CLEAN EATING PIZZA (cauliflower crust)

Wednesday, September 4, 2013


Did anyone else grow up in wacky Bible belt churches where this happens:
          Pastor: God is good!
          Roaring Crowd: All the time!
          Pastor: GOD IS GOOD!
          Crowd Near Out of Control: ALL THE TIME!!!

K well when I tried this pizza I was a part of that roaring crowd. In fact I was praise dancing down the aisle (the aisle being my galley kitchen) barefoot banging on my tambourine yelling in tongues praising my mighty God who has blessed clean eaters with a CLEAN PIZZA THAT TASTES LIKE REAL PIZZA. Yeah people, LOOK WHAT GOD CAN DO.

My moment was quickly interrupted when BF walked in the door and announced "yo it smells like pizza from the hallway but up close it smells like ass fart." Well cooking cauliflower has been known to smell like ass fart, but soon the other pizza aromas overtook the cauliflower-ass-fart smell and he was able to enjoy the pizza.

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Servings: 4 pieces (it's a 12" pizza. Good for 2 to share)

Ingredients

  • 2 Cups Grated Cauliflower ($4.00/head, 2 cups turned out to be about 1/2 a large head)
  • 1 large egg lightly beaten
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese for the crust ($1.50)
  •  + 1/3 cup shredded mozzarella ($.50) OR 1/3 cup cottage cheese to be easier on the tummy (shoutout to my fellow lactards!) 
  • 1/4 cup tomato sauce ($1.00)
  • Whatever clean toppings you want (we used mushrooms, red bell pepper, onion and arugula)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Grate your cauliflower- you can do this with a regular grater, a food processor, or with the Grate setting on the blender. Once you have 2 cups of grated cauliflower dump it onto a paper towel and wrap it up in 2 layers of paper towels and squeeeezzzeee all the water out- this is SO important if you want crispy pizza crust, otherwise the crust is soggy. Once you have squeezed out as much water as possible, combine the dried out grated cauliflower with the egg, garlic and oregano and mix it together. Flatten it out onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Put the crust into the oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes pull it out, slather (gross word but I can't think of a better way to say it) the tomato sauce onto it, top with the cottage or mozzarella cheese and your toppings of choice. Cook for an 5-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

Take it out, cut it up, and praise God. I'm looking into having this ready as a late-night snack after the bars to cut down on my jumbo slice habit. Anyone know how well the cooked crust can store?

Just a head's up- the blender method gets a liiittllle messy
Grated cauli. kinda looks like rice

The dried cauli mixed with egg, garlic and seasonings

Ready to get in the oven and smell like ass fart
Yeah yall. Yeah.

And in case you are unfamiliar with Bible Belt churches and Christian worship pop (WOW Worship anyone?) here's a glimpse into my childhood- I swear someday I'll write a book about my experience at church camp in Dry Gulch, Oklahoma...

8 comments :

  1. You are so funny that I literally laughed out loud! I've never been to the Bible Belt, but I did grow up in church, so I'm pretty familiar with God is good ALL THE TIME...ALL THE TIME God is good! Thank you for allowing me to briefly relive childhood memories. And btw, I cannot WAIT to try this pizza! It sounds so yummy! I'm about to begin a clean eating challenge and so I've been looking up recipes all day. Your blog my dear is a keeper :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you cook the cauliflower before grating it? The recipe we used told us to do that, so then when we tried to squeeze out the water we scalded our hands. Still worth it of course but wondering if your method was less painful...

    ReplyDelete
  3. This looks great! However, I am concerned that there isn't enough protein for a well balanced meal. Have you tried adding grilled chicken? If so, how do you fix the chicken? Love your blog!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Rachel! I actually did add grilled chicken a few weeks ago and posted the recipe on instagram (@lhtempleton). Instead of pizza sauce I used Trader Joe's BBQ sauce, seasoned the chicken, baked it, then topped my pizza with mozzarella, red onion, tomato, and chicken. It was delicious!

      Delete
  4. That video brought back so many memories for me! Thanks for all the recipes, I am trying to get the family on board with clean eating, and this one sounds amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I tried this and it was perfect. Even my husband enjoyed it, after I convinced him to try. I swear there was another recipe you had, with Chorizo...but we put that on too. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good god. I just had to try so hard to contain myself from busting up in a quiet office reading this. Also, we eat frozen pizza at least once a week, so I might need to try this! Probably a bit healthier than our Red Barons.

    ReplyDelete

Love to hear your thoughts and opinions, let's chat!