Quick and Easy Pizza "crust"

A reader (hi, Lisa!) sent this recipe for a quick, and easy primal-friendly pizza crust. 


I'll have to wait until Grandma has the kids--they are all off dairy-- before I can make myself. But do try it out and comment here so we can see what you think!

Saturday: Cheat Day (1)

Tom and I decided to try having one cheat day a week and that this day would be Saturdays.


Now it may turn out that this is a terrible idea and we shouldn't do it, but we want to at least give it a try and see how it goes.


Why did we decide to have a dedicated cheat day?  For a few reasons....


1) The kids were constantly asking "well, can I have just a bit of grain today?... tomorrow...when?" 

If you have children, you know it doesn't matter how many times and how many ways you answer their questions -- if it's not the answer they want, they'll keep asking. So I thought maybe having a dedicated Cheat Day would provide the kids with a sense of stability (which I believe is fundamental for kids, always to know what's going on and what is expected of them), and would also help save my temper from exploding by the 37th time they ask the "can we have grains now?" question.

2) I've never liked being told "you absolutely cannot do that."


Yeah, I know it sounds juvenile, but it's the truth. I really can't stand it when people tell me I have no choice in the matter. If God sees fit to give me freewill, I am fairly certain the guy down the street has no right to tell me otherwise. I kid, I kid!

 Sorta.


3) The emotional factor. 


Yes, I know, food should not be an emotional crutch, but let's face it: for many people, it is.

 (A friend of mine, mother of five, once said to me "You know... people look at us and think "why can't you just lose weight? I tell you why! because I'm about to go give five little kids a bath, so I'd better enjoy the hell outta this cheeseburger!" So for her a cheeseburger was a source of strength before wrestling five kids under the age of six in a bathtub. And I can't say as I blame her. ;) 

 I think it is expecting too much out of (most) people to expect them to happily give up every dish they've grown up with, relate to, and crave at certain times. Now you will say that that the health benefits of giving up these foods is worth the angst it causes. This depends on the person, I think. After reading many testimonials and talking to those who have GP I am realizing that it's really a journey. It doesn't have to be perfect right off the bat. Making one good choice eventually leads to many good choices... so if in the beginning you need tortilla chops every day, fine, but I think eventually we will all get to a point where our daily "must have's" will turn into "want to's" and finally "meh, I don't like it that much anymore's."   

In any event, I think it has lifted the mood of the household (not that it has been down and out) just to have a day where they can look forward to having a "forbidden fruit." I highly suspect it will not be an all out gorging, but eating one or two things we wouldn't normally have and not feel guilty about it. 

4) Why a dedicated day instead of whenever we feel like it?

I was afraid once we'd start to cheat here and there, the "here and there" would quickly become the norm without us realizing it. I don't think we'll always need a specified cheat day, but for now I think it's the safest way to go. 

5) Because I said so. 

So there :P


This past Saturday three of the kids were at Grandma's so Tom and I went out for lunch. He wanted pizza, so we headed to Old Chicago. I ordered a Stromboli (chicken, peppers, and mushrooms (GAK!) inside a bread casing, I dumped out the insides and left the bread. The lunch came with a dessert so I went for the cheesecake ball (maybe three inches) on a stick. I knew it had to have sugar, but it was at least grainless... it was way too sweet and Elizabeth ate half of it, which was okay by me. 


Tom had thin crust pizza with mushrooms (seriously icky) peppers, pepperoni and sausage. He hate about half of the pizza and took the leftovers home. About half an hour later he said his stomach felt a little off and he didn't enjoy it as much as he thought he would. He even threw out the leftovers!


Then we went shopping for a piece of furniture. Had no luck. Then we headed home since our city was supposed to be hit with tornadoes a few hours later. We went home and watched the weather and decided it was safe enough to have dinner. So we packed up Elizabeth and headed to Cheeburger Cheeburger for my cheat meal. We had cheeseburgers with a bun and a few fries. It was pretty delicious. And apart from a little bloating (not too bad) I didn't really suffer any ill-effects, I'm happy to say. 


I'm happy to say we didn't go crazy overboard, but we felt satisfied and happy... and we discovered that cheating can really make you appreciate being Primal. 

Mush Bowls

So what did we eat on this Friday?

Eggs for breakfast. Before, I'd make scrambled eggs, and then put that into a mug so the kids could eat the eggs in the car on the way to school. Well... let me tell you, it is a *pain* to wash out egg mugs after they've been sitting in the van for eight hours. So I decided to switch to Styrofoam cups... Now we just eat and toss. Much easier.

Lunch was... well, I don't know. The kids packed their own lunches. No, I'm not a terrible mother who doesn't care about what her kids are doing. I just figure if all I have in the house is good, healthy food, then it will probably be okay to let them pack whatever they want. So far it's working. If they start abusing this policy, then I'll revise it. 

My lunch was umm... nothing. Tom had hard boiled eggs with his avocado mash.

Dinner was really interesting. I attempted to make salmon cakes. I followed the recipe, but substituted almond flour for the bread crumbs, and... yeah, that doesn't work. My patties fell completely apart, so I had to just mix it all together and act as if I wanted a big pile of mush in my pan. Totally scrumptious.

I served this over some basmati rice. I decided the kids need more carbs, and I'm told rice is the least offensive (when bought organic). So they were over-joyed to see rice in their bowls. (I did not have rice. Neither did Tom.)

So the salmon patties turned into "rice topped with mush" bowls. Regina and Veronica enjoyed it. Amy did not, but ate it anyway. And Elizabeth (who has been super clingy and whiny for the last two days) took one bite, and then spit it out at me.

Sometimes cooking is annoying.

Tom and I really did not want mush bowls, so he went to the grocery store and bought some needed ingredients for cauliflower pizza.  This was much better than the kids' dinner. Thankfully.

Now, I want some chocolate.

Pizza!

Tom has really missed pizza. The kids have missed pizza. I haven't really missed it that much. (I'm a I'll- have-pizza-once-a-month and be fine type of person.) So I tried making a pizza crust with almond flour, and then with coconut flour... none of us cared for either one of those. Blah. 


A Facebook friend suggested I use cauliflower crust. At first I thought "Um. Ew." --I've never liked cauliflower--but then I realized I had a head of cauliflower in the fridge, and it really needed to be used. So I Googled a recipe. I found THIS. 


Soooo, I made the crust. It came out looking like this:

Not too shabby looking, I thought. The crust is much thinner than the almond/coconut flour, which is promising. 

I realized I didn't have the ingredients to make a sauce, so I had to use an organic pasta sauce I bought (for spaghetti squash). It smelled awesome. The problem was the sauce was too thin/watery. You definitely want to use a tomato paste based sauce. 


I topped the pizza with sliced bell peppers (yellow and orange), mozzarella cheese (although, I didn't have quite enough) and a good shaking of basil and oregano.


Then I baked it for another five minutes or so. I have no expectations at this point. I let it sit for about three minutes before I cut it. 


The crust was crispy on the edges, but the rest of it, though cooked, is not crispy, just FYI. I was able to cut the pizza into slices and eat it with my hands. I didn't need a fork like the recipe says you might. 


This crust/pizza was SO. DELICIOUS. I ate nearly the whole pizza all by myself. I didn't really mean to. It just happened.  Also, I hadn't eaten all day, so that may have had something to do with it. 


The crust does not taste of cauliflower. It did taste like a pizza crust (though it does not taste like a regular flour crust), and it's probably the closest thing to "normal" bread/grains I've had since going Primal. 

I didn't get to test it out on Tom or the kids yet. I'm doing that this weekend, I hope. 


But I think it would have made the early weeks of GP much easier if we had had this recipe. 


So try it!  Let me know how you like it.