Dairy-free Pizza!

*Be sure to see my updates below.
FINALLY!!! A successful, dairy-free, no-fork-needed pizza! This thing was so good, I am just tickled to death! I have looked at many "Paleo" pizza recipes, all of which still used cheese in the crust. That's not Paleo. But titles aside, my family just doesn't do well with any dairy, so we avoid it as much as possible. Therefore, we haven't had a good pizza for some time now. I do love the breakfast pizza, but it just ain't the same. We have tried the popular "riced" cauliflower crusts, but the crusts were bland and soft. We haven't been successful, until today. I used a combination of several different recipes that I liked, this one probably being my favorite, and made it my own by using broccoli and changing up the spices a bit. I made riced cauliflower using this method. It totally works, but I over-blended, and mine turned out more like grits than rice. (BTW, we totally made "grits" with some of that!) I only had 1 cup of the leftover riced cauliflower, but, I had lots of fresh broccoli. I thought to myself, broccoli is so similar to cauliflower, it just has to work. And it did! You could probably use either cauliflower or broccoli or a combination of both as i did. I do plan on trying just broccoli in the next few days and will definitely post how that comes out. I used the same ricing method on the broccoli, except I "pulsed" this time, instead of "blending", and it turned out quite nicely. Here's what that looked like:

My only complaint about this crust was that it was too salty, so I've adjusted the recipe down by half. This was attempted as a half recipe, just in case it sucked, and so this yields one 8" pizza. Also, I played it safe by cooking at a lower temp, and it seemed to take forever to get the crust done enough. I think it could probably be cooked at a higher temp and for a shorter time. I will make those adjustments as I cook more of this (which will be soon!). But for now, here's my current version:

8" Dairy-Free Pizza Crust:
1 c riced cauliflower (see notes above)
1 c riced broccoli
1 pastured egg, beaten
1/4 tsp Redmond's Real Salt
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
2 TB almond meal
2 dashes garlic powder

Preheat oven to 350°. Place riced veggies into a clean kitchen towel, about a cup at a time, and wring out all the excess water. Place into a mixing bowl and add all the remaining ingredients.

Mix well.

 Transfer mixture to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Use the back of a tablespoon to form. Use a second piece of parchment paper to top the mixture and flatten as desired. Mine was maybe 1/4" thick, or less.

(So, here's the part that needs some work, but...it does work as indicated. Just be patient with me, and your crust!) Bake the crust for 30 minutes, WITH THE PARCHMENT PAPER ON BOTTOM AND TOP OF THE CRUST, as a "parchment sandwich". After 30 minutes, remove the top parchment paper and put the crust back in the oven for 10 minutes, uncovered. Then I upped the temp to 400° for another 10 minutes. By this point the crust was finally starting to brown on the edges and was mostly dry, so I turned to Broil on Low for 1-2 minutes, til it was slightly browned. Whatever temp you decide to try, just make sure your crust is fairly dry before topping, so you don't end up with a soggy crust. I went as long as I could without burning the edges. (Please leave comments if y'all have success at different temps and times!)

Then top as desired. I used Victoria (Unsweetened) Marinara Sauce from Costco, organic baby spinach, turkey sausage, and olives. Place back in the oven just long enough to heat the toppings through. (By this point I was starving, so I went 450° for 4-5 minutes.

In the end, I was so happy with this pizza. The center was still a little soft, but it was mostly firm, and the edges crispy. I was able to slice and pick it up just like a "normal" pizza, even with those heavy toppings. The girls agreed that it was very good and are ready to make more! I hope you guys enjoy the recipe as much as we did. Let me know how yours turns out!

UPDATE 12/18/12:

Here's our second dairy-free pizza experiment, a doubled pepperoni lovers made with broccoli and no cauliflower. It was just as good!

Family Size Dairy-Free Pizza Crust:

4 c riced broccoli (see video link above)

2 pastured eggs, beaten

1/2 tsp Redmond's Real Salt

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1/4 c almond meal

4 dashes garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400°. Place riced broccoli into a clean kitchen towel, about a cup at a time, and wring out all the excess water. Place into a mixing bowl and add all the remaining ingredients. Mix well. Transfer mixture to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Use a rubber spatula to spread as evenly as possible. Use a second piece of parchment paper to top the mixture and flatten, if needed. Mine was maybe 1/4" thick, or so. 

Bake the crust for 40 minutes, or til crust is mostly browned, WITH THE PARCHMENT PAPER ON BOTTOM AND TOP OF THE CRUST, as a "parchment sandwich". Then, remove the top parchment paper and put the crust back in the oven for approximately 10 minutes, uncovered, until the crust is as done as you like. Make sure the crust is fairly dry before topping, so you don't end up with a soggy pizza. We went as long as we could without burning the edges. Then top as desired. We used Victoria (Unsweetened) Marinara Sauce from Costco, Boar's Head pepperoni, and Italian Seasoning. Place back in the oven just long enough to heat the toppings through, about 5 minutes.

My family has agreed that this pizza definitely works for us! We get our pizza fix with a crust that actually tastes and feels like a pizza crust. Now, it's certainly not your chewy New York pizza dough, but that's sort of the point for us. We feel terrible after eating flour and cheese, so this is the next best thing! Hope you enjoy!