I am away from home this week — house sitting for my friends in Las Vegas, so this presents a bit of a challenge in my cooking plans. First test of the month – I’m facing another one later as I jet off to Arizona for a week with my bro and sis-in-law. “What challenge?” you might ask. “Finding some of those special ingredients that I order at home,” I reply with blinking eyes.

And here I am on a Wednesday craving pizza and I’m without either CarbQuick or Atkins flour, let alone any other low carb baking mix. But the Wal-Mart does carry Bob’s Red Mill Flax seed meal and almond flour. I like Bob’s almond flour because it’s a nice, smooth mill and is lighter, although higher in net carbs than Now’s almond flour. So, the thing to do here is to substitute the Carbquick in my recipe with the Flax meal and use the almond flour for Flax meal in the original recipe. The crust is an adaptation of two other recipes, but with my own twist on it. The bonus with this is that it’s also gluten free. The toppings are a mix of meat and veggies that blend well and really make a great meal. I must add that this is delicious! No, it doesn’t taste like a yeast wheat flour pizza crust, but it’s pretty darn good anyway.

If you’re counting calories, it’s pretty high at 559 a serving, so plan for it.

 

Flax-Almond Pizza Crust

3/4 cup Flax Meal
1/4 cup Almond Flour
1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated
1 Egg
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tblsp Olive Oil
1/4 to 1/2 cup Water

Topping

1 or 2 slices of Thick-cut Bacon, fried crisp
2 links Bratwurst Sausage or Italian Sausage
1/2 cup Broccoli pieces, fresh or frozen and cooked
1/4 cup Red Onion, sliced thinly
1/4 cup Mushroom slices
2 small Sweet Peppers or 1/2 cup Bell Peppers, sliced
Pepperoni slices
1 tablespoon minced Garlic (optional)
1 cup Mozzarella or pizza cheese mix
1 cup Pasta Sauce (homemade or bottled)
Check for the lowest carb available. I have found a couple with the net carb of 5 g for 1/2 cup

Start with the pizza crust. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Mix flours and Parmesan cheese together with the baking powder, Italian seasoning and salt. Make a well in the middle and add olive oil and egg. Add 1/4 cup water and mix well. Add additional water as needed to make dough moist and pliable, but not runny. Let sit for about 5 minutes for meal to absorb the liquid.

Prepare pan by spraying or oiling a 12″ pizza round or a 9 x 11 inch rectangular pan or 10″ square pan. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the pan, press on top of the oil, then spray or oil the top of the parchment. If you use a silicone mat, just put it in the pan and spray it with cooking spray.

Parchment paper sticks to the pan if it has been oiled or sprayed with cooking spray.

If you use a stone, oil the stone, but you don’t need a mat or parchment although it makes it easier to get the pizza off. Use a spoon to put large spoonfuls of the dough on the pan in evenly spaced mounds. Wet your hands and pat the dough to as even a crust as you can get that fills the pan. It should be a little less than 1/4 inch thick.

Bake in the oven for 15 to 18 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from the oven.

While the pizza crust is baking, prepare your topping. Remove sausages from casing and fry in a pan until browned, but not cooked all the way through. Remove to paper towel to drain. Stir fry the vegetables until just tender.

When the crust comes out of the oven, assemble the pizza. Spread 1 cup of the pasta sauce over the crust, spreading it all the way to the edges. Spread the sausage and crumbled bacon, distributing as evenly as possible. Top the meat mixture with slices of pepperoni, about twelve to sixteen slices depending on the cut. Spread vegetables over the top of that and top with mozzarella cheese. Put back in the oven for about 10 minutes to finish cooking the sausage and melt the cheese. Check on the pizza at 5 minutes, then again at 10 minutes to see that it’s done the way you prefer and not overdone.

Cut into four slices and serve with a salad.

The recipe is flexible… don’t like mushrooms? Leave them off! Broccoli doesn’t thrill? Substitute something else or just omit. That’s the fun of pizza — it can be personalized easily.

Crust only information: Carbs for 1 slice of original crust: 1.9 g calories 178.6, protein 11.3 g
Carbs for Flax-Almond crust (gluten free) – 1.5 g calories 212.4 protein 11.6

Pizza with toppings above:
Original Crust: Total Carbs for 1 slice of pizza: 8.6 g, calories 525 protein 28.9
Flax-Almond Crust: 8.2 g, calories 559, protein 29.2

Originally POSTED BY RENE AVERETT AT 10/11/2012 1:10 AM