cauliflower pizza crust

I know this one sounds strange. My own jaw dropped when, at a July 4^th gathering at the Harrington Farm near Clovis, NM, my niece Karen said that she was on a lower G. I. diet, that she had been making it, and that it was good. Well, we Type II diabetics will try anything that is lo-carb, once, except maybe cardboard. She said, “You can find it on the internet.” I did. I made it. Not bad! But, I thought, I can make it really good!

So I set out to do so. The result appears below. When used as a pizza crust, it is best if eaten immediately, while the crust is crisp. If you let it cool, it loses some of its crispiness and tastes more like herbed flat bread. It also makes a good canapé base.

• 1 head cauliflower, crumbled in a food processor
• 2 cups mozzarella or Swiss cheese, grated
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp fennel seed
• 1 tsp dried leaf oregano,
• 2 tsp dried parsley
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• ¼ cup flour
• 3 X or eggs, beaten
• 1 oz olive oil
• ¼ tsp citric acid, or dried lemon juice

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, and mix thoroughly. Line two pizza pans with non-stick aluminum foil, and distribute the mixture equally among them, pressing the dough to make it uniform in thickness. Preheat the oven to 450°F; when at temperature, bake both pans 15 to 20 minutes, until just browning. Then turn off the oven and let the crusts continue to cook until the oven is cool.

Once made, you can wrap the crusts in foil and refrigerate or freeze for another day. Or, you can load them up with pizza sauce, Italian sausage, pepperoni, salami, green onions, anchovies, provolone or other cheese, and whatever else you like on your pizza, reinsert in the oven, and bake at 400°F until the cheese melts and is bubbly.

cauliflower flat bread

You can make a pretty decent lower G. I. flat bread by just leaving out the fennel seed, oregano, and parsley in the recipe above.