Italian Nachos?

Today's recipe was inspired by my dinner at Orlondo's where we indulged in an appetizer called Italian Nachos. It was Italian Sausage, pizza/marinara sauce, banana pepper rings, mozzarella cheese on top of some salty tortilla chips. It tasted so good that I knew I had to re-create it but in a healthier form. I decided to use ground turkey and season it instead of pork sausage which I think saved about 470 calories for the whole dish. Since we had Italian bread, we decided to use that instead of tortilla chips. So we pretty much completely diverted from the original recipe but the results tasted great...

Plated

Seasoning Recipe:
http://www.food.com/recipe/seasoning-for-ground-pork-italian-style-sausage-178446

For the seasoning, I just highjacked this recipe but halved it for 1 lb instead of 2 lbs. I didn't have fennel so I skipped it and I used Tones Pizza Seasoning instead of Italian Seasoning and Onion powder instead of minced dried onions.

Recipe:

Ingredient	Amount	Calories
Ground Turkey	1lb	680
Bread	Loaf of Italian Bread	1300
Pizza Sauce	1 Jar	180
Mozzerella Cheese	1/2 Cup	180
Green Pepper	1 Small/medium	45
White Onion	Half Cup Chopped	25
Sweet Pepper Rings	2 small peppers	0
		2410
	5 Servings	482

I guessed on the Italian bread calories and you probably won't need a whole loaf for 5 servings of this with the mixture so this calorie total may be higher than what you make. Feel free to substitute what you like.

Directions:

Season the meat how you like. The seasoning recipe I used for the turkey was flavorful although a tiny bit salty. Cook the meat on the stove until cooked. Throw in whatever chopped veggies you want in there until cooked soft (1st picture). Then throw in the pizza sauce until warm. I threw in the mozzarella cheese after the pizza sauce so it would melt. (2nd picture)

Colorful and healthy

With pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese

Walmart's Italian bread. Pretty good.

All in all, this is what I enjoy about cooking; you try something you like and you put your spin on it. It wasn't difficult to make; the hardest part being mixing the seasoning into the turkey. It was healthier than the original and none of the ingredients were too hard to come by. It can be varied in many ways (replace the bread for chips, use whatever meat you want, add more veggies). I don't know if this dish really qualifies as Italian Nachos so feel free to suggest a name for it.

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