, and pineapple, light motzerella

Pesto sauce, artichokes, spinach, olives, onions, motzerella

We also have started making our own pizzas at home- low fat mozzerela, pizza sauce, and then low fat turkey pepperoni and any veggies we want- MUCH healthier than eating pizza out.

That Mac and Cheese recipe looks awesome nelie! I am for sure going to try it out...thanks!!

And your pizza recipe made me hungry Red! I need to add veggies to mine, I totally didn't think of that, haha

Since we're not all counting kcals and fat grams , here's a great recipe for a low-carb pizza crust. I've made variations of it (never with the Splenda, mind), and it's really good.

Most Awesome Pizza Crust

Half of it gives 4g total carbs inc. 2.5g fibre; or 131 kcals, if you're interested. It's very satisfying with mozzarella and other tasty stuff on top.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH thats for the link, im new to low fat/cal and im trying to find all the recipes i can haha.

OOH that's awesome! I think the pizza crust we buy has 750 calories or something alone! I'm definitely going to try that recipe this weekend

I make pizza similar to yours Emily but I use the light Flat Out bread and FF mozzarella!

Tanee, where did you find FF mozzarella?! I stood staring at the cheese section forever and all I came up with was the 2%!

is there a thread for low fat/cal finds on this forum? Thanks... im trying my best to learn ahhahaah

I love homemade pizzas...whole wheat thin crust light cheese tons of veggies....mmmm. I love it!

For those of you interested in taking something less-than-healthy and making a healthy version, have you seen Hungry Girl?

http://www.hungry-girl.com/ Her "Chew the Right Thing" column (on Wednesdays) makes over unhealthy recipes into something lower fat and lower calorie. http://www.hungry-girl.com/chew/index.php

I'll ocassionally make pizza. Trader Joes has a premade but not precooked whole wheat crust that is pretty good. Since I don't eat dairy, I'll make it with tomato sauce, herbs and veggies.

It's the Kraft Free shredded mozzarella (they sell ff cheddar too). It should be mixed in with all the other shredded cheeses...if you can't find it I would maybe talk to the dairy dept manager & see if it's a possibility they could order it

Great thread!

I do the same burger thing (I LOVE the Arnolds sandwich thins) and pizza thing (I use kontos whole wheat pocketless pitas, or a regular whole wheat pita split in half . . . mmm, more toppings).

Re mac n' cheese . . . there are a lot of recipes for a version involving butternut squash floating around the internet. I've tried it, and it's pretty good.

In a similar vein . . . there are a lot of recipes for spaghetti squash lasagna floating around the internet - this is probably my all-time favorite swap.

A few other tricks . . .

Add lots of chopped veggies to things like chili - it adds a lot of flavor, nutritional value and volume without adding a lot of calories.

Just omit most of the oil when making stir-fries, curries, etc - if you have a good non-stick pan you really don't need much, and it makes very little difference in the taste. Substitute strained yogurt for sour cream or heavy cream.

Shred cauliflower, steam it and substitute it for rice.

Burritos - make your own "refried" beans (substitute broth or bean cooking liquid for most of the oil and throw lots of onions & peppers in there) and roll them up in La Tortilla Factory high fiber/low carb tortillas with some salsa and 2% cheese.

The "fiber-frying" idea works surprisingly well (see the Hungry Girl website). That website has a lot of other interesting "swap" ideas -- although most of the recipes involve too many highly processed ingredients for my taste.