New MyPlate Recipe! Rachel's Pizza Pasta!

Listen up, my friends!  Have you been craving pizza lately, but can't justify making MyPlate pizza, or ruining the diet to eat Pizza Hut?  I think I have a solution!  I made MyPlate Pizza Pasta!

Okay, that sounds really ridiculous, but it's pretty delicious.  It's also pretty ugly, but that just makes it tastier in my opinion.

I didn't intend to make it taste like pizza.  It just wound up that way, so I thought since it's darn delicious, I'd share the recipe and post a few pictures for you. 

I started out hungry for spaghetti, and figured I didn't want to eat anything but spaghetti and sauce.  So, my quest to make spaghetti sauce in MyPlate portions was on.  I started out with a serving of tomato sauce.  Okay, so it wasn't tomato sauce, it was leftover pizza sauce, made from tomatoes and sea salt and a few seasonings, from the MyPlate pizza I made for lunch today.  Then I took a small handful of fresh spinach leaves and a thick slice of green bell pepper, and tossed everything into the food processor. 

What I found when I opened the lid of the food processor was a smooth, dark greenish-brown sauce.  Dipping in a finger to taste, I thought, "Hmm.  Pleasant surprise!"  I then rummaged through the fridge to see what kind of lean protein and low-fat dairy I could add.

"Aha!" I said quietly to myself as I found some turkey sandwich meat and some shredded low-fat mozzarella.  I added one serving of turkey and a quarter cup of the cheese into the food processor and blended that into the sauce.

Well, now it was even uglier, a light brownish-green color, but it tasted like pizza.  I'm not going to complain.  I put it in a microwave-safe dish and nuked it a while till warmed through, and then the cheese was melted.  It was chunky, smooth, and creamy all at once like pizza kind of is.  Super delicious!  I added it all to a serving of spaghetti (about one cup cooked) and mixed it in.  It was probably the best spaghetti sauce I've ever eaten, because I am not one to usually eat sauce on spaghetti.  If I make spaghetti, it's usually with a little Smart Balance butter-substitute melted on top, eaten plain like that. 

Want to see the finished results?

 

The ugly-yet-amazing Pizza Pasta sauce!

 

The finished product on a small plate!  What a tasty MyPlate meal!

Here's the recipe again, for those of you who didn't catch it before:

Pizza Pasta:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of pizza sauce
• Small handful of spinach
• Slice of green bell pepper
• Serving of turkey lunch meat
• 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 cup spaghetti, cooked

Blend pizza sauce, spinach, green pepper, turkey, and cheese in food processor till finely chopped (probably won't be smooth).  I added a few drops of water to make it a little smoother, but that's optional.  Then microwave the mix till warmed through (doesn't have to be hot, just enough to melt the cheese!).  Add entire mixture to the cup of spaghetti, and mix it up.  Enjoy!  (Serves 1 person a complete MyPlate meal.)

--Rachel