Cauliflower Pizza Power

It's been 5 days since my last post.  Why?
I've been indulging in a little pre-Christmas
Retail Therapy this week, both online and real time.

What is it about purchasing stuff that is just so dang satisfying?

It loses the gloss a little bit when I realize I need to

actually find room for the things I haul home.  For me.

Oh, wait.  Was I supposed to be buying presents?

Anne's been pitching in with cooking, and, inspired by a recipe

from her sister, she whipped up pizzas for us for dinner.

With cauliflower crusts!

Did you miss the 10/2010 post about the Cauliflower That Ate New Jersey?  Click here!

This recipe defies all logic; it should not work.

But it does.  Who'd a-thunk?

It's a great recipe for anyone going low-carb, or gluten-free.

Being her Mama's daughter, Anne took pictures.

For the crust, you need raw cauliflower,

shredded mozzarella, and eggs.

A battle with Edward Scissorhands inside the Cuisinart,

and our cauliflower morphs into little itty bits, like grains of rice.

 Squeeze all the wetness out of the riced veggie.

One does not want one's crust to be soggy. 

Mix the cheese and the egg into the riced veg, to make a pasty glop.

Plop it onto a baking sheet.

(Pizza stones or stone sheets are ideal for this.)

Form the glop into reasonable facsimiles of pizza shapes,

and pop them into a 450-degree oven.

They actually get crusty at the edges.
These crusts are showing off their tops and bottoms.

Add toppings:  pizza sauce, cheese, veggies,

pepperoni, crumbled sausage, pineapple . . . 

No! No! Never pineapple, blech . . . 

and back they go into the oven, under the broiler,

to get all melty and crispy and delicious.

 I am not a gambling man, or even woman, but I'd bet

that you could feed this to just about anyone who 

has never had it before, and he or she would never guess

that it's cauliflower lurking under all that pizza-y goodness.

The crusts get crispier in the bottom rack of the oven, and you

can pick the slices up and eat them in your hand, like Domino's.

Only they are better, because Domino's?  Not a high bar.

So . . . the recipe.  It's here:

Preheat oven to 450-degrees.

1 cup "riced" raw cauliflower

1 egg

1 cup mozzarella cheese (if making double the recipe, use 1-1/2 c.)

(Add salt, herbs, garlic, etc., if you want to.)

Mix together, spread in a round shape on baking pan.  (Stone pan works best.  You can spray a cookie sheet with Pam-stuff if you want, or lightly brush on olive oil.)

Bake for about 15 minutes, more if you've doubled to make a BIG pie.

Remove from oven, and pile on your pizza toppings.  You know what you like.

While that's happening, you are goosing up the oven to broiler heat.

Return the pan to the oven, and broil until the cheese gets all sexy, moist, and melty.

Okay, not sexy, but ....

And that's it.  The whole enchilada.  Or, pizza.  It reheats nicely, so they say, but we didn't test that out as we ate the little cuties all in one meal.  

Hey, there were three of us.  It wasn't just me.

That's it for Friday.

I am on my way to pick up my minivan (finally!)

which (also finally!) has a new front facade.

-- Cass

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