Quick and Easy Low-carb Pizza

It makes me hungry to look at this. It required about 10 minutes to assemble and another 15 to bake.

Here's the key: Low-carb wraps or tortillas. These are available at most grocery stores in small-town Oregon, and they, or similar products, are likely  available anywhere in the USA and Canada. If you have a bit more time and an adventurous spirit, try cauliflower pizza crust. Unbelievably good! Zucchini pizza crust is also great, but requires more ingredients and a bit more prep time. Don Pancho ingredients include, in this order: water, whole wheat flour, oat fiber, wheat gluten, safflower oil, wheat bran, oat syrup solids, baking powder, and salts. No trans fat. 8 grams net carbs and 7 grams dietary fiber, 110 calories.

               My ancient pizza pan with holes makes all the difference  

          in producing a crispy crust. You can buy something similar here.
NOTE:DO NOT USE A PERFORATED PAN FOR CAULIFLOWER CRUST!

There is no set recipe for this quick meal. Assemble whatever ingredients you have on hand and get started. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Here's what I usually use:

• marinara sauce, reduced for a thicker spread
• pesto 
• chopped onions
• chopped peppers
• whatever leftover meat is on hand, usually no-nitrates cooked sausage, seasoned cooked hamburger, chicken, turkey
• kale, torn into pieces and microwaved on high until wilted, about 1 minute
• shredded Parmesan and/or other cheeses

Quality marina or pizza sauce is important.  This happens to be homemade from
last summer's tomatoes, but jarred commercial sauces are also good and can be
doctored for more flavor.

Spread pesto first, if using.

Add kale, spinach, or other cooked veggies. If using spinach
be sure to drain it well, squeezing out excess water.

Load it up with raw chopped veggies and meats. This one is topped with chopped raw onions and peppers, cooked kale, a bit of leftover sausage and turkey. I wait until after the pizza has been in the oven for about 10 minutes before applying cheese. Bake with cheese on top for another 5 - 7 minutes. The cheese should be well melted and the crust edges browned. Parmesan is always good, but I also use pre-grated cheeses straight out of the bag.

One pizza serves two along with a big green salad. Give it a try!

Cauliflower Crust Pizza (gotta try to believe. BUT do not use a perforated pan.)
Zucchini Crust for Pizza

Beyond Guacamole — Avocados and Chocolate!

Grandson Noah didn't hesitate to dig into avocado/chocolate/peanut butter pudding. And he is a picky two-year-old.  Noah, darling, would you like some mashed avocado? Or would you rather have chocolate pudding?

What a great nutrition trick to play on a finicky toddler!

I can't believe I'm writing about avocados when the garden is shooting out cannon loads of food directed right at me, the primary food preserver and cook. It's scary to go out there. I feel like I need a machete near the zucchinis as they grow preposterously overnight, and now the eggplants, corn, peppers, squash, melons, and green beans are heaving and humping in obscene waves toward the kitchen. But yet, I'm obsessed with the avocado thing I recently discovered. 

In California a few weeks ago, PK and I stopped at the Mendocino Cafe in the California coastal burg of the same name. Like so many California eateries, this little restaurant holds fast to the California Code of Cuisine: fresh, local, organic, sustainable, free-range poultry, grass-fed beef, wild-caught seafood—and everything plated in pricey style. Yada, yada, yada. Hello, California! You big food snobs. Answer your email, OK?

Note: I contacted the Mendocino Cafe for their chocolate tart recipe, but got no response. What's wrong with those people? Not even a "Sorry, can't help you." 

I rarely make desserts, let alone order them in restaurants. But when our waitress delivered a sliver of chocolate tart to an adjacent table, I lifted off my chair and began sniffing. Very unobtrusive sniffing, of course. Who would notice such shy but elongated craning?

The person about to devour the tart noticed and said, "You wouldn't believe how good this is, and it's made from avocados!" True. I didn't believe it. (As unlikely as cauliflower pizza crust) So I bought a slice, ate it pronto, and WOW! It was creamy, sweet,  deeply chocolate, and utterly fantastic. In addition—and this is a huge low-carb bonus—the crust was made from ground walnuts (or some other nuts) and shredded coconut.  I couldn't wait to get home and try this no-bake avocado marvel.

I found the recipe below at Raw Food Made Easy and tried it. It was absolutely wonderful and tasted a lot like what the Mendocino Cafe served. But it was also more than PK and I could eat over several days. And it was more fuss than I like, what with making a crust and all. So I decided to keep it on file to make for special occasions until I thought about our impending visit to see our picky-eater two-year-old grandson. Then I went into adaptation mode.

A chocolate avocado/peanut butter pudding adapted from numerous avocado-based chocolate desserts found online. It is thick, rich, packed with nutrients, and almost craven. Yes, craven!  

Noah gets into avocado/chocolate pudding big time. 

Mo! Mo! He's saying, even though he's stuffed.  Got a picky eater? And a few minutes?
 Bring home a few avocados, some cocoa powder, natural sweetener and drag out the food processor. 

Simple ingredients for a no-cook super nutritious and delicious pudding, pie filling, or frosting. 

Please see the recipe for Chocolate Mousse and Shortbread Crust from Raw Food Made Easy before proceeding with my recipe. If you're making a special dessert for guests, go with the Raw Food version. It is fantastic. My recipe is simpler and easy to adapt to your own tastes.

Nutty Chocolate/Avocado Pudding or Pie Filling

Ingredients
3 medium to large ripe Haas avocados (or 4-5 smaller avocados) to equal 1.5 cups, mashed
1/4 cup liquid sweetener such as agave nectar, maple syrup, or honey
1/2 to 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
2-3 tablespoons peanut butter or almond butter
1/2 cup water (or less)

Directions
Peel and pit the avocados and process briefly in a food processor.  Add the next four ingredients and process just until smooth. Add water to thin according to your intended use. I added very little water and used 2 tablespoons of peanut butter. The recipe I was consulting called for almond butter, which I didn't have. I substituted peanut butter, and it tasted great. Taste after processing and add sweetener, water, or nut butter to taste. Top with fresh berries and/or a little cream. Offer as a creamy chocolate pudding to a picky toddler and enjoy the deception. The kid will love you for it.

Why God made cauliflower—pizza crust!

Wish you could taste this pizza, the crust of which was made without wheat.
Would you believe cheese, eggs and cauliflower? 

God made cauliflower for low-carbers, and especially for pizza crust! Who knew? Cauliflower is a hero vegetable for carb avoiders. It fills in for mashed potatoes, potatoes au gratin, and for spuds in soups and stews. Even though PK still eats a lot of rice, and we both eat potatoes when they're in season in the garden, cauliflower has taken a major role in our diet. But the cauliflower-based pizza crust came as a surprise even to me. It sounds so revolting, so not right with pepperoni. So mushy and faintly gassy. So white. None of the above! I would defy anyone who didn't know cauliflower was in the crust to call it out.

Now the question, why bother? Why not just trot out the whole wheat and yeast?

I've been a low-carb diet practitioner for a decade. Limiting carbs is part of my ordinary life.  But it was just recently that a long-ago friend introduced me to a new concept: no effing wheat. At her urging (that would be Grace McGran's urging) I read the damn book, Wheat Belly, and added another layer of complication to my life. It has been a few months, I think, since wheat was banished. I'm adjusting.
After reading Wheat Belly, it made perfect sense to eliminate sprouted grain breads and pastas and low-carb tortillas, which had been staples in my diet, and also PK's, for the past several years.  It's cold turkey time. PK even quit making his breads.

I'm not going to get all heavy about the wheat. I know I sound like a nut case to people who haven't yet tuned in to dietary undercurrents that are gaining mainstream momentum. Such as:

• The every-calorie-counts theory is bogus. Does anyone really believe that calories in refined carbohydrates are of equal value to calories in fresh vegetables or eggs, just to mention two?
• Dietary cholesterol is insignificant in cardiac disease. Ditch the statins.
•  "Healthy whole grains" are a myth.
•  Healthy fats, including many saturated fats—especially coconut oil—are actually beneficial for weight loss and overall health. 
• Excess carbohydrate consumption is a major cause of type two diabetes and heart disease. 

After several decades of persistent conventional wisdom to the contrary, the above statements are gaining respect and scientific evidence. Take wheat for example."Modern wheat" has been modified for greater yield and profit. As a result of ongoing tinkering, two slices of whole wheat bread are equivalent to more than 2 tablespoons of sugar that slam into the bloodstream like a wave of type 2 diabetes. Doesn't matter if it's whole wheat, sprouted wheat, or white bread. Read Wheat Belly. There's much, much more to learn about why citizens of the USA have ballooned.

When following  a low-carb and wheat-free diet: you do not worry about fat (unless it is a factory generated chemical-laden bomb such as margarine or other trans fats—anything hydrogenated.). Forget about counting calories. Count carbs. There are so many good books: Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes; Life Without Bread, by Christian B. Allan, PhD and Wolfgang Lutz, MD, and Wheat Belly, a NYT bestseller by Dr. Davis, a prevention cardiologist. Here's the Wheat Belly website. Everywhere you go, you see wheat bellies (and wheat boobs and butts) all over the place. Got a wheat belly, or know someone who does? Read the book. Read the book. Read all of them.

After all my years of low-carbness, it hasn't been that shocking to give up wheat and all that that entails.

Pizza? That's another thing. I love pizza and used to make a killer crispy-thin whole wheat crust. Lately I've taken to eating pizza toppings and leaving the crust on the plate. But now I have options! One is the zucchini-based crust engineered by my friend Grace. Love it. Another is the crust I've made three times. I had to try it multiple times because we couldn't believe that it was made from cauliflower. Sheesh! Turn the page, right? But seriously. It tastes great.And, like Grace's zucchini crust, requires no more toil than a traditional wheat-based crust.

I take absolutely NO credit for developing this recipe. Versions of it are legion. It was a surprise to discover a myriad of cauliflower-based pizza crust recipes, and also to learn that great pizza does not need to ride on a sled of carb-ridden blood-sugar-boosting wheat.

I could go on. Instead, here's one version of the cauliflower/cheese/egg pizza crust. Please, just trust me.   Try it. I realize it seems so unlikely. Even PK, that picky bastard, thought it was super tasty.

Cauliflower and Cheese Pizza Crust
2 cups riced and cooked cauliflower

2 eggs
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, or a combo of mozzarella and cheddar
2 tsp dried oregano (optional)
4 tsp dried parsley (optional)
1/4 cup olive oil (optional)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 420. Cut up half of a large fresh cauliflower and  "rice" in a food processor.

First of two batches to "rice."

Ricing completed.

Place into a microwave-safe container, cover, and nuke on high for 8 minutes. When finished, quickly remove the cover and let the steam escape. Cool. You want the cauliflower to be relatively dry.

Microwaved for 8 minutes and cooled. 

Beat the eggs lightly and mix with 2 cups of cauliflower. Add the herbs and olive oil, if using. I didn't use herbs or olive oil because my toppings included oil-rich pesto and herb-heavy homemade pizza sauce.

Riced cauliflower mixed with two eggs. 

Shredded mozzarella added.

Pressed onto a greased jelly roll pan

Removed from the oven after baking in pre-heated oven at 420 for 15 minutes. 

Reduce oven to 375 and add toppings. Mine included basil pesto, homemade pizza sauce (thick) cooked Italian sausage, raw onions, and drained, chopped marinated artichoke hearts. It doesn't matter what you add so long as the meats are cooked and nothing is soupy. Almost any chopped veggie works so long as it doesn't release a lot of water. Saute ahead stuff like zucchini or mushrooms. Bake 15 minutes. Turn off oven and remove pizza. Top with your cheese of choice and return to oven for a few minutes to melt cheese. I also added strips of fresh basil.

You can actually pick it up and eat it with your hands, like "real" pizza crust.

We ate almost the whole thing!

Note: The third time I made cauliflower/cheese/egg pizza crust, I lined the pan with parchment paper. This is good if you want to avoid any sticking. However, it is bad if you prefer a crispier crust and are willing to risk a little burning around the edges. Next time, no parchment paper and a little more oil on the pan.

Zucchini "pasta"—a low-carb winner for dinner

This striped Latino zucchini is a favorite. We grow one Latino plant, one Black Beauty, the variety typical in produce aisles, and one golden variety. Latino is especially good for "noodles" as it retains more crunch than the others. 

The zucchini floodgate has opened, and we are dealing with up to a dozen every day from three plants. We planted six seeds in three hills, then agonized over which 15 seedlings to pull. We've learned the hard way that all you need is one plant every three feet. Otherwise it is a riot of rowdy giant leaves and aggressive bully fruits shoving one another and then you are forced to dive in to deal with them. Zucchini can get ugly.

We enter the zucchini microcosms at our own risk. Even though we give away more than we use, I learn more every year about how to use this abundance. Since bread, pasta, rice and most grains are off the table, I'm always looking for alternatives. I love marinara and other pasta sauces, but much prefer to eat them over something. I seriously do not even LIKE pasta anymore. It makes me feel crappy and bloated, as does wheat-based pizza crust and even rice. So I'm looking at zukes with a new perspective.

Zucchini works for pizza dough and lasagna. But spaghetti-type noodles? Let's try it. Of course, I'm not the first to think of this. Nothing is new under the sun, right? But here's what I did and how and wow, it was surprisingly good and will definitely be repeated.

How to make zucchini noodles—and use them for dinner

Select zucchini that is at least 10 inches long. Grate with a cheese grater lengthwise into "noodles." Put into a colander, sprinkle with salt, toss, then drain for 20 minutes or more. Squeeze liquid out before advancing to the next step, which is to saute in a bit of olive oil for a few minutes until "al dente". Don't worry about rinsing off the salt—it mostly goes away as  the liquid drains.  How much zucchini to grate? Figure on one 10-incher per person. Don't include  the inside where seeds are forming. 

Zucchini noodles ready for sauce. They're not at all mushy. These were made with the
Black Beauty variety, which is easily grown and may be purchased in almost any grocery. I sauteed them
 in olive oil and butter with a bit of minced garlic for a few minutes, until they were al dente.

 This is the last of the 2011 frozen marinara sauce, to which I added a bit of this year's basil and
some of Paul's serrano sauce for a little kick. He deserves a little kick himself. 

On the side was broccoli, basil, and sweet onions from the garden and store-bought cauliflower  tossed with a great garlic/sesame seasoning mix I purchased at the Grants Pass Growers' Market with a Candy's Farm label. Unfortunately, Candy's Farm, Salem, Oregon, doesn't appear to have a web presence. But, if you get a chance,  they make a great blend of roasted garlic, lemon grass, sesame seeds, veggie flavoring, ginger, and salt.
 I melted a little mozzarella cheese on top.

Dinner's on! Homemade marinara with a little sausage over zucchini noodles topped with grated Parmesan and a big side of broccoli, cauliflower and onions seasoned by Candy's Farm.