~ White Cauliflower Pizza ~

~ White Cauliflower Pizza ~

  ok, so I stayed home from work today because I was feeling a little tired, but since I was home I decided to try my hand at making cauliflower pizza.

This is how I made it...

Ingredients for crust

1 cup riced cauliflower
1 whole egg
Mozzarella cheese - grated (...about 1/4 cup)
Dried Jalepeno peppers (optional)
Dried Basil
Salt/pepper - to taste

This is how it looked before baking

Ingredients for white cauliflower pizza:

2/3 cup Jimmy Dean's Turkey sausage crumbles
1/4 (... or a little more) grated mozzarella cheese
Dried basil
Dried red chiles (... can you tell I like it spicy!)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 - 400 (... I use a convection oven, so temps will vary)

- Mix well, all of the above ingredients in a bowl
- Spray a flat pan or pie pan with oil spray ( ... I know not Paleo, working on this)
- Place in oven and bake until edges look almost burnt (... very brown)... about 15 minutes or so
- remove from oven and add the other ingredients, meat, additional cheese, spices, etc.
- put back into the oven and bake until the cheese melts. * According to my clock, the total time to prepare this pizza was 25 minutes

This is the finished product





This pizza was delicious, I am almost speechless at how amazing this pizza taste. I am fascinated by all the different techniques I am learning as I progress into my Paleo journey. It is so basic, but yet so absolutely delicious and complex at the same time, because you can add as much or as little to this recipe as you like.

I made a small pan sized version because this was my first time making it and I didn't want to make too much. Well, needless to say, after I write this blog, I am off to make another one!... oh yeah, it's that good! ... I didn't want to add any sauce and it tasted fine without it, that's why I named it "White Cauliflower Pizza"... I may add some @ another time, the possibilities are endless. For my second pizza today, I am going to add:

- chopped baby spinach
- green onion slices / chives
- rehydrated porcini mushrooms

MY THOUGHTS

If you are looking for a healthy alternative to pizza, whether you are going Paleo or not, this is the way to go... If you decide to make one, please stop by and let me know how you liked it and also, what your recipe is.

~ Dee

Part 1... it begins now....

I recently found out that I am carb sensitive, which is a relief because I have been struggling to lose weight for quite some time ... Now I can focus on the process of losing weight...

Last week, I joined 2 teams on Sparkpeople.com... I have been a member of this website for one year, as of January/2009... The teams I joined were: Carb Cycling and South Beach... I am familiar with the South Beach methodology of losing weight and body fat, however, as of late, I have discovered "calorie and carbohydrate cycling.... I purchased Tom Venuto's BFFM manual, an e-book "focusing on accountability and the phychological, emotional and social factors that sabotage fat loss success"...it is a wonderful read... I am just finishing it and I have learned so much from this manual.

Losing weight has always been difficult for me; I have never been a person who can lose weight without some form of exercise... and I love to exercise... especially cardio, specifially, kickboxing, as of late... After I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, my efforts to lose weight were intensified, because according to my oncologist, losing weight and maintaining a normal weight, can help prevent a breast cancer recurrence in the future... of course there are no guarantees, but I am doing my part to make this a reality... Being consistent has been difficult due to health challenges along the way... but I will not give up... and now that I know "why" my weight loss is slow, maybe I can finally make some progress, starting with my nutrition...

That being said, to complicate matters even more, according to the BFFM manual I am an "Endomorph" body type... Endomorph's typically have slower metabolism's and have a harder time building muscle... Now being "carb sensitve" and an "endomorph" is a double edge sword, but it is not hopeless... This is where carb and calorie cycling come in... I will write more about this in my next blog...