This weekend I was in the Cotswolds for the wedding of a dear childhood friend of mine. It was my first time being a bridesmaid and I thoroughly enjoyed it so I hope it’s not my last (hint to any friends reading). I’m not boasting, rather explaining my temporary absence.
Last week, after a grueling interval session with Jeff I got home and cooked myself some dinner. Seeing as the boy had a stomach bug, and not, thank God, appendicitis as he was initially told, I decided to cook something he wouldn’t be able to stomach, so that I could hog it all to myself. It was tasty, healthy and best of all quick.
Cauliflower pizza base
Makes one decent sized pizza for one person
10 minutes prep, 20 minutes in oven
ingredients
One large cauliflower
Two balls of mozarella (or one and a handful of grated mild cheese)
one egg
a few table spoonfulls of tomato sauce – with pinch of oregano, salt and pepper
Toppings of your choice
instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 220 degrees celcius. Steam or boil your cauliflower for 3 minutes. Then either blend it if you’re lucky enough to own a blender, or mince it with a large knife a la Reikalein if not. You want the pieces to be about as big as a grain of rice.
2. Either grate some mild cheese or mince your mozarella ball like you did the cauliflower. Mix this in with the cauliflower and add the egg. Mix until well combined.
3. Lay out the bizarre mixture onto a baking sheet and try to make it look pizza shaped. You want to spread it evenly and make sure it’s quite thin so it will crisp as opposed to remaining soggy. Stick it in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until crisp all over.
A little browner than this would be better, to be honest.
4. Once it’s crispy and relatively solid, spread your tomato sauce over the base, then crumble on the mozarella and finish off with your topping. Bake for a further 5 minutes or until it looks sufficiently tasty.
Now you can enjoy the flavour of pizza without the associated carb-guilt. The texture’s not going to whisk you away to Naples, but it is a pretty decent replica of the real thing taste wise. It’s especially great for people who, like me, love pizza so much they would happily eat it 3 times a week if it wasn’t going to lead to dire waist line consequences.
En guete!
Wow, I never would’ve thought of using cauliflower as a pizza base! Looks really tasty :) Christine sugoi!
Domo! It’s not my original idea, but I did go for mozarella where many recipes suggested cheddar. I wanted to keep the base neutral in flavour.
Give it a try, you’ll be surprised by how quick it is to make! If you make real dough you have to pound it and wait for to rise, etc. No need with this :)
This is such a great idea! I was just experimenting with pizza base too yesterday but with polenta. I will definitely give this one a try for the low-carb option :)
Ratri
PS: was nice to meet you briefly last week, hope we can chat more next time!
Hi Ratri!
It was good to meet you, we definitely need to sit closer to each other next time :-)
My friend told me on facebook that her dad used to make it with rice too. I can already envision great crispy rice bases with korean style BBQ pork and veggies as toppings…I’ve just made myself hungry, haha.
Hi Christine!
Joe just introduced me to your website. It’s amazing, I love it! Can’t wait to escape the office today and try your cauliflower pizza base recipe.
Hope to see you soon, maybe in Vienna?
x Laura
Laura! It’s so good to hear from you :)
Enjoy the pizza, I’ll be posting new variations soon ;-)
I am actually hoping to go to Vienna at some point in the near future (possibly even this year) since there are so many Warwick people I want to see. I would love to see you too!
C x
Greetings from Los angeles! I’m bored to tears at work so I decided to browse your blog on my iphone during lunch break. I enjoy the info you present here and can’t wait to take a look when I get home. I’m surprised at how quick your blog loaded on my cell phone .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyhow, good site!