Pizza and Bread Sticks Without the Flour!

When I threw out all of my white flour it posed a dilemma.  What the heck am I supposed to do now for breads, muffins, pizza crust, etc.?!!!!  After much experimenting in the kitchen, I bring you my two favorite low-carb recipes for pizza crust/ bread sticks.  Note:  These you will eat with a fork, but you will not miss a typical pizza crust.  Hope you love them!! P.S.  My husband could not get enough of either of these.

My Favorite Garlic Bread Stick/Pizza Margherita Recipe
(adapted from Mom, What's for Dinner? Here)
Note:  This recipe makes 7 bread sticks, but you could easily double it or triple it to make it into a pizza crust as well!

Ingredients for Crust:
1 cup mashed cauliflower- (1/2 head)
1/2 c. mozzarella cheese
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
Ingredients for Garlic Butter
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
2 cloves garlic, minced
Topping
1/2 tomato, sliced
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
4-5 good sized fresh basil leaves, minced

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Steam cauliflower for about 15 minutes over stove or in microwave.  I have a pasta-n-more thing that I used in the microwave.  When cauliflower is cooked, use a hand-held potato masher to mash cauliflower. Combine all ingredients for crust in a bowl with cauliflower.  Place parchment paper on cookie sheet and grease the paper.  Take crust contents and mold into a rectangle with hands.  This will seem very soft.  It will firm up in the oven-trust.

Place crust in oven for 15 minutes.  Mix softened butter and garlic in small bowl.  Take crust out of oven and spread garlic butter on top of crust.  Layer tomatoes, basil, and cheese.  

 Place crust back in oven and back for about 5 more minutes.  Cut into bread stick-like rectangles.  Enjoy!!

My Favorite Pizza Crust Recipe  

(adapted from Here)

Ingredients for Crust:

2 eggs

1 8 oz package of cream cheese- softened

1 cup Parmesan cheese

3 sprigs fresh oregano

2 Tbsp. fresh basil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine all ingredients above for crust.  (Note:  This will not be "firm" like a pizza crust.  It may even be slightly soupy.  Trust me, it will become firm in the oven.)  Spoon "crust" into a greased 9x13 pan.  Place in oven for 30 minutes.

Ingredients for Topping:

any kind of low sugar pizza sauce

1/2 lb. Italian sausage or other favorite topping

1 green pepper sliced

1/2 onion chopped

1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

While crust is baking, take Italian sausage and cook it in a pan with 2 Tbsp. olive oil, pepper, and onion.  Spoon pizza sauce onto crust until crust is covered.  Top with cooked sausage, peppers, onion and cheeses.  Crank oven up to 425 degrees.  Bake until cheese is completely melted - about 15 minutes.  Enjoy!!

Makes 10 pieces.

Cheesy Hash Brown Casserole...Without the Hash Browns?!

Cheesy Hash Brown Casserole Without the Potatoes!!

I love a good challenge.  Even more, I love potatoes...so it was definitely hard for me for awhile to go low-carb.  Now that I've been eating low carb for awhile I still have small cravings here and there for a potato or dessert, but nothing like what I had before.  One of my favorite potato dishes is Cheesy Hash Brown Casserole, which is a staple at most Midwest barbecues.  So I took a favorite recipe and found a way to make it healthier.  I knew I couldn't use hash browns so I thought about a vegetable that would give me about the same texture....spaghetti squash!!! Ok, now before you say, "eww," just know that you will not know the difference between the squash and hash browns.  This recipe was such a big hit that I had seconds and my husband had thirds.  I know now that we will be making this a lot.  Just to give you an idea, if you were to have a helping of regular hash brown casserole, you would be eating 22 carbs.  Yikes.  My casserole only has 7 carbs a serving! Enjoy!!

Ingredients

3 medium sized spaghetti squash

stick of butter for cooking

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of celery soup

16 oz. sour cream

2 cups cheddar cheese + extra for topping

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 medium onion

Directions

1.  Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Wash each squash and cut each squash in half.  Place halves on a cookie sheet and scoop out seeds.  Throw seeds away.  Place a skinny pat of butter on each half with 2 Tbsp of water.  Place in oven and bake for 30-40 minutes.

2.  Remove halves.  They should appear cooked and might be slightly brown around edges. Take temperature in oven down to 350 degrees.  You should see small pools of the butter and water.

3.  Pour any excess butter and water out of halves.  Using a fork, scrape insides of squash.  It should look like noodles or strings when you scrape it.  If it is not, you need to cook the squash longer.

 

4.  Place shredded squash in a bowl and set aside.

5.  In a separate bowl, combine the soups, sour cream, cheese, garlic salt, pepper,  and cheddar cheese.

6.  Chop onion and add chopped onion and sour cream mixture to the squash.

7.  Mix thoroughly and then pour the entire mixture into a greased 9x13 pan.

8.  Top with any extra cheddar cheese.

9.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes until casserole is bubbly and cheese is melted.

10. Let casserole sit for about 10-15 minutes.  Serve warm.  Note: will be creamy, but isn't that the best part? : )  Enjoy!!

Lemme See Your Grill!

   What awesome weather we are having!  I don't remember it ever being so nice so early on in the year.  Because of this, the hubs and I have been grilling quite a bit.  Yesterday it was raining all day but we reasoned that a covered porch and a grill with a lid would not keep us down.  I checked out some low carb recipes and we went to work.  The menu: grilled chicken bruschetta, mashed cauliflower with Dubliner cheese, and grilled asparagus!!  I have to admit that I have tried mashed cauliflower before and hated it, but there is something about the cheese that I used this time.  I found the Dubliner cheese near the specialty cheese at Price Chopper, so I figure it shouldn't be too hard for you to find either. Yum!

The chicken recipe came from this blog:

 http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2009/04/grilled-bruschetta-chicken.html

The mashed cauliflower came from another website :

http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/2012/01/better-than-potatoes-cheesy-cauliflower.html

And finally, we just covered the asparagus with a little bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper, then grilled it until we saw some good grill marks. To die for!  Look at our chicken result!  Happy grilling!