Cauliflower Cooking Catastrophe

Gertrude and I have been reunited... order is restored is the universe.  Unfortunately I had sort of a cooking fail today... andddd Gertrude had nothing to do with it.  Whose fault was it? This ones right here. 

I decided to stay true to my promise to transition to a more healthy food blog.  Sorry folks, there will be no more chocolate peanut butter deliciousness for quite a while. So, I decided to go pretty much all out on the health food scale- I made pizza! Healthiest food around.  Well, it is when you put cauliflower in it.  Actually, I did not just put cauliflower in it.  The crust is pretty made ENTIRELY of cauliflower.  Who needs flour when you have cauliFLOWER? My roommates were very skeptical of my escapades in the kitchen this evening, and they had every right to be.  I mean, pizza and cauliflower are two things that seemingly should never collide..... or should they?  Here is the first step of this whole dealio.

Yum... rice, right? Guess again.  This is cauliflower... very deceptive ninja cauliflower that doesn't even look like cauliflower. I honestly must say I have never bought cauliflower until today... not exactly one of my top foods.  However, I quickly became acquainted with this majestic vegetable and  I somehow managed to chop it up a bit and throw it in my little food processor to make this cauliflower rice. Anyways, you need a full head of cauliflower to make about two cups of "rice".  

Here is where I made my fatal mistake (that didn't actually turn out to be that fatal, but I'm trying to make this dramatic).  I was just so excited how "rice-like" this looked that I jumped the gun and quickly added my 1 egg, 1 cup low-moisture mozzarella cheese,  2 clove garlic, 1 tsp of basil,  and 1 tsp of oregano to make the pizza "dough".  But oh wait... I completely forgot I was supposed to cook the cauliflower for eight minutes in the microwave BEFORE I mixed everything up.  So, I basically have this raw cauliflower goop instead of cooked cauliflower goop.  What do I do? Well, the only logical thing to do would be to put it in the microwave for 8 minutes, just like the recipe said. So I hesitantly start it in the microwave, just waiting for it to go up in smoke and flames.  The suspense was killing me as I waited 8 long minutes... I distracted myself by trying to buy a textbook online, which actually worked since I spent about 5 minutes trying to access the $90 e-book I had just purchased.  Anyways, when 8 minutes was up, I nervously took the bowl out... and it looked pretty much exactly the same as it did before.  I took that as a good sign.  Proceed as normal. The next step was to shape the dough.  I was still feeling a bit pessimistic about my major blunder, so I decided not to put much effort into making a perfect circle and decided to go with the whole "rough around the edges look"..... literally. 

Even though Gertrude was not exactly preheated yet, I was getting a bit antsy to get this show on the road so I just put it in the oven.  I did make a miraculous discovery that led to a major breakthrough in Gertrude and my relationship.  If I put my food on parchment paper, Gertrude will just burn the parchment paper and not my actually food item (or, not so much at least).  I'm glad to know that Gertrude can selectively channel her anger towards unimportant accessories in baking process.  So, after baking the crust for thirty minutes I was happy to see the very edges nice and brown... and nothing more than brown.  Now it was time to put stuff on the pizza.  

The first step was to spread my delicious pesto sauce on the crust.  On new years eve I went out for italian food and I really wanted some pesto on my calzone.... so, I ordered a side of pesto.  Let me repeat, a SIDE of pesto.  Did they give me a SIDE of pesto?? Oh no, I got a whole nice soup bowl full of pesto.  But hey, for $3.50, I am not complaining... I love pesto! It is the best-o!  So I spread my pesto on my pizza, followed by a sprinkle a cheese (a sprinkle opposed to a handfull since the crust already had cheese in it).  Next I grilled up some chicken with the latest member of my kitchen appliances.. my indoor grill.  I lightly marinated the chicken for about 1 hr before hand in italian dressing and it turned out fairly delicious.  I chopped it up, put some on the pizza, along with some cherry tomatos I halved.  I put the whole pie back in the oven, and let it cook for about five more minutes. The toppings were definitely a bit too heavy for the pizza, but that did not stop me from enjoying half of the pizza (its healthy, remember!).  And the crust was actually pretty good.  If someone told me that the crust was thin crust pizza, a might... let my repeat, MIGHT, believe them. Anyways, I was very happy with the result, despite by major screw-up.  Therefore, I am sort of tempted to try this the right way.  Later though.  I don't know how much cauliflower I feel like scraping off my food processor in a week.  So, until next time... next week I will choose a new vegetable to make into one of america's favorites.... or maybe I will just stick with cauliflower.  Cauliflower cookies? I think yes.