Excuse the early morning vulgarity.  I am just so excited for my trip to Colorado this Friday!  HOW is it only Tuesday?!

Since it’s not THIS Friday, let’s talk about LAST Friday which was a Friday night pizza night!   As you guys know, I’m a huge fan of Friday Night Pizza Nights, especially when I’m so tired after a busy week.

Homemade Sangria

Tim and I started out our night with some homemade sangria!

We didn’t follow any particular recipe for this, just kinda kept adding ingredients and stirring/tasting until it tasted YUMMY!  We used about 2 cups of limeade, half a bottle of red wine, three ounces of peach tree, a lot of seltzer water, half a carton of raspberries, half a can of canned pineapple chunks, and a sliced up plum.  The fruit hadn’t settled enough yet for our first glass, so I added a dab of agave nectar to that, but for the rest of the glasses the natural sweetness of the fruit settled in so we didn’t need any other sweeteners.

It was tasty and the perfect Friday night drink.  <3 my goblets!

Then we got crafty with cauliflower.  A few months ago, a cauliflower crust pizza recipe caught my eye on Pinterest.  Pizza without the processed carbs?  Could it be?  So we gave it a whirl!  Recipe is below, along with our thoughts and lessons learned for next time!

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Recipe inspired by Eat, Drink, Smile

Ingredients

The following ingredients are enough to serve 2 people

• 1 cup cooked and riced cauliflower
• Shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp crushed garlic
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• Tomato sauce
• Your choice of toppings (note the toppings will need to be precooked, as explained below)

To “Rice” the Cauliflower:

1. Take 1 large head of fresh cauliflower, remove stems and leaves, and chop the florets into chunks.  Add to food processor and pulse until it looks like grain.  Do not overdo pulse or you will purée it.  Place the riced cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 8 minutes (you may need to adjust this time if you have a powerful microwave).  Note — there is no need to add water, as the natural moisture in the cauliflower is enough to cook itself.  One large head should produce about 3 cups of riced cauliflower.

Doesn’t our funny “Kiss the Cook” rooster look so creepy/funny behind the food processor?!

This is what the cauliflower should look like when it’s done in the food processor — again, do NOT purée it!

To Make the Pizza Crust:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
3. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup cauliflower, egg, and mozzarella.
4. Add oregano, crushed garlic and garlic salt, stir.
5. Transfer to the cookie sheet, and using your hands, pat out into a 9″ round.
6. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.
7. Remove from oven.  To the crust, add sauce, precooked toppings, and cheese.
8. Place under a broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted (about 3-4 minutes).  This is why you need to precook the other ingredients — because they are only in the oven for 3-4 minutes on broil.  We used sautéed chicken, sliced red peppers, and mushrooms.

Finished product!

Taste Review
If you are skeptical about making a cauliflower crust because you think it will taste like cauliflower, you shouldn’t be.  My honest opinion is that this pizza obviously does not taste like real pizza dough, but you most definitely cannot taste the cauliflower.  I promise.  I feel like if any of you were to try this, you’d just say “what is this made of?” almost like you couldn’t exactly place the ingredients.  It tasted good though, and I didn’t feel disgustingly full after eating a few slices of pizza for dinner.  Huge bonus in my book.

Lessons Learned
The one negative thing I have to say about this recipe is that the crust just came out SO thin.  It was pretty impossible to eat with my hands in true za style.  I think our ingredients were too heavy for the crust!  If you don’t mind cutting it up with a fork and knife, no biggie though.  I think next time we will try using more than just the 1 cup of the pulsed cauliflower for the dough and hope it gets a little thicker.  On Friday, we ended up making 2 batches of the above recipe because the pizza was teeny (only 4 small slices like the above picture per pizza).  So maybe we’d just try to make a bigger one in general too.  Not all recipes are going to be perfect on the first try, but this was still good and I can’t wait to try it again!

Thoughts?  Would you ever try making a cauliflower crust pizza?

Until later, friends!