Crispy Kale & Pine Nut Pizza - Cauliflower Crust.

Crispy Kale & Pine Nut Pizza - Cauliflower Crust

With the new website/blog now unwrapped and finally a more user friendly platform, I can once again concentrate on the business of recipes.  I feel like I’ve been lagging behind with trying out my new recipe ideas and bringing you great vegan and gluten free foodie finds from the interweb.  So I need to play catch up before I can thrust on and get up to speed.  I need to tick off some of the items on the ‘recipes to try’ list.  So, here is a recipe that has been knocking around for a few years among some vegan, and gluten free blogs - Cauliflower Pizza Crust. Yes, pizza crust made from cauliflower.  My take on it is Crispy Kale & Pine Nut Pizza - Cauliflower Crust. Gluten free, grain free and vegan. Skeptical?  So was I. But, trusted sources espoused its merits so give it a go I must.  Many peoples favourite things are pizza, many people love kale.  So I decided to marry the two.  Here for your delectation is..

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Crispy Kale & Pine Nut Pizza - Gluten Free Cauliflower Crust

 

Ingredients

1/2 cauliflower

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk (or other non-dairy milk of choice)

1/2 cup milk (dairy or non-dairy)

3 tbs ground chia seed (or flax meal) to make a chia egg

4 tbs nutritional yeast

1/4 cup reduced fat almond flour (sorghum works well too if you do not care if it is not grain free. Quinoa would probably work also.)

1/4 cup chickpea flour

pinch of pink Himalayan or sea salt

pinch of black pepper

1 tbs olive oil

 

Method

• Preheat oven to 450f or as high as your oven allows. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
• Mix the non-dairy milk and the ground chia or flax seeds and leave to congeal. Just 5 or so mins should do the trick.
• Roughly chop cauliflower and pop into a food processor or high-speed blender until it breaks down to crumbs.  Pop into a suitable container and microwave for 4 mins or to be healthier steam for 10 mins.  Allow to cool then put the crumbs into cheesecloth and squeeze out as much water as you can.
• Combine the drained cauliflower, chia ‘egg’, flours, nutritional yeast, and seasonings.  Mix to a dough.  If too wet add more flour.
• Halve the mixture and then pour the oil into your hands and form two balls. This ensures that the oil is coating the outside of the ‘dough’.  Place onto a tray leaving room for each to be flattened and shaped into a 1/4 inch thick and roughly 7 inch circles.  You may get more depending on size of your cauliflower (Did you know that in France it is called ‘chou-fleur’?…that’s so pretty!)
• Bake for about 20 mins until turning golden brown, and crispy at the edges. Be beady-eyed about it though as each oven is different and depending on the tides/moon phase/shoe size and your mood it could burn.  Don’t let it burn.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Not sure of the science but like baking a cake, with gluten free stuff the resting makes for good bonding time.  I’ve seen many recipes that say the pizza will not stand up to holding aloft but this one does.
• Whilst your pizza crust is cooling, slice up some vegan cheese (or use slices..Violife are the best IMHO), bust out a can of condensed tomato paste, chop up your curly kale, and mince some garlic.
• Now it is time to decorate those wonderful, gluten free, vegan pizza crusts!  Take crust numero uno and spoon and spread over 2-3 tbs of tomato paste. Top with the sliced cheese and the garlic.  Pop into the oven until cheese has melted.  Grab out of oven and top with a sprinkling of pine nuts and the chopped kale, grind over some black pepper and a pinch of sea salt.  Then carefully drizzle olive oil over the kale.  Grab your oven mitts and pop the pizzas back under a medium grill until the kale turns crispy but not burnt. Burnt is not good.
• Remove from the grill (or, if you are American the broiler..still cannot get my head around that though it is more obvious to call it that..darn my English upbringing!) and EAT.
• Now, I have to be honest, I did not expect the crust to be that great once I’d tasted the raw mix but me-oh-my, once cooked and adorned it is a thing of sheer delight.  Delizioso!

 

*tip.   Gently remove the crusts from the baking parchment BEFORE you add your toppings so that your final product is not stuck to the baking parchment.  If it sticks then wet the parchment with a little water and it will peel off, like those transfer tattoos we had as kids, leaving the crust liberated and intact).