Cauliflower Pizza Crust "Experiment"

Lately, I've been trying to do a low sugar/low carb diet.  I was trying to find ways to still have pizza while practicing this! One suggestion I found online was Cauliflower pizza crust.

Ingredients for Crust

Ingredients

2 12 oz. Bags Frozen Cauliflower

1 Egg

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

2-3 Tbl Olive Oil (Or More)

1/2 Cup Mozzarella

Pizza Toppings
*Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

"Riced" Cauliflower

First I started out by ricing my cauliflower. This was no easy task! I started by cooking my cauliflower in the microwave and draining off the water, as suggested.  Then, original blog I read said to use a blender or food processor.  My blender was not strong enough! The bottom next to the blades was mush, and the top got no processing what so ever.  So, then I moved to chopping up the cauliflower by knife.  I did this for almost ten minutes!  I did this until I thought the pieces started looking small enough... or how about, I gave up when I got tired of doing this by hand!

Mixing the Crust Ingredients

After accomplishing the "ricing" of the cauliflower and I use that term loosely, I put all of my crust ingredients in a bowl to mix them.  Those ingredients were: egg, about a table spoon of the olive oil, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and the 1/2 cup of mozzarella.  This is were I probably failed.  With the two about 12 oz bags of cauliflower, I tripled the amount of that ingredient.  I did not triple the amount of every other ingredient, however.  This is probably why my dough did not form into a "crust" very well.

Crust Mixture

This is what my "dough" looked like mixed together.  I was a bit weary at this point!  It did not look anything like dough was supposed to look like.

Pan Prep

I'm using Stoneware to make my pizza.  I brush on olive oil to prep it before putting on my dough mixture.  You can use a cooking spray of some sort, but I personally prefer the olive oil to any kind of cooking spray.  If I wanted to, I could have used the crust trick on this, but I wanted to try the original dough without adding anything extra to it.  I kind of with I had done the crust trick now! Maybe the extra garlic would have subtracted or masked some of the cauliflower's flavor. 

Crust Mixture in Pan

I used the back of a spatula to press my crust mixture into my pan.  I tried to make sure there weren't any visible holes in the mixture, to make sure my toppings wouldn't leak through later. 

Cooking the Crust

I put the crust mixture in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes.  Then, I checked it and gave it a couple more.  I probably could have left it in there up to 25 minutes due to the large pan size.  The crust came out sizzling!  This is probably because of the amount of olive oil I used. 

Topping Time!

I started by putting a freshly made basil pesto on half of my crust and a small can of tomato paste on the other half of my crust.  

Add more cheese please!

I add the rest of the bag of cheese I started the recipe with, and I probably added more, knowing me.  

Toppings

I topped my pizza with bacon and tomato, two of my favorite toppings!  When in doubt, always add bacon! After get all of the toppings onto the pizza, then, I placed them under the broiler on High until the cheese was all bubbly and starting to brown.  

"Pizza"

After the "pizza" was done, this is what it looked like.  I wouldn't really call this a pizza though.  I would put it more in the realm of a pizza bake or pizza casserole.  Also, because of the amount of olive oil I used in the crust, on the pan, and in the pesto, it was a bit on the oily side, even though I love olive oil!  The oiliness didn't really bother me that much, but it may bother someone else. 
I give this "pizza" a half pizza pie out of four.  I can say I've tried this once.  I probably will not be making this again, unless someone tells me they've found an awesome recipe for it! 
On top of that, maybe I should have followed the recipe more closely instead of improvising, but I can't help it!  I'm an improviser!