Well, the truth is that I love to cook but I don't always eat everything I cook. I mean, I usually do but when it comes to the carb heavy breadstuffs I love to death, I treat those like treats and dreamy delights taken in moderation. Like, maybe once a week. Or that's my goal. It actually works great for me. I shoot for no carbs and in reality, I am substantially low carb by comparison without really counting calories or anything like that. I eat what I want, but not everyday, day after day.
That's because I've been doing keto and intermittent fasting for a couple of years. I learned about keto and fasting while in New Zealand from one of my like-minded and smartasshit girlfriends I was lucky enough to get to know while we were living overseas. Everything she said and that we talked about just made so much sense. In truth, when I examine the times in my life where I've lost a good deal of weight, it was because I was doing this without knowing I was doing it.
Ringing in 2017, I decided to do it on purpose with my girlfriend guiding me on the basics and providing me the right tools to allow me to research it and come to my own conclusions. Not pushy, just super knowledgable and helpful.
So with Sophie on my side, I endeavored and the progress I made shocked me and everyone I knew. It was not only drastic, but it was fast... It was so easy!! I dropped nearly 40 lbs in a matter of 5 months. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't ever hungry, was eating more calories than I ever had in my whole life and barely working out (compared to the effort I've made my whole life). I only started working out 2 months into my program and even at that point, kept it to 3-4 days a week, days off in between and doing more HIIT style 20 minute workouts with some weight training, just because I like it. It never felt like a program, it was that natural for me.
I started to eat less and less and was not very hungry so worked in intermittent fasting once my body became keto adapted. People at work noticed. Friends and family noticed and the boys started working out with me when they came home for the summer. If you can get teenage boys to workout voluntarily... then you know something is working.
It's way too big of a topic to tackle here, but being that I get asked so much and it has now become a staple in my own diet, I felt I needed to at least post about it. It's one of my favorite cheater recipes that was a go-to when I first started keto. One of the first I ever made, actually and from then on, I was really hooked. It became a kitchen stadium kind of game to me... fun. I only call it cheater because it makes me feel like I'm cheating.... but I'm not!
Anywho, keto pizzas are a bit of kitchen magic. I say magic because I impress myself every time I make it and normally, these ingredients don't make sense together. But they are transformed, mutated in such a clever way! If I happen to have it in the fridge, someone will always eat it before I can ever get to it again. And that's because no one knows it's chock full of cauliflower!
Yep, it can fake out even a hard core pizza maniac. Like Tsunami. Like his oldest son. He's probably our pickiest eater with the least adventurous palette, but he's eaten my keto pizza without even knowing there was anything different about it. Tsunami will now eat it completely willingly if I make it because he also loves it.
Truth is, I don't actually like to share it... I know. Boo to me. But, hey, neither will you because it's the only pizza you can eat half by yourself and not actually feel completely sick over it when you do! Try to eat the whole thing. Go ahead. I dare you. But if you do, ain't no thang but a chicken wang as Tsunami says. You just ate a head of cauliflower. And 2 cups of cheese but hey, you were all keto, my friend. And that, is most certainly a good thang.
Let the games begin.
Keto "Fathead" Pizza Crust:
- 2 cups fresh grated cauliflower
- 2 cups of grated mozzarella
- 2 fresh eggs, beaten
Other Pizza stuff:
- premade pizza sauce
- toppings of choice
- grated cheese of choice but mozz is easy because you use it in the crust ;)
- parchment paper (this is important, worth getting if you don't have any)
- pizza pan or baking sheet of some sort
Prep:
- Using a manual cheese grater, grate a head of fresh cauliflower. This is commonly referred to as "rice". If you have extra, you can use it like rice in other keto recipes but I like to portion it out into 2 cup portions and vacuum seal those for later use if eating in the near future. Do what you gotta do. I don't use frozen cauliflower rice because it just produces too much moisture and fresh is much easier to get the texture right with little work.
- Mix everything up in a bowl. Ok, now take a break. You've earned it. That was exhausting.
- Ok, get up, you're not done. Let's make this into a pizza star. Line your pan with a piece of parchment paper and dump everything from the bowl onto the center of the parchment.
- I use a 14 inch pan and press the mixture from the center outward to the edges just to create the round shape I want. This is similar to making a pie crust. I use the back of a small juice glass to gently press it out.
Bake:
- Preheat oven to 450 F.
- Prebake your crust without toppings for about 15 minutes or until crust looks golden. This is an important step so your crust doesn't get soggy once the toppings go on. It will look delicious at this stage, but wait... there's more!
- Add your sauce and toppings and cheese. Go easy on the toppings your first time until you know how heavy they are on your crust. You'll know better the next time if you need to add more or go even lighter. This is kinda personal so I'll let you figure that out.
- Bake for another 15 minutes or until the cheese on top is bubbly and brown, checking the bottom so you don't get that too dark. I personally like a dark, caramelized bottom but just check in case your oven or pan is running hot.
- Remove and let the pizza cool for about 5-10 minutes before cutting. It helps the gooey cheese set a bit.
Notes:
**I have a cast iron pizza pan that I just love. I preheat the pan in the oven and slide my pizza, still on the parchment, onto the pan using a pizza peel. Use your favorite pizza making tools and see how they work. I've also used a pizza stone, a perforated pizza pan and have even cooked it just on the parchment. A pizza peel, to me, is an invaluable cooking utensil and if you love pizza like we do, you'll find it to be super useful as well.
**I've grilled this on the big green egg! You can grill any pizza so why not? Especially if you're smoking meats. It's just killer.
**This makes adorable mini pizzas for snacks. Remember when I said to try to refrain from eating it after it's prebake? Well, make some minis and do exactly that! Top with some fresh arugula and red onions and it's just crazy good.
**I've done meat lover's pizza and it can stand up to some serious weight if you are somewhat clever with just how you put it all on. Again, don't go crazy. An ounce of each meat, like sausage, bacon, pork belly, pepperoni, prosciutto, whatever, is a lot once it's all loaded. Stick to 3 meats or so and this will rock your little socks.
**My favorite cheeses lately is a 50/50 combo of mozz and Monterrey Jack! A recent discovery when I ran out of mozzarella one night while making like 10 pizzas. We can go through some cheese, dudes. So I took a frozen block of Monterrey Jack, grated it with my remaining mozz and it was so good, the kids said they like the cheese even more. The had no idea, but the feedback was great because I started doing that on purpose and it actually tastes pretty darn fantastic.
Posts
