Two Dinners -- Delicious and Low-Point!

Look at that pizza! It's probably been one of the most difficult things to lighten, especially since I can't seem to find any low-point pizza base ideas that I see on other blogs (other than tortillas and english muffins, neither of which I like as a pizza base)... I tend to save about half my points for dinner each day, so I often will have a 9 or 10 point dinner without any issue, and I am more than happy to give an extra point or two from my weekly allowance for such delicious indulgences.

For this pizza, I used a pizza crust that Whole Foods makes, thin crust, whole wheat and really delicious IF you spray the crust with cooking spray and sprinkle on a bunch of herbs before making the pizza. If you don't, it's a bit bland. Anyway, half of that comes out to be about 6 points. I added low-fat moz, turkey pepperoni, some low-point sauce and a TON of veggies. Really delicious and well-worth the points.

Another good alternative for a full-fat dinner? Healthy fish and chips!


Look at that! We used the President's Choice Blue Menu Haddock fillets, and I oven baked some potatoes. Look how brown and crisp they are! I have to give a huge THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to the You Tube video's that the WW Chick puts up. Her chili cheese fries was inspiring. I make the fries by cutting up the potatoes, spraying liberally with cooking spray and adding about 1 teaspoon or so of oil and salt and pepper and chili powder. Put on a well-sprayed baking pan, put in the oven (450 degrees) initially for about 5 minutes then put in the pan about three ice cubes. Close the oven and cook for another 10 or so minutes, flip over and cook for about 15 more. They get super crispy. Our nod to the Brits was to include peas, though they weren't mushy. I love this canned pea, Lucerne Canned Baby Peas. I have eaten them since I was a little girl and I really really love them. They don't really taste like peas, but they totally hit the spot.

Two great dinners for reasonable points. G loved them, too!

The Coast with the Most.

Our intrepid 'guide', S, took us to Fish Hoek for fish and chips after a delightful sojourn through the botanical gardens at Kirstenbosch. It's just beautiful. Mountains and ocean in one place? That's right.


I went with S to order the fish and chips, and he suggested that I try this great Namibian beer that is very low alcohol...


Yum! The Windhoek Light is very low in alcohol (so having two was not out of the question on my first full day in Cape Town!) and absolutely delicious. I looked for it at the LCBO here, but no.

Then came our fish and chips... OH MY GOODNESS. The box looked promising and the smell coming from it was greasy fishy goodness.


The little box is no nonsense. The fish and chips is not.


Wow. It was sizeable. The fish was crisp and steamy, the chips were delightfully crisp but soft inside. Now, knowing the local lingo, I asked the woman behind the counter for some 'tomato sauce' for my chips, knowing that I sounded exactly like a local. Oh yeah, save for my American accent and tourist look of wonder!

The package of tomato sauce came out, and it was as hoped, ALL GOLD, the local brand.


I don't know how much I talk about ketchup on my blog, but I have had a certain fondness for ketchup my entire life. I have to confess, that fondness has waned a bit in my adult years, but it's still there, and I love trying ketchup in different places. (For example, ketchup in Canada is much sweeter compared to ketchup in the US. As a result, I often bring ketchup home to Canada when I visit the States.)

Regardless, the tomato sauce/ketchup was very vinegary and delicious with my fish and chips. Bring it!

From there, we went to a area of Cape Town called Camps Bay. It's very swanky. S asked if we wanted to stop and have a drink, and we agreed. Once out of the car, we confessed that we were not huge drinkers, but would love to have a moment to walk around. So we did. Then S said, "OH, my favorite ice cream store is up the street, should we stop?" And of course we had to agree to go give it a try. After all, it was his favorite ice cream restaurant.

I had a wonderful ice cream. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. It was an amazing vanilla ice cream with some sort of shortbread cookie dough in it. ARGH! I canNOT remember what it was called, but it was delish!


And all of this delicious food was just the warm up to an amazing dinner.