Sunday, June 3, 2012
Cauliflower Pizza
Morning all! Hope your having a weekend filled with fun and sun.
We've been having another gorgeous weekend here. Here's hoping this is what the weather will be like all summer. It feels like the last couple of years the weather has been great through the week and then we get rain on the weekends so this trend of hot sunny weekends has been great.
Some of you may have heard of this little website called Pinterest... Now, when I first heard about it last year I thought what a waste of time, why would I want to have picture boards of things, what purpose would that serve. Well, one day I ventured in and well lets just say I was hooked. I don't venture in as often as I used to simply for the fact once you're there you can't get out (at least for me anyway), then before you know HOURS have gone by and the dished haven't gotten done, the laundry's still piled up and studying what's that.
One thing I kept seeing on there was this Cauliflower Pizza crust. My first thought was Ewwww.. that would be gross. Everyone was pinning it so of course I followed suite and put it on one of my boards, and there is sat. I'd look at it every now and then but still kinda thought, there is no way that's 1. going to be a crust and 2. it's certainly not going to taste good.
Then the day came, I broke down and gave it a try. I was pleasantly surprised and shocked. The taste was really good. The texture well, a little disappointing. I'm a thin crunchy crust kinda girl and did have some hope since this is definitely a thin crust, but crunchy it's not (at least for me it wasn't).
Cauliflower Pizza - from Damy Health
I followed the recipe with one exception. I added my own fresh herbs to the mix, oregano and thyme instead of dried so I increased the amounts.
Ingredients:
We've been having another gorgeous weekend here. Here's hoping this is what the weather will be like all summer. It feels like the last couple of years the weather has been great through the week and then we get rain on the weekends so this trend of hot sunny weekends has been great.
Some of you may have heard of this little website called Pinterest... Now, when I first heard about it last year I thought what a waste of time, why would I want to have picture boards of things, what purpose would that serve. Well, one day I ventured in and well lets just say I was hooked. I don't venture in as often as I used to simply for the fact once you're there you can't get out (at least for me anyway), then before you know HOURS have gone by and the dished haven't gotten done, the laundry's still piled up and studying what's that.
One thing I kept seeing on there was this Cauliflower Pizza crust. My first thought was Ewwww.. that would be gross. Everyone was pinning it so of course I followed suite and put it on one of my boards, and there is sat. I'd look at it every now and then but still kinda thought, there is no way that's 1. going to be a crust and 2. it's certainly not going to taste good.
Then the day came, I broke down and gave it a try. I was pleasantly surprised and shocked. The taste was really good. The texture well, a little disappointing. I'm a thin crunchy crust kinda girl and did have some hope since this is definitely a thin crust, but crunchy it's not (at least for me it wasn't).
Cauliflower Pizza - from Damy Health
I followed the recipe with one exception. I added my own fresh herbs to the mix, oregano and thyme instead of dried so I increased the amounts.
Ingredients:
- 2 Cups Grated Cauliflower
- 1/4 Cup Egg Whites
- 1 Cup Cheese (Mozza, Feta or for a low-fat/higher protein pizza use 1% Cottage Cheese – drain your cottage cheese of any extra water first) ** I used Feta**
- 1- 2 Tbsp Chopped fresh Oregano
- 1 Tbsp Thyme (or Parsley)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 450
- Put your cauliflower in the food processor and pulse till it reaches the consistency of rice. You can also grate it with a grater.
- Place the cauliflower "rice" in a frying pan over medium heat and cook till translucent. This took about 12 mins for me.
- Place other ingredients in food processor and process till smooth.
- Combine with cauliflower in a bowl and mix well.
- Spread the dough on a parchment covered pizza pan/cookie sheet till it is fairly thin.
- Bake 25-35 mins, or until golden brown all over.
Before going into the oven for the first time
All browned up
*The other pizza crusts were for hubby. I knew there was no way I would ever get him to try it*
My Toppings
- Sliced black olives
- Roasted chicken
- Feta
- Fresh grated Parm
- Onion
- Marina
- and a sprinkle of bacon (cause everything is better with bacon)
Bake till the cheese is melty and enjoy.
This is a knife and fork pizza, and I will be making it again. I'm going to try to come up with something to make the crust a little crunchier. I was thinking changing up some of the feta to mozza or fresh grated parm. Something that wouldn't have as much liquid in it...We'll see.
This is the Marina I've been using White Linen by Victoria, you can find it a Costco. The ingredient list is short with mostly real ingredients.I don't have a bottle to look at but I believe the last item on the list is "spices" which can be a way of hiding MSG in food. Regardless, it tastes good and if you don't have time to make you're own it's a good option
Not sure what's on the agenda today, studying and hopefully getting the rest of my veggies planted ...oh and exercise can't forget that.
Have a good one!
~~Jackie
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Digging In The Dirt
Hi bloggies... Last night's post was preempted by cooking class and a sick fur kid. I tried posting but fell asleep with the laptop on my lap in bed... oops.
Let's talk gardening
Flowers make me happy. I love picking them out, strolling the garden centers and greenhouses, trading with friends,then creating pretty container gardens and flower beds. Sadly I left most of my plants behind when I got divorced and then left the rest at my house when I sold it. I used to spend hours dead heading them, trimming them and yes I even talked to them.. lol (please don't judge). I could just tune out the world and relax.
Last summer I thought I'd like to give growing my own veggies a try, so I asked hubby to build me a raised bed at the side of the house. So off I went shopping for some transplants and came home with some purple kale (can you say kale chips), English cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, and peppers. The kale, tomatoes and cucumbers were a huge success, the cauliflower and peppers, not so much. The little critters, bugs or what have you decided they were pretty tasty and ate them all before they had a chance to grow into anything :(
This year I wanted to expand and try something different. I started growing some things from seed.
Let's talk gardening
Flowers make me happy. I love picking them out, strolling the garden centers and greenhouses, trading with friends,then creating pretty container gardens and flower beds. Sadly I left most of my plants behind when I got divorced and then left the rest at my house when I sold it. I used to spend hours dead heading them, trimming them and yes I even talked to them.. lol (please don't judge). I could just tune out the world and relax.
Last summer I thought I'd like to give growing my own veggies a try, so I asked hubby to build me a raised bed at the side of the house. So off I went shopping for some transplants and came home with some purple kale (can you say kale chips), English cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, and peppers. The kale, tomatoes and cucumbers were a huge success, the cauliflower and peppers, not so much. The little critters, bugs or what have you decided they were pretty tasty and ate them all before they had a chance to grow into anything :(
This year I wanted to expand and try something different. I started growing some things from seed.
Fernando supervising.
I planted some carrots, arugula, 2 kinds of beets, mesclun mix, spinach and some other lettuce. So far so good, they're actually growing, I just need to get them in the ground.
Aren't they cute??
Of course this wasn't enough, so on the way by Farmer Clem's and the Superstore last weekend I stopped in just to see what they had. I'm sure you know how that turned out.
There's going to be a whole lot of cooking with fresh herbs this year. Parsley, Cilantro, Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary, Dill, 2 kinds of Basil and Curry. There are a few lettuce plants thrown in there too along with some hot peppers (here's hoping the bugs don't like hot peppers). I also had some garlic growing in the pantry so I threw that in the ground and it's coming along nicely.
If that's not enough I still have more seeds I need to get in and mom has a bunch of different kinds of Tomato plants.
The only negative to growing you're own, is you have to wait way too long for everything to grow. Patience is not one of my strong suits. It'll be worth it though, and if everything grows I'll be eating LOTS of veggies and spreading some veggie love around to whoever I can.
Well, that's all I have for you tonight.
~~Jackie
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The Quest For The Perfect Pizza
No you're not seeing things this really is the fourth blog post in a row. I don't know what's gotten into me.
Hubby has been on a quest to make the perfect pizza. His plan is to open some kind of Pizza place that also has some other foods in there as well. I keep trying to talk him into having healthy food, and he is on board with the healthier side of Greek/Mediterranean/Lebanese food which just happen to be some of my favorites. He also plans on building a pizza oven outside for us at the house. Unfortunately it's been a few years in the planning stage. He just can't get enough time to actually build the thing.
Needless to say there's been a lot of pizza going on over here. On the menu tonight.... yup you guess it Pizza.
Hubby has been on a quest to make the perfect pizza. His plan is to open some kind of Pizza place that also has some other foods in there as well. I keep trying to talk him into having healthy food, and he is on board with the healthier side of Greek/Mediterranean/Lebanese food which just happen to be some of my favorites. He also plans on building a pizza oven outside for us at the house. Unfortunately it's been a few years in the planning stage. He just can't get enough time to actually build the thing.
Needless to say there's been a lot of pizza going on over here. On the menu tonight.... yup you guess it Pizza.
Not the best picture. It's been so long since I've used my camera I keep using the wrong settings.
Toppings - Spicy Sausage from Pete's
- Bacon
- Prosciutto
- Ground Beef
- Buffalo Mozz
- Basic sauce made with San Marzano tomatoes. I use them as much as possible when I'm cooking. They really are the best!!
No veggies on this pizza, they are taboo for hubby.
Once assembled, to the BBQ it went. Pizza on the BBQ is about 1000 times better than pizza in the oven in my opinion. In the quest for the perfect pizza he had a little something up his sleeve.
He picked up some cherry wood to add some extra heat so it would cook faster and give some added flavour. He let it burn to coals then put the pizza in on the other side of the grill. The pizza wasn't directly on the grill we have one of the pizza pans with all the holes in it so the air circulates around it.
A few turns so it wouldn't burn then 10-12 mins later the finished product in all it's cheesy bubbly goodness.
I think the quest just might be over, he may have made the perfect pizza. It was delish!!
Don't forget next time you make pizza give it a try on the BBQ, you won't regret it I promise.
Have a good night everyone.
~~ Jackie
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