Today, I am delighted to welcome Amee from Inspired-Housewife, who is giving us her recipe for a cauliflower crust pesto pizza. Please pay her site a visit!
Guest Post by Amee of Inspired-Housewife
Hello to The Humbled Homemaker readers. I am excited to be with you today and share my love for good food. I am Amee from Inspired-Housewife where I write about anything that inspires me, from great cleaning tips, DIY tutorials, yummy desserts, and many topics related to special needs children. Before I dive into how much I love to experiment in my kitchen, I want to say congratulations to Erin on the birth of her baby. I hope your little one and you are doing well. Thank you also for the chance to share with your readers.
As I mentioned, I love food. As I grow older, I find myself experimenting more frequently in my kitchen. Until about three years ago, pre-packaged lasagnas, macaroni and cheese and other easily processed meals were what I fed my family. Thankfully, I have a wonderful little boy who is sensitive to gluten and my husband and I made the decision to change our family’s eating lifestyle to become gluten-free. This was no easy feat because I really was not a great cook. But, like everything else in life, I dove in head first to learn as much as I could.
One of my favorite comfort foods is pizza. Last month, I made a cauliflower crust pizza. It was delicious! I am shocked by how good cauliflower is when used as a pizza crust. One of my readers told me she made a crust, and suddenly realized she had no tomato sauce. So, she covered the crust with pesto. Curious to see how pesto would taste compared to tomato sauce, I made two pizzas, one pesto and one with the red tomato sauce. They were both good, but the pesto pizza was amazing. Even my hubby, who is not a fan of my veggie crust pizzas, could not quit eating it. I hope you will experiment in your kitchen soon and try out my cauliflower crust pesto pizza.
Ingredients
- 3 cups of cooked cauliflower minced in your food processor or blender
- 3 eggs whipped
- 3 teaspoons of dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon of dried basil
- 3 teaspoons of crushed garlic
- 1/2 cup of pesto I used a jar of pesto, but pesto can be homemade as well
- 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
- Plus any topping you might like to add. Your toppings however, must be pre-cooked because the pizza is only put back into the oven to melt the cheese.
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.
- If you have a pizza pan like me, lay parchment or cooking paper on the pan to spread the crust on or use a non-stick sprayed cookie sheet.
- Take your head of cauliflower and cut off the stems and leaves, then cut it into sections and place in your food processor or blender to be minced. The cauliflower should look like grain when you are done pulsing it. If you do not have a food processor or blender, then use a cheese grater to mince the cauliflower. Take the minced cauliflower and place it in a microwavable safe bowl, and then cook in your microwave for about six minutes. **The time could vary depending on the power of your microwave. If you do not have a microwave, steam the cauliflower. It will be a bit more mushy, but will still turn out the same once cooked.**
- In a large bowl mix together the cooked cauliflower, eggs, oregano, basil and garlic. Once these ingredients are thoroughly mixed, take the parchment paper covered pizza pan or spray coated cookie sheet and scoop out the mixture onto it. Use your hands to press the mixture about a quarter to half inch thick into the shape of a circle. If you make your crust too thin the pizza crust will not hold together and will fall apart when you serve it.
- Place the pan in the oven for 15 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.
- Remove the crust from oven and cover with pesto sauce and your choice of cheese and other pre-cooked toppings.
- Place the pizza back into the oven and cook until the cheese is melted.
This pizza is yummy! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let me know if you try it. I love to hear other people’s success stories or variations in trying new foods.
Amee is a housewife, a mother to three beautiful children, two fat cats, a few fish, and is married to her “Superman.” She loves to blog about what inspires her – cooking, kids, crafting, special needs, and tips that help her in daily life. If you loved this post and want to know more, then come check out her blog Inspired-Housewife. There you get a glimpse into her chaotic life as a funny, semi-crunchy mommy and wife currently into home birth, cloth diapers, gluten free food while on a simultaneous journey to not lose herself as a woman.
Elsie
Fascinating! I’m not really a fan of cauliflower, but this sounds good! Might give it a try…
Amee
Hi Elise,
I am not a big fan either, but it is really yummy. If you make it I
promise you will make it again and again!
Amee
Amee
Thank you Erin for the opportunity to guest post. Hope your readers enjoy their veggie crust pizza! Amee
Erin
Thank you so much for guest posting, Amee!! I enjoyed having you! Your recipe looks SO delicious!! 🙂
Katelyn
Just made. Kids weren’t terribly impressed, but they’re eating it. It was different. Think I’m going to double the pesto next time, but I used a little more cauliflower because I wanted to use it up. I put mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes on top. We are a family of meat eaters and this recipe was a big stretch for us, but it ended up all right. I might put some precooked meat on it next time, though.
Suzanne
I tried to make this tonight and failed…so sad. It never firmed up but ended up as a mushy crust. Rereading the recipe caused me to think maybe I didn’t use enough cauliflower. I used a whole head and didn’t measure to see if that was 3 cups. I may try to make this again if you can help me. I need to know if the 3 cups should be measured after the cauliflower is processed and cooked or measured before. Also, I do not like to use the microwave for cooking, if steaming, should I measure it first? Thanks for the help.
Erin
I’m so sorry! 🙁 This was a guest post so I am not really sure.
Keelie Reason
So, can you pick the crust up? Or do you have to use a fork. I want to try this out, but wondered if my kids would be able to eat it at the couch in front of a movie, or if we would have to sit at the table.
Erin
Hi Keelie! I wish I knew but this was a guest post, and I’ve never tried this particular recipe. 🙁 Based on my experience with other similar recipes, though, I would think it would be more fragile than regular pizza.
Daniele
We made this pizza tonight for my family of 5, and we enjoyed it. I made two pizzas out of it; one just as the recipe called for and the other wasn’t loaded with broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, and tomatoes. Our four year old enjoyed the original recipe (as she doesn’t like mushrooms), our three-year/old enjoyed the super vegetable pizza (but only liked the cauliflower with Parmesan grated cheese), the infant didn’t eat any, and my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The super veggie pizza was good, especially with a bite a cauliflower with another vegetable. It also tasted really good with some grated Parmesan cheese (I didn’t add any salt to the recipe, but having the grated Parmesan had the little extra “kick” I was anticipating.) it was a nice change for us and definitely got our vegetable servings in for the day! Yeah! These kind of recipes make me want all our meals to be super concentrated in vegetables (I try but doesn’t always happen.)
Someone had asked if you can pickup the pizza like a breaded pizza, we could not pick it up with our hands but used a fork. it was a fun change up!
Thanks for the guest recipe!