Taste o’ Pizza

This Christmas Eve is sunny and clear. It’s also cold, 21° F. Looking outside now, it’s hard to believe that we may get snow tomorrow, tomorrow night, and the next day, but that’s the forecast: cloudy with a chance.

My taste buds clamor for a taste of pizza today, yet I don’t want to buy a high-calorie pizza pie. Can I get a taste of pizza without buying or making the standard high-calorie pie? Yes: a pizza sandwich. But first I must go to the grocery.

At 11 AM the grocery store parking lot is crazy crowded. It is customary in these parts for everyone to wait until the day before the store will be closed before going to buy a month’s worth of supplies. I do my part to uphold this tradition. I duck in and pick up the few items I need for my pizza sandwich.

I buy:

• Sandwich thins – small, round, 100 calories. You’ve seen ‘em.
• Pizza sauce – I get the squeeze bottle.
• Sliced provolone.
• Sliced mozzarella.
• Sliced pepperoni.

Some assembly required:

Separate the halves of a sandwich thin and toast them a little. Don’t toast them crisp, just dry them out a little. Put the sandwich halves on a plate and add pizza sauce, provolone, mozzarella, and pepperoni. If you like them, sprinkle on red pepper flakes (I don’t consider a pizza complete without red pepper flakes) or add onion rings. Then top with the other half of the bread. Put the sandwich into a microwave oven and heat it about 20 seconds to melt the cheese. Tasty!