For the Love of Food, Family and Flavor!: Healthyful Veggieful Threesome

There are three different health and weight friendly free pizza crusts that I have heard raved about. I've tried one and I liked it, the kids liked it and miracle of miracles, my husband liked it as well (that would be the Cauliflower Crust)! The other two I have heard about is the No Dough Cream Cheese Crust and the Spinach Crust. I am thrilled with how the Cauliflower Crust came out, intrigued by the Spinach Crust and mouth drooling over the cream cheese one so I'm going to combine all three and see how it comes out.

Here's the break down of what I'm going to do. I'll do it and then come back and share any changes and what the end results are. I have a gallon size freezer bag of already riced cauliflower from my last experiment so I'll use it. I'm going to guess it to be around 4 cups. Remember I'm feeding 6 people so, my proportions are going to be fairly large.

About 4 cups of riced/processed cauliflower
1 large bag of spinach
1 block of cream cheese, softened
4 eggs
2 cups of cheese blend (parmesan, romano, mozzorella, ect.)
Salt and pepper to taste
Oregano, garlic and other herbs and spices to taste

Line my large pizza pan with parchment paper (because yes, these crusts do stick horribly) and pre-heat oven to 425*.

Puree spinach and mix with cauliflower. Cream together the softened cream cheese and eggs and then fold in cheeses. Add salt, pepper, herbs, spices and garlic all to your liking and then fold into the spinach cauliflower mix until well combined.

Press firmly into pizza pan and bake 15-20 minutes until edges are golden brown. You will want this crust to be pretty dry. Otherwise, you will be eating a very soggy textured pizza.

Top with pizza sauce (or alfredo sauce or what ever you want) and toppings of your choice. We're pepperoni fans around here so I'll be using turkey pepperoni, loads of cheese on top and getting some mushrooms used up that need to get out of the refrigerator. I'll probably cook those in a skillet first caramelized with some onion. I like lots of garlic too.

Here goes! I'm looking forward to this one!

Oh. my. goodness. This pizza is amazing!!! First bite and I just had to have a seat. I usually eat while taking care of kids or cleaning or running to the front porch for some peace and quiet time but tonight, before I even fed the kids, I just had to soak in the amazing flavor for a minute. I haven't seen the kids eat their dinner so fast in a long time and they were not attacking like the staved pirañas they usually are.

Here's the break down of what I did.

I had more cauliflower than I remembered; 6 cups. I forgot I measured it out and wrote it on the bag. That is a lot and a lot of moisture too. So, I poured a bit of sunflower seed oil into a really big pan and cranked the heat up and sautéed the cauliflower a bit with dried onion (about a tablespoon), dried garlic (about a teaspoon) and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Once I had it at a good place (it won't be dry but it won't be a mushy wet mass either) I tossed in the processed spinach and about a teaspoon of salt and cooked that for about a minute just to get the chlorophyl and water flowing.

Once that was done, I poured the veggie mixture into a towel coved colander and wrapped it up tight and started pressing down with a heavy pot to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. I loosened the wrap, shook things loose a bit and repeated and then once more. I think put that back in the hot pan to dry on the stove while I worked on the egg mixture.

I beat the cream cheese and 4 eggs together until very frothy. I was scared this would be too watery and if you're not wanting to use flour, it will be so maybe go down to 2 eggs. But I'm not anti-flour so after I added in the cheeses (1 cup of parmesan romano blend and 1 cup shredded Italian cheese blend) and veggie mixture, I just added in 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 3 teaspoons of baking powder (I use aluminum free). If you do the flour, mix until just blended. If you over mix, you will cause the gluten to tighten up and you won't have a very good "dough".

I lined my baking pan with parchment paper and pressed the mixture firmly across the whole sheet and into the corners. I baked it for 20 minutes at 425* and it came out perfect. I added my toppings, including the caramelized onion and mushroom mix (I dice my shrooms and onions up really small because I don't like big bits) and then baked until golden on top. My boys don't normally like mushrooms (though I think that is because daddy doesn't like them and they are all about being like daddy) but they barely even noticed them.