A. A. Milne once recounted this conversation:
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.”
Like Pooh, I look forward to starting my day with a jolt of excitement. And what fits that bill better than pizza for breakfast? Better yet - fast, easy, healthy, low calorie, and delicious.
Like you, I have often wondered what to do with leftover takeout pizza. It sits in the box in the ‘frig until it withers and dies. But I hit upon a brilliant solution.
We had some out of town friends, and after attending a certain game that was really great for 59 minutes and 50 seconds, we ordered some pizzas from Bigalora – a modern Italian-themed small chain with restaurants in Ann Arbor, Southfield and Royal Oak. They promise thin crust pizza in 90 seconds in their 900 degree ovens, and no matter how busy, the takeout orders are ready remarkably fast.
On Sunday morning I contemplated the leftover margherita (tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil) pizza. I removed a slice from the box, put it in a cold oven directly on the rack, and set the temperature to 350.
While that was happening, I heated some olive oil in my egg pan, sautéed a handful of spinach, then fried an egg. Right around this time the oven “dinged” that it was up to 350. I removed the pizza. It was perfectly warm and the crust just as crispy as when it was fresh. I topped it with the spinach and the egg, and man, it looked great and tasted even better.
Curious about the nutritional content, I did a little Googling. Bigalora doesn’t post calorie count, but their pizzas are thin crust and the individual slices are normal sized. I figured 250 calories, tops. The spinach is nil – maybe 5 calories – and the egg 90. Olive oil is 120 a tablespoon. Use half that and you’re right around 400 calories.
That puts you in the same ballpark as what we may consider “healthy” options: granola with low fat milk, a cheesy egg white scramble on butterless whole wheat toast, nonfat Greek yogurt with fruit and a handful of granola, or a bagel with low fat cream cheese.
It beats the pants off more traditional breakfasts such as eggs with hashbrowns, cheesy egg wraps, pancakes, or a Bloody Mary and fried pickles.
And it’s just as delicious on Wednesday morning as it was on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Wish the game had gone down just as well.
Nick Roumel is a principal with Nacht, Roumel, Salvatore, Blanchard and Walker, P.C., a litigation firm in Ann Arbor specializing in employment litigation. He also has many years of varied restaurant and catering experience, has taught Greek cooking classes, and writes a food/restaurant column for “Current” magazine in Ann Arbor. He occasionally updates his blog at http://mayitpleasethepalate.blogspot.com/.
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