The Dish That Inspired It All

The other day I was making myself a tasty little lunch and when my pizzetta came out of the oven, I thought "this is way to beautiful to keep to myself". I took a picture of my creation, intending to just show it off on Facebook, when it dawned on me that I should create a blog to share all of my culinary adventures. 

This dish came to life while trying to figure out what to do with an eggplant I had picked up the other day at an outdoor farmer's market. I scrounged around my fridge to find out what other ingredients I had on hand. When I saw the leftover head of roasted garlic a light bulb went off in my head: Roasted Garlic and Eggplant Pizzetta. I turned on the broiler and got to work. A quick 20 minutes later I had a gourmet pizza at my fingertips.

Here's how I did it:

Ingredients:

1 tortilla (I use La Tortilla Factory Low Carb High Fiber Large Tortillas, only 80 calories per slice!)

Olive oil cooking spray

1/2 eggplant, sliced about 1/4-1/2 inch thick

5 cloves roasted garlic*

1/4 cup onions, white or red, sliced

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup fat free shredded mozzarella cheese

2 tablespoons chopped parsley 

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Preheat broiler to low. Place sliced eggplant on a baking sheet lightly sprayed with olive oil cooking spray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and lightly spray tops with cooking spray.  Broil for 15 minutes, turning once, or until desired degree of doneness. 

Meanwhile, preheat a small skillet, coated with cooking spray, to medium/low heat. Cook onions until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add a splash (about a tablespoon) of balsamic vinegar and cook an additional 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

When the eggplant only has 5 minutes left, lightly spray the tortilla with cooking spray and place in the oven, directly on the rack, for about 3-5 minutes, turning once. Watch your veggies and tortilla closely, especially when working with the broiler, because every oven is different. 

Remove eggplant and tortilla from oven. Spread the roasted garlic over the tortilla. Cut eggplant into wide strips. Distribute the eggplant slices over the tortilla. Top with the balsamic onions, parsley, and cheese. Return pizzetta to broiler for an additional 2-3 minutes, just until the cheese melts. 

Remove pizzetta from oven, slice into wedges, and ENJOY! You just made your very own gourmet, low calorie, delicious pizza :)

Nutrition Information (entire pizzetta):

Calories: 271

Total Fat: 7.2 g

Saturated Fat: 0.6 g

Cholesterol: 4.1 mg

Sodium: 587 mg

Carbohydrates: 45.7 g

Fiber 21.4 g (WOW! Thanks to the High Fiber Tortilla, you have almost your entire day's worth of fiber)

Sugars: 11.6 g

Protien: 21.1 (How's that for a vegetarian pizza? Thank you Kraft Fat Free Cheese and La Tortilla Factory Low Carb High Fiber Tortilla)

*Roasted Garlic: You can easily roast your own garlic. Simply cut off the top quarter of the head of garlic, spray with a little cooking spray, and wrap in foil. Roast in the oven at 400 degrees for 30-45 minutes, until garlic is soft to the touch. You can surely roast it at a lower temperature if you already have the oven on for something else, just let it go a little longer. The cloves should be able to be easily removed with a knife and should be able to spread like butter. Roasted garlic is much milder in flavor than raw garlic, I spread it right on crackers!

Now onto the leftovers! What to do with that leftover 1/2 eggplant and roasted garlic? Hopefully you cooked up a little extra onion (another 1/4 cup would do). Throw the 1/2 roasted eggplant, 7 cloves of roasted garlic, 1/4 cup of balsamic onions, 1/2 a 15oz can of cannelini beans (or any other white bean), a handful of parsley, salt and pepper into a food processor or blender and pulse until you have a smooth, creamy roasted eggplant and garlic dip. It's like a cross between a hummus and a babaganoush!

Enjoy on multigrain crackers, your choice of vegetable (carrots would be fabulous), or as a spread to jazz up your plain old turkey sandwich. You could even mix some into some cooked pasta (I like tofu shirataki noodles, more on that later) and top with some parmesan cheese.

Nutrition Information (1/5 of dip, about 1/4 cup):

Calories: 51

Total Fat: 0.3 g

Saturated Fat: 0 g

Cholesterol: 0 mg

Sodium: 121 mg

Carbohydrates: 9.8 g

Fiber: 3.9 g

Sugars: 1.6 g

Protein: 2.8 g

For a store-bought hummus or babaganoush its about 50-70 calories and 3-7 g fat per 2 tablespoons. If you make this easy dip you get TWICE the amount of food, for the same or less calories and almost ZERO fat!