Keto Bandito Low Carb Total Fake-Out Pizza

So I was just texting one of my bffs and she was grilling me about pizza and how in the heck have I lost so much weight recently when I cook the way I like to cook...

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:

1. 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.
2. Mix everything up in a bowl. Ok, now take a break. You've earned it. That was exhausting.
3. 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.
4. 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:

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.
2. 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!
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Remove and let the pizza cool for about 5-10 minutes before cutting. It helps the gooey cheese set a bit.

Notes:

**I like a thin crust so I go as thin as possibly without creating any "holes" in my my mixture. Don't worry. It may look to wet but it will keep its shape as long as you don't have any gaps or holes in your shaped "dough". If you like a thick crust or pan style, then go ahead and try it. Just know that your baking times may need to be adjusted to accommodate the thicker crusts.

**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.

Homemade Pizza

This year, I have obsessed a little with cultured foods. Cultured foods haven't gone to college or studied abroad or married a foreigner...  They are just super healthy foods that have natural probiotics, or the healthy bacteria your gut needs in order to fight off illness or infection.

Most of us are familiar with probiotics in dairy products, especially, cultured dairy we have grown up with our whole lives such as yogurt, sour cream, butter, cheese and buttermilk. What we probably didn't know until recently is what made these dairy foods good for us, such as the probiotics they contain because of the fermentation process they undergo when these products are produced. Probiotics was a term I was unfamiliar with until several years ago when the vitamin supplement companies started touting probiotics as a way of healing a digestive track that was a bit off track.

Now, I see this term everywhere and know what it means and what it can do.  It can make a really bad tummy and digestive system right again. Even if you know this, you may not know that all cultured foods have this ability, not just dairy.  If you are lactose intolerant, don't fret.  There are loads of other foods you can consume with these same wonderful and natural side effects such as, yes, you guessed it, pizza!  How you say?  Let's identify some cultured and fermented products we know and love: pizza, beer, sourdough bread, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi,  pickles of all kinds, sake and of course, most of the dairy products we have already mentioned.  

The important part of the pickle equation, however, is that they are naturally fermented pickles. This means that the American pickles which are processed using vinegar, are not exactly the kind of pickles that are good for you, although they are not bad, they just don't have the healthy probiotics which come from the natural fermentation process used in making old fashioned pickles. The Germans and many of the Asian cultures still ferment vegetables the old fashioned way and that is the style that is quickly making a comeback, both for health reasons and of course, for the very fact that it is an excellent way of preserving your summer crops for winter eating. It is not only healthy, it's practical. It's green!  Make your own and not only will you be blown away at how much better a naturally fermented pickle is but you will giggle at how easy it is to do once you know how.

For today, though, I thought I'd introduce you to another fermented and cultured product that most Americans adore in um, large quantities. :)  Pizza. The simplest way to explain how pizza IS good for you is to talk about it in terms of sour dough bread.  This pizza is made with an Italian Pizza culture I bought from Cultures for Health.  I buy all my cheese and sourdough cultures there and have found them to be easy to follow, as well as very educational with videos, recipes, etc.  They make learning about this way of preparing healthy food really fun.  But being that this is still a cultured food, it means that some of the sugars in the flour are already broken down into a form the body can more easily digest and of course, they are also loaded with the beneficial bacteria your body needs for long term healthy digestion and natural immunity.  

Try, then trust and as always, do your own research and self-validation, like I like to do.  Sourdoughs are also supposed to help people with gluten intolerance who really miss their breads.  Couple this with the best and freshest flour you can find and you might just see gluten intolerance disappear all together, but that is for you to explore and I wish you all the best.

To make the pizza culture:
A packet of Italian Calmodoli sour dough starter (or fresh if you have this going already)
1/4 c lukewarm water
1/4 c flour
Large quart mason jar or other wide mouth jar (NO METAL TOP, very important)
Clean coffee filter and rubber band for sealing the jar to allow gases to escape and to keep out critters. 

**Metal tops will rust and are generally bad when fermenting food as the acids can essentially eat the metal which is simply put, bad eats.

Care and Feeding:
That's it. Use a large glass quart jar to get it started and feed your starter once or twice a day with 1/2 c water, 1/2 c flour.  When the starter is happy, it bubbles and grows or rises. You can see it. If you forget to feed it, a shallow film of liquid will pool on top. Not to worry, just pour this off and continue to feed. If you forget to feed it for a long while, you may need to start over if the film is green, white or moldy. I won't go into the education behind sour dough starter, but if you have questions, let me know and of course, check out Cultures for Health, a wealth of information. I'm a student, too. :)

Pizza Party:
This recipe is a work in progress but how I did this one...

• Liquids = sourdough starter, equal part water (if you have 3/4 quart of starter, use 3/4 quart of water)
• Flour = Double the amount of liquids above (if you have 1 1/2 quart of liquids above use 3 quarts of flour)
• 1/2-1 tablespoon of instant yeast (optional)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt

Mix it however you normally would. I use my Kitchenaid mixer and once it comes together, I put it in my proofing container and let it double.  The yeast is optional. Why? Because natural sourdough will rise if given enough time. However, most people don't want to wait 6 hours for bread to rise. If you have time, try it at least once.  I personally, need to control the rise and timing, so I use yeast... I know, sacrilege, but seriously, it is up to you.

Once it has doubled in size, the dough is ready for shaping and it's final rise. I divide the dough into balls, depending on whether I want large or small pizzas and then roll them on a floured surfaces to the desired shape and size. If you like sheet pan pizza, do that. If you like round, do that.  

My favorite pizza pan is an old perforated (yep it has little holes in it), round 12" pizza pan that arrived in my house from a delivery pizza that was so hastily boxed that the pizza dude left the pan right on the pizza. We haven't had delivery pizza in like 15 years, but this pan is a keeper. I use that pan all the time and recently bought one for my niece. What is special? I don't know exactly. But if you grease the pan or forget, the crust never sticks to this pan. It isn't a non stick pan, it is just some aluminum cheap pan that looks well used. I grease it just in case and the crust is crispy and perfect.  Mine looks a little like this one.

Baking:
450 degrees 12-17 minutes, depends on oven and whether you like a semi-burnt cheese or just gooey. I like mine a little crispified.

One last tip: I prebake my crust for about 5-7 minutes on 450 degrees.  THEN, I add the sauce, cheese, etc. You don't want to overload the pizza with cheese and toppings or maybe you do. I just find that with thin crust pizzas, less is more and with Chicago or deep dish style pizzas more is usually expected. It all depends on what "load" your crust can handle so experimentation as always, is my best recommendation.

*Please comment!  I am learning, too, and would love to know how this works for you or if you find some helpful tips to share, I will be happy to include them here.  Thanks!