Jack Sprat and his Wife (Cauliflower Pizza Crust)

My husband and I are like Jack Sprat and his wife.  Except I can eat few carbs and he is an endurance athlete who needs to eat 2-3,000 more calories than me and a LOT of carbs.  Needless to say, this is annoying when it comes to menu planning.  Notice that I say ANNOYING, but not impossible.  Last night's dinner was an example of how I do split recipes to meet both of our needs.  I made him a whole wheat pizza with regular pepperoni and then I made myself a low-carb cauliflower crust pizza with turkey pepperoni (HELLO, you can have 17 pepperonis for 70 calories, am I the only person astounded by this factoid?).

Our dinners, side by side.  Not too much difference, right?

The cauliflower crust pizza is a hybrid of two recipes.  The first one comes from the blog "What's That Smell?" All cheese crust.  The other recipe involves cauliflower and is from http://sleeploveeat.com/category/recipes/.  I chose to make a hybrid of the two that kept the cauliflower and added cream cheese and an egg white as stabilizer.  

You will not be able to pick this up and eat it like pizza, but it will hit all of the flavor profiles that you love from pizza.  As a friend at work who I fed it to said, "It is almost like lasagna", I agree with that too!

Ingredients

Crust

1 small head of cauliflower, core removed and cut into florets. 

1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese

4 oz cream cheese

1 tbsp. freshly grated parmesan cheese

sprinkle of oregano

sprinkle of basil

1 egg white

salt to taste. 

Directions
1.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Place the cauliflower in the microwave safe bowl, cover.  Place in microwave and cook until the florets are soft (5-7min.).  Remove and set aside to cool. 

2. When the cauliflower is cool enough to handle, place it in a potato ricer and rice them.  I used a food mill and that worked okay, I should have used my die with the larger holes.  If you do not have a ricer or mill then go ahead and chop the cauliflower until it is small.  Drain any liquid that comes out. 

My handy dandy food mill that I have used 3x since I got it as a present 8 years ago. 

3.  To the cauliflower add the 4 oz. cream cheese, 1 1/2 cups mozzarella, salt, and egg white.  Mix until it is combined.  


4.  Spread the mixture out onto a greased baking sheet (it might not fill the whole sheet, no worries).  Sprinkle it with the herbs and parm.  Bake it for 15-20 minutes or until it is lightly browned and has some crispy edges (that is the BEST part).  Remove from the oven and turn the oven up to 400 degrees.

5.  Top it with whatever you like!  I used pizza sauce (1/2 cup for the whole pizza, if you are watching your carbs really closely, then you might want to just top it with sliced tomatoes), mozzarella cheese, and turkey pepperoni.  

Ready to go for the 2nd bake. 

**word of caution, if you like a LOT of veggies on your pizza I would precook them to remove some of the moisture.  This crust could get soggy, really easily.  


6.  Bake until it is bubbly and hot, about 15 min.  

7.  Remove from the oven and let it sit for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.  

Looks like pizza, right?

BBQ Chicken under a Bacon Mat

Getting my husband to eat chicken is like getting a picky two year old to eat broccoli.  I have to "invent" ways to get him to give it a go.  This is one of ways I like to hide chicken, under a Mat O' Bacon.  He will never know, right?  I learned about the Mat O' Bacon from this blog  Bacon Mats .  BTW, these make the most delicious BLT sandwiches because there is bacon in EVERY BITE!  For those of you who are not pork lovers, I guess you could try turkey bacon.  If you do, let me know how it goes.  

The BBQ sauce is a quick and easy sauce that is based off of bottled sauce.  Feel free to whip up your own! 

Prep time:  30 min.  Cook time:  35 min. 

Ingredients

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts 

(mine were 6 oz each, but I recommend doing 4 oz and that is what the calorie count is based on.)

1/2 cup BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)

1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce 

2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar 

1 tsp. Worchestershire sauce 

1 tbsp. Montreal Steak Seasoning 

1tsp. dried chile flakes 

small dash of cinnamon (optional)

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

1.  Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.  Set aside. 

I do not eat applesauce regularly, so I guy the little kid cups and
 keep them in my pantry.
I used the same cup to measure my BBQ sauce.  

Finished sauce 

2.  Cut the 12 strips of bacon in half, so that you have 24 half strips.  You will use 6 half strips per breast. 

3.  Make the bacon mats by laying out 3 strips across and weaving 3 down.  Sprinkle with the Montreal Steak Seasoning. 

Hmmm.. it's bacon and I know it!

4.  Place one chicken breast down on the Mat O' Bacon.  Sprinkle the other side of the chicken breast with the seasoning.  Tuck the bacon around the chicken breast (you can use toothpicks to secure, but I was out). Do the same thing with the rest of the breasts. 

Don't tell him there is chicken under there.  

5.  In an oven proof skillet lay the breasts bacon side down and cook over medium high heat until the bacon is light brown and starting to crisp (5-7 min.)  

6.  Using tongs or a spatula, flip the breasts over to brown on the other side.  

7.  Cook for 5 minutes.  Top the breasts with the BBQ sauce mixture. If the bottom of the pan seems dry then you can splash some water or a white wine to loosen it up.

8.   Place the pan in the preheated oven, bake for 25 min.  or until the breasts are cooked through (if you use larger breasts, then you will need to cook them longer). 

Serve with a veggie and/or brown rice.  We did garlic broccoli with red peppers and brown rice. 

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 Serving
Amount Per Serving
Calories from Fat 71 Calories 234
% Daily Values*
Total Fat 7.94g		12%
	Saturated Fat 2.167g	11%
	Polyunsaturated Fat 0.98g
	Monounsaturated Fat 3.037g
Cholesterol 72mg		24%
Sodium 1112mg		46%
Potassium 192mg
Total Carbohydrate 9.57g		3%
	Dietary Fiber 1g	4%
	Sugars 3.72g
Protein 28.2g
Vitamin A 6% Vitamin C 8%
Calcium 3% Iron 8%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs. Nutrition Values are based on USDA Nutrient Database SR18

 **Remember this is for a 4 oz chicken breast.  The sodium count is high because of the Montreal Steak Seasoning.  Omit this from the recipe to reduce the amount of sodium. 

I wanted Enchiladas Suizas, but my body said, "Nooo, nooo, no!"

TaDa!  My first recipe blog post, be kind peeps!  I recently started removing processed carbohydrates from my diet and trying to eat a more balanced diet.  Amazingly my sugar and salt cravings have disappeared, crazy!  Anyways, I was sitting at work thinking about how I wanted chicken enchiladas and then was heading toward a pout because I can't have them.  Right before I stomped my foot I thought, "ahhhh.. I can make this work".  So that is where this idea came from.  It is not low fat, but it is low carb and balanced.  Each serving (2 zucchini halves) has 256 calories, 10.87 fat grams, 15 carb grams, and 25 grams of protein.  You can make this lower fat by cutting the amount of cream cheese or using a low fat shredded cheese blend.  Hope you enjoy them!