Pie Time

Even though I have been crazy-busy, spending time together at home at night cooking a good meal is one way I have tried to add some balance back into my world. We both love to cook over here, so dinnertime is a perfect stay-at-home date night opportunity. It is nice to have a beer or a glass of wine, turn off the phones and laptops, talk about what happened that day and really just sit down and relax. Good food makes it all the better, and so when I can pre-plan out a few meals on a weekend, it makes it easier to sit back at the end of the day and just make whatever is scheduled on the menu. It also cuts down on the impromptu "I am tired and want pizza" nights. Cough. Tonight. Cough.

Last week, we went almost the entire week without eating any meat, just by accident. I attempted to have a nice balance of meals, but from mushroom soup to veggie chili, meat just wasn't calling to me when I picked out the recipes last Sunday. What's awesome, though, is that we didn't even miss it. We tried out three new recipes, found two keepers (that mushroom soup was ehhh) and I had some fantastic, healthy leftovers for lunches, too.

Believe it or not, that pizza above is made out of cauliflower! This pizza crust was a bloggy find that I pinned and nearly forgot about, but my mind kept coming back to it. I am so glad we tried it, because it was healthy-ish (note: there is definitely some cheese involved) and it leaves room for some experimentation when we make it again.

Things we learned and/or I have noticed in the original blogger's comments since making it:

1) A pizza stone, while helpful for regular crusts, didn't do much for this crust. Ours did not hold up to picking up and we had to eat it with a fork and knife casserole-style. Next time, I am going to stick to the nonstick pan they recommend and see if that makes a difference. The recipe does note that it's not a sturdy pizza though.

2) The crust has a lot of natural moisture. Put another pan below it in the oven in case it drips at all (ours did), or use a jelly roll pan instead (a pan with edges). Some readers suggested squeezing out excess moisture from the riced cauliflower too.

3) There is so much cheese in the crust, stick to lots of healthy, natural toppings and sliced mozzarella instead of grated cheese. You really don't need much more than that. We used basil and canned tomato sauce and it was heavenly.

4) Triple the proportions of the recipe to make a full-sized pizza. We used almost the entire head of cauliflower this way, but it definitely ups the cheese and egg count, so be sure to count that in any calorie or WW points! You will get a lot more servings out of it this way.

Enjoy! You can find the recipe for this great cauliflower pizza crust here with Lauren Conrad, but originally here over on Eat. Drink. Smile. (love that blog! This cauliflower recipe sounded fab, too.).