Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Last Friday at the After 5 wine tasting, two whites were on the table which, in my opinion, stood up to whatever discriminatory scrutiny red wine lovers could give them.  The Giocato Pinot Grigio and Chilcas Sauvignon Blanc both offered moderate complexity within the bounds of their types with the Chilcas being noticeably more adventurous while the Giocato was light, clean, and correct.  These are two to keep in mind for later this summer.

I mention them now because we're talking about vegetarian pizza here and I like white wine with my veggies.  Saturday night I had those same two wines with a pizza I made using a facebook friend's recipe.  The post was taken from myrecipes.com and entitled, Cauliflower Pizza Crust.  So just to explain, the recipe is really about the crust and you could make it a meat-lovers pizza if you would like.  I like veggies though and I just happened to have a drawer full Saturday night!

While you now have access to the website recipe, this is what I did Saturday night:

1.  Grate 1/2 head of cauliflower
2.  Microwave it for 8 minutes
3.  Brush olive oil onto a foil lined pan
4.  Grate 1 cup of hard Italian cheese (parmesan, probably)
5.  Beat 1 egg
6.  After the microwaved cauliflower cools, mix with egg and cheese
7.  Add basil, black pepper, and garlic
8.  Spread out the crust mix on your pan
9.  Brush more olive oil on the top
10.Bake 15 minutes

So that concludes the crust-making part.  Like I said, I loaded the thing with veggies, especially the offensive ones like onions and peppers.  I added sauce and more cheese too, of course.  Actually now that I think about it, I believe my recipe was not the one from facebook but the one I googled from Paula Deen at popsugar.com.  Yeah, that's what it was!

After you get the top all gooped-up with whatever trips your gustatory trigger, bake your masterpiece for another ten minutes or, using the other recipe, broil 3-4 minutes.  While my pizza tasted great, the crust did not hold together well enough to eat by hand, so I may have done something wrong.  If yours too falls apart, scoop that scrumptious sucker up with a fork!

My heavily peppered vegetarian pizza probably showed better with the Sauvignon Blanc than the lighter Pinot Grigio but in another couple months, in the heat of summer, that Pinot may do the trick!  For red "pizza wines", I always defer to the Italians.  


This Friday, May 1st, we'll taste the current vintage of Maso Canali Pinot Grigio which I feel is their best in years.  We'll also taste the Hall Napa Valley Merlot, which frankly bowled me over when I tasted it last week.  I'm sure we'll also have a dry rose in the mix along with some more reds.  We ask for a ten dollar fee to taste which is refundable on a fifty dollar purchase.  Please join us.