LCHF Pizza!

WordPress has reminded me that it’s Roxy’s Kitchen’s first birthday today, which means that we have been on LCHF for a grand total of 54 weeks. I don’t make a habit of stepping on the scales, but this morning’s figure shows a 21% weight reduction. This is pretty cool considering I haven’t gone hungry at all over the last year, and I’ve pretty much been eating all of the butter, cream, cheese, eggs and bacon I can manage (oh and I’ve done about the same amount of exercise as before, i.e. next to none). More importantly, I have had a migraine-free year and I can count the number of headaches I’ve had on one hand (most of which have been alcohol-related). Pre-LCHF I would have had a migraine once per month at least, and headaches most days. Thanks LCHF!

Now onto the food part of today’s post… I was having a bit of a clear out of my hoarded delicious. magazines (not sure why I still subscribe, I think I just like looking at pictures of food), and I found a recipe for a cauliflower-crust pizza in their gluten free section (I say section, in this particular issue I think it was just one or two recipes). We used to have a pretty serious Dominos Pizza habit pre-LCHF, so we have just avoided pizza for a year (I mean, it can’t really get better than Dominos can it?? *sarcasm*), and the idea of a cauliflower-based pizza just didn’t seem right. However, I decided to give it a go (the picture in the magazine certainly made it look tasty), and I’m glad I did. Pizza is back on the menu, woo!

The magazine states that it makes 4 pizzas. We got two large and one small pizza out of the mixture (so they aren’t as greedy as us, clearly).

Ingredients:

For the crust:
450 g cauliflower (about a whole medium-sized one)
2 eggs
150 g ground almonds
50 g grated parmesan
1 tsp xanthan gum or arrowroot (optional)
Salt & pepper

For the toppings:
Whatever you like! We went for:
150 g mozarella cheese
150 g cheddar cheese, grated
6 rashers of smoked bacon
1 small tin of anchovies
2 tbsp spicy red pesto (or you could just use tomato puree, we just happened to have a jar of pesto kicking about)
Freshly ground pepper
A sprinkling of dried mixed herbs

Pre-heat the oven (and two baking sheets) to 180°C.

Whizz up the cauliflower in a food processor, and mix with the eggs, almonds, parmesan, xanthan gum (if using) and seasoning. It should form a fairly sticky dough-like mixture.

Place a dollop of the mixture onto some baking parchment, and form it into a fairly thin (about 5 mm) pizza base. You could place another sheet of parchment on top and roll it with a rolling pin, but I just flattened it with my hands (hence the irregular shape). Repeat for the second pizza, place the bases onto the preheated baking trays, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the bases are golden brown and fairly firm to the touch. I rotated the trays halfway through cooking.

Spread the pesto/puree evenly over the bases, top with the cheeses then the bacon and anchovies, and sprinkle the mixed herbs and ground pepper all over the pizzas. Return the pizzas to the oven for a further 5 – 10 minutes, or until the bacon is cooked and the cheese is all melty. Scoff the whole lot down and feel significantly less bloated (and less guilty), and a lot more satisfied, than you would have had you eaten a Dominos instead.

You can use any leftover mixture to make yourself a breakfast treat the next day: