Perfect Cauliflower Pizza Crust

I have posted before my struggle to find something suitable for dinner when my uncle Tuck comes to visit! He is a diabetic with a strict diet.  Carbs are bad, and carbs are everywhere.  He can basically eat meat and cheese, which obviously doesn't meld so well with my usual meal plans!  This last visit, when he came into the house and asked what was for dinner, I was excited to say, "pizza."  Before he could panic that I was about to hand him a pizza crust and put him into a diabetic coma, I announced my plan to make both regular pizza (for the rest of us) and cauliflower crust pizza for him!  My friend Laura at work gave me the crust recipe and swore it was a good alternative to regular pizza.  So, here it goes!

This crust is gluten-free; it is made only from cauliflower, egg, goat cheese, oregano and salt!  I have heard horror stories of cauliflower crust that is mushy and soft and flavorless; that's not happening here. The goat cheese and oregano keep it tasting great, and it is somehow bizarrely bread-like.  Then there is the fact that you actually can pick this pizza up with your hands!  I could have baked mine a little longer, but the natives were getting restless and we wanted pizza, so I rushed it a bit, but it was still a great crust alternative.

Secrets include making sure you squeeze out as much moisture from the cauliflower as you can!  I used frozen and thawed cauliflower florets but fresh would be fine too; it just saved me the step of cooking it.  Squeeze it, mix it, bake it, flip it (this was a little bit scary but we did it as a group effort), bake it some more, and then top with your favorite toppings and bake one last time.

The end result was a beautiful pizza that was both tasty, gluten-free, low-carb, and enjoyed by diabetics and non-diabetics alike!  Definitely something to make again for my gluten-free and low-carb family and friends!

Recipe:

perfect cauliflower pizza crust
from Detoxinista
serves 2 - 4

Ingredients:
2 pounds cauliflower florets, fresh or frozen and thawed
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup soft goat cheese
1 teaspoon dried oregano
pinch of salt

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Pulse batches of raw or thawed cauliflower florets in a food processor until a rice-like texture is achieved.

2) If you used fresh cauliflower, fill large pot with an inch of water and bring it to a boil.  Add the cauliflower rice and cover.  Cook for 4- 5 minutes.  Drain into a fine-mesh strainer.

3) Transfer strained cauliflower rice to a clean,t in dish towel.  Wrap up the steamed rice in the dish towel, twist it up, and squeeze all the excess moisture out.

4) In a large bowl, use your hands to mix cauliflower, beaten egg, goat cheese, and spices.  Press the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Keep the dough about 1/3 inch thick, and make the edges a little higher for a crust effect.

5) Bake for 30 minutes, until top is dry and golden.  Then carefully flip the crust over and bake for another 10 minutes.  The crust should be firm and golden brown when finished.

6) To complete pizza, add sauce and toppings and bake for another 10 minutes.  Slice and serve hot.  Alternatively, allow to cool and slice to use as a flatbread for sandwiches!

Chicken and Vegetable Stir-Fry

What? Chicken!?  I know, but the people I cook for must be pleased sometimes :)  This was a specific request from Jesse, and I am a sucker for requests, especially when it is for something I haven't tried before.  It definitely takes away a lot of the fun when that recipe involves touching raw chicken, but I'm working hard on not being a total brat about it!  Did I hate every second of touching it?  Yes, most definitely.  But I made it through, with only a little bit of crying.

Let's talk about the rest of the this dish, since in my opinion, it would be way better without chicken (or perhaps with ficken?).  There's broccoli, carrots, peppers, onion, snap peas and mushrooms in there!  Minus the chicken, it's a vegetarian's dream!  And then there is the sauce: chicken broth, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and sesame oil are thickened with cornstarch so it sticks to all your veggies and rice.  Plus there's garlic and ginger for flavor.  It's actually a really great stir fry, minus chicken.  Or plus chicken, depending on your carnivorous tendencies.  Serve it over rice and reheat it for days.  Or, send all of it home with the carnivores in your life like I did, and just bask in the glow of the compliment "this is better than my mom's" ;)

Recipe:

chicken and vegetable stir fry
from Cooking Classy

Ingredients:
1 pound chicken breasts, sliced into small strips
3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups broccoli florets, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 1/2 cups chopped carrots (about 4)
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced into strips and halved (1 1/2 cups)
1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 small)
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 cups sugar snap peas, halved
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
3 cloves garlic, minced

Instructions:

1) Place chicken in a gallon-size resealable bag.  Ina  2-cup liquid measuring cup or bowl, whisk together chicken broth, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sesame oil.  Immediately after whisking well, measure out 1/4 cup before oil returns to the top.  Pour the 1/4 cup over chicken in bag and let marinate in refrigerator 10-15 minutes.  Whisk cornstarch and sugar into remaining soy sauce mixture.

2) Heat oil in a wok or nonstick pot over medium-high heat.  Remove chicken from marinate and add chicken to wok.  Heat chicken until halfway cooked through, about 3 minutes, tossing occasionally.  Add in broccoli, carrots, bell pepper, onion, and ginger.  Cook, tossing occasionally, for 4 minutes.  Add in snap peas, mushrooms, and garlic and cook 2 minutes longer.  Whisk soy sauce mixture once more and then pour into pan.  Toss frequently until sauce has thickened and veggies are tender, about 2 minutes.  Serve over white or brown rice.

Polenta with Fontina and Roasted Vegetables

This post is dedicated to grandmothers.  First, because I sort of forgot about this dish even though it was super delicious (this is one of those recipes whose pictures got deleted) until I saw my grandmother yesterday, because I brought some of it up to her when she was sick last month.  My mom and aunt Susie were up there too and got to eat some of it, and they were so enamored, Susie immediately bought fontina cheese!  Thanks for being the visual reminder, Gram!

This meal is also dedicated to grandmothers because it's a simple dish of polenta with cheese, and roasted veggies on top.  Polenta, by the way, is basically corn meal cooked into a thick porridge and then baked.  What does that have to do with grandmothers? I have always remembered that my aunt Linda said that her Sicilian grandmother used to say, "they eat polenta" as the ultimate insult.  I find this hilarious.  Apparently polenta was seen as trashy food for poor people!  Ha!  Okay fine, I am poor, but this simple, hearty dish would be right at home in a fancy Italian restaurant with rich people too.  So Linny's grandmother was wrong about polenta, but I will still dedicate it to her :)

You can totally change this recipe up if you'd like.  Swap out the fontina cheese for anything melty, and roast whatever vegetables are sitting in your refrigerator.  I went with the recipe as is, and I ate every last grain of that polenta for days.  It's easy, cheesy (fontina and Parmesan, you guys) and filling and amazing, and the veggies caramelize in the oven and are a perfect sweet compliment to the buttery, cheesy polenta.  It feels like a wintry dish, but hey, I wore my winter coat at recess duty today, so the time for polenta is not over!  Give it a shot before the weather really heats up.  You will not be disappointed.

Recipe:

polenta with fontina and roasted vegetables
from Williams Sonoma
serves 6

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for pans
1 small eggplant, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
2 small zucchini, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
2 small yellow summer squash, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1/2 red onion, cut into 3/4-inch pieces
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
salt and pepper
1 cup stone-ground polenta
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups shredded fontina cheese

Instructions:

1) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Oil a rimmed baking sheet and an 8-inch baking dish.

2) In a large bowl, combine the eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, red onion, and bell pepper.  Drizzle with the 3 tablespoons oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine.  Arrange in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.  Roast, tossing once, until the vegetables are caramelized, 20 - 25 minutes.  Set aside.  Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

3) Meanwhile, in a heavy saucepan. bring 4 cups salted water to a  boil over medium heat.  Stirring constantly, very slowly add the polenta.  Cook, stirring constantly, until the polenta begins to chicken, about 5 minutes.  Reduce the heat to low and continue to cook the polenta, stirring frequently, until the polenta is soft, about 25 minutes.  Add the butter, Parmesan, and fontina and stir until the cheeses melt.  Pour the polenta into the prepared baking dish and smooth the top.

4) Bake just until the polenta begins to set, about 15 minutes.  Remove from the oven and top evenly with the roasted vegetables.  Continue to bake until the vegetables are heated through, about 15 minutes.  Serve the polenta directly from the dish.

Sicilian Rice Ball Casserole

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there!  Yes, this is a day for women who have children, like my amazing mother, but I also like to think of myself as a mother to my sweet little rescues.  I have an orange chiffon cake cooling on the counter per Mom's request, and although our rainy Mother's Day get-together starts in about 15 minutes, I thought I could make a quick post.

I have officially run out of memories of the recipes I made in the month before I lost all data from my phone.  I am sure that there are some recipes that I am forgetting, so I will keep racking my brain, but for now, I'm starting anew with the first recipe photographed in my new phone.  Lucky for you, it is pretty darn awesome.

My family is big on rice balls (arancini for my fellow Italians).  We have even made them ourselves, frying balls of rice and cheese in oil.  Clearly this is not the healthiest of foods, but it's so good that it makes it okay.  Imagine how pumped I was when I saw that Skinny Taste created a recipe for a low fat rice ball casserole!  All the flavor and texture of a rice ball, with no frying, in a handy casserole format that reheats perfectly!  I whipped it up immediately.

It does call for ground turkey and sausage; on my fake meat kick, I used vegetarian ground beef and sausage.  It was extremely realistic; my entire family loved it and Nick and I split the leftovers (you know it's good when Nick asks for leftovers of your fake meal casserole!)  You carnivores out there can go ahead and use real meat, I suppose!

The rice gets mixed with an egg to keep it together, pecorino romano cheese, and a little sauce.  The meat turns into a meat sauce complete with onions and peas.  Then you spray your baking dish with oil and, very much like flouring the pan, you bread crumb it!  It helps to give the outside of the casserole that outside-of-a-rice-ball texture.  The rice becomes the first layer, going up the sides of the dish so that it encompasses all the meat sauce on the inside (see picture below).  Top it off with mozzarella, more rice, and more bread crumbs, and bake.

This is a healthy, hearty, filling and delicious dish.  To me, it was comfort food.  I will definitely make this baby again, preferably sooner rather than later!

Recipe:

Sicilian rice ball casserole
from Skinny Taste
serves 8

Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked long grain rice
1 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 2.5-ounce sweet Italian sausage link, casing removed
10 ounces 93% lean ground turkey
1/4 cup onion, minced
black pepper
5 ounces frozen peas
2 cups tomato sauce, divided
1 large egg, 1 egg white
1/2 cup pecorino romano (or Parmesan)
cooking spray
4 tablespoons seasoned breadcrumbs, divided
1 1/4 cups shredded part skim mozzarella, divided
fresh basil

Instructions:

1) Cook rice with 1 teaspoon kosher salt according to package directions.  Set aside to cool.

2) Meanwhile, saute sausage meat.  Cook until brown, breaking up into pieces with a wooden spoon as it cooks.  Add turkey and onions and cook until browned, breaking up as it cooks.  Season with 3/4 teaspoon salt and black pepper to taste, then add peas and 1 cup sauce.  Simmer on low, covered, about 20 minutes.

3) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a large bowl, combine cooked rice, pecorino romano, eggs, and 1/2 cup tomato sauce.  Mix well.  Rice should be a bit sticky.

4) Spray a 9x13" casserole dish with cooking spray, making sure to spray the sides too.  Add 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs to the dish and roll around to coat bottom and sides.

5) Take half of the rice mixture and cover the bottom of the dish and up the sides.  Press to form bottom layer.  Fill with meat and peas.

5) Top with 3/4 cup mozzarella. Cover with remaining rice and press until even.  Top with remaining sauce, 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs and 1/2 cup mozzarella.

6)Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes until hot.  Garnish with basil, cut unto pieces, and serve.

Hash Brown, Spinach and Tomato Pie

I love when I start my day with breakfast.  It helps me not devour everything I can get my hands on around 10:00, and lunch isn't until 12:30 so the morning can feel really long if you're hungry.  Plus, you know, 10-year-olds and stuff.  They are exhausting, especially in May, so you need to keep your energy up!  My goal for the remainder of the school year (32 days but who's counting?) is to try to have a breakfast planned for every day of the workweek.  It can be as quick as a Chobani or a hard boiled egg (this week's breakfasts!) or as gloriously gourmet as this hash brown, spinach and tomato pie.  It's basically a quiche with a hash brown crust.  Let me say that again: hash brown crust.  And it is just as good as it sounds.

The quiche itself is a mixture of spinach sautéed with garlic and grape tomatoes, and eggs to hold it all together.  The crust is crunchy and soft at the same time - like a good french fry!  Add a little mozzarella, and you've got yourself breakfast for a week!  It reheats really well and makes the closet smell good.  Oh, I'm sorry, you don't microwave your breakfast in a closet at work?  Yeah, us either....  anyway, my friend Laura smelled the closet pie and asked for the recipe.  She made it and has been bringing it to work this week!  Since, as you know, I lost all my pictures last week, she was kind enough to send me hers, and she even agreed that I could claim that my pie was much prettier ;)  She kept her crust in the oven a little longer to make it extra crispy.  Mine was much lighter in color.  I'm sure both pies were equally delicious.  I have another bag of frozen shredded potato in the freezer now, and this is definitely a make-again recipe!

Recipe:

hash brown, spinach and tomato pie
from Diethood
serves 4 - 6

Ingredients:
2 cups shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed
1 cup part-skim mozzarella, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups fresh spinach, packed
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup grape tomatoes
4 eggs
1/4 cup milk
pinch nutmeg
salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a 9-inch pie plate with cooking spray.  Press down the hah brown potatoes into the pie plate.  Bake for 8 minutes.  Remove from oven and top with 1/2 cup of the mozzarella.  Set aside.

2) Heat olive oil in a skillet.  Add spinach and tomatoes.  Cook for 3 minutes or until spinach is wilted, stirring frequently.  Add garlic, and continue to cook for 1 minute.

3) Remove from heat, and spread over potatoes.

4) In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  Whisk until thoroughly combined.  Pour over spinach and tomatoes.  Sprinkle remaining mozzarella over the pie.

5) Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until top is golden brown.  Let cool 10 minutes before cutting.

Baked Ziti

This whole blogging without pictures thing is pretty stressful. I know I am forgetting some recipes!  But I guess the good news is that this is one I knew I wouldn't forget, because it was amazing.

Here's the crazy part: I hate ziti bakes.  Always have.  A bunch of ground beef ruining perfectly good ziti, and too much cheese, or not enough cheese... it was always one of my least favorite meals.  But then we had a pot luck lunch at school, and someone made a ziti bake and shockingly labeled it "vegetarian."  Since vegetarian options at pot lucks are not always ubiquitous, I tried some.  After one bite, I was trying to figure out who made it, because it was great.  After two bites, I threw my fork down in horror because I was positive I had ground beef in my mouth.  After frantically tracking down the teacher who made it, he sheepishly admitted he used soy crumbles because his wife is a vegetarian.  It was fake ground beef!  And the whole thing was delicious.  I stole the recipe from him and tried it out on my own.

Now, you probably think you know all there is to know about baked ziti.  I certainly did.  Ricotta cheese, right?  Wrong.  This one has sour cream instead.  Somehow when it bakes it ends up looking just like ricotta, so no one knows the difference, but it brings that extra tang to the dish.  Then lots of mozzarella cheese, right?  Wrong.  How about slices of provolone?  Don't worry, there is still some mozzarella (and Parmesan) on top.  It's just not your mama's ziti bake.  It's ziti bake for the 21st century.

If you are not interested in fake ground beef, feel free to use the real deal. Just don't invite me over for dinner.  But those of you who want to eat something that didn't get murdered, I have been trying out lots of different brands to see what I think.  So far I have tried Gardein and Beyond Meat.  They were both good.  Vegetarians, what plant-based meats do you prefer?  For me, I don't actually miss the flavor or texture of meat, so I really could do without it, but it makes me family happy.  You know it's very realistic fake meat when Nick is bringing leftovers to the police station for dinner.  Definitely a good compromise between meat and no meat!

Anyway, just make this baked ziti, even if you think you hate baked ziti.  It makes a giant casserole, it reheats great, and everyone loves it.  It's definitely going into regular rotation here - it was even requested this weekend!

Recipe:

baked ziti
from AllRecipes (and Mr. O.!)
makes 10 servings

Ingredients:
1 pound ziti
1 onion, chopped
1 pound lean ground beef (or your choice of fake meat!)
2 26-ounce jars spaghetti sauce
6 ounces provolone cheese, sliced
1 1/2 cups sour crea,
6 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:

1) Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil.  Add ziti, and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain.

2) In a large skillet, brown onion and ground beef over medium heat.  Add spaghetti sauce and simmer for 15 minutes.

3) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish.  Layer as follows: 1/2 of the ziti, all the provolone, all the sour cream, 1/2 of the sauce mixture, remaining ziti, all the mozzarella, and the remaining sauce mixture.  Top with grated Parmesan.

4) Bake for 30 minutes or until cheeses are melted.