Trial by Floret

Starting weight: 286
Current weight: 264.4
Goal weight: 135
Pounds to go: 129.4

I have had a whirlwind couple of weeks, friends. It has just been one after another thing! For those of you that don't know, I work with a youth group here in Salem. We put on our own summer camp every year, and we leave next monday! I am pretty involved, and have a lot of projects for that adventure in the works. That, plus work and normal life I didn't get to writing a post last week. BUT I will make up for it with good news... I have passed the 20 pound mark! I am 21.6 pounds down total :-) Celebration! And even better, my weigh in this week was down 3.6 pounds even after some ice cream and fish and chips when I was at the coast last week. Delightful!

In all the craziness of the last few weeks, I am proud to say that I have stayed on plan. There have been some temptations, to be sure. But I just kept asking myself: "is this worth it?" Fresh Tillamook ice cream at the cheese factory? TOTES WORTH IT. And can I just say it is so much easier when people know that I am tracking then if they don't? I would probably be stressed out of my mind by now if I had been trying to do this in secret. It just works out way better for me, personally, if everyone knows. That way it isn't awkward if I pull my phone out at dinner to check the point value of something, or pass on dessert, or whatever. I think I talked already about my feelings that people were secretly watching and judging food choices I would make, and so to have all this out in the open takes all that pressure off. I haven't felt self conscious about it even once since starting this blog. Which is good. Really, really good.

I have been trying different foods lately, half for fun and half for health. You figure out pretty quickly some nice go-to food that is high power, low point value. For me, it's turkey pepperoni with hummus, some fruit or vegetables, and sometimes cheez-its. Delish! And I don't cook very often, but sometimes a recipe comes along that you just have to try. This week, it was cauliflower pizza crust. I have seen cauliflower bread things all over pinterest, and at first thought it sounded totally awful. But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became. So, with the help of some friends, I tried my hand at two different recipes this weekend!
The first one was really pretty good, although I wished it was a little more cooked. The middle ended up a little soggy. But a coworker of mine who is gluten free told me about her favorite recipe, so I tried that one yesterday and let me just tell you, it was fantastic. I got the recipe from Sandy's Kitchen, a blog done by a woman following the Medifast diet. I made a few tweaks of my own, since I am not following the strict guidelines of Medifast, and between the instructions from Saturday, Monday, my own changes and some tips from my coworker, I'd like to present to you my trial-by-floret Cauliflower Pizza Crust recipe!

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

yeilds: 8 personal pizza crusts, 2 large crusts

Ingredients

• 1 head of fresh cauliflower (about 3 cups when shredded)
• 3 oz (6 Tbsp.) of low-fat ricotta
• 3 oz (6 Tbsp.) of low-fat mozzarella
• 2 eggs OR 3 egg whites
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1 tsp. basil

Directions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees.
2. Begin by "ricing" your cauliflower. AKA, grating it up until it sort of looks like small grain rice! A food processor does a really nice job quickly, but you can also do this with a manual cheese grater. Make sure and cut as much of the stem parts off as you can. The stem holds the most water, and it will make your "dough" sort of runny and less willing to stick together. When you are done, make sure there are no big chunks that escaped into your mixture. Also, if you notice a lot of moisture in your riced cauliflower, microwave it, uncovered, until it dries up a little bit.
3. Mix in eggs and cheese, stir well. Then add your seasonings! You can put whatever herbs you like in your crust, I just went with traditional Italian sorts of flavors.
4. Spread parchment paper over a cookie sheet, and begin to form your pizza crust with your dough mixture! You can make the crusts whatever size you want. And parchment paper is important because you're going to flip your crust half way through baking, so you have to be able to flip quick and not worry about the crust sticking to your pan. Using the back of a spoon, make sure to spread it pretty thin. The thinner the crust, the crispier it got. If it was even a little too thick, it ended up still tasting good, but being a tad spongy in the middle. Also, the crust isn't going to expand when it cooks, if anything it will shrink slightly. So don't worry about putting them too close together.
5. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. The edges might start to look burnt to you, but until they start turning black they are fine. Just remember that vegetables brown differently than bread :-)
6. Once crust is golden brown, flip it! This is where the parchment paper is really great to have. Flipping the crust will help it brown evenly and not have a soggy bottom. Which no one likes! Once flipped, place it back in over for another 10-15 minutes, or nice and browned.
7. After the crust is done, you have two choices! You can make your pizza right away, just put whatever toppings you like on it and then broil it in the oven until the cheese is melted. OR, you can freeze your crust! My coworker shared this tip with me. She will make a bunch all at once and then she has something tasty, healthy and fun to pull out for a quick dinner. To freeze them, just wrap them in tinfoil, with a slice of parchment paper in between each crust. Store flat!

Here is a picture of the first one I made. note the black edges! I was just fine, although the middle could have cooked longer. 

Is there a recipe that you have ever tried that sounded super strange but ended up being super tasty?