Low Carb Pizza (Flax & Parmesan Pizza Crust)

Well, it is finally Sunday and our vacation is really over.  While it was nice being back home yesterday, it was fairly short lived.  Yesterday afternoon, we went out for a few hours to do our Costco run, grocery shopping and other errands.  In the short time we were gone...our air conditioning went down!!!  When we got back yesterday, I started fixing dinner after putting the groceries away.  I was excited to try a new recipe for a different wheat/gluten free pizza that I had found...and I noticed it felt "warm" in the house instead of the usual "cool".  I went to bump the thermostat down and saw that it was up to 79 (it was 76 when we left a few hours earlier).  I knew right away something wasn't right.  Hubby went up into the attic to check things and I went outside to see if the unit was running....nope, it wasn't!  So, I came back into the house and put all my dinner ingredients away because there was no way I was going to put the oven on 425 degrees without any a/c.  So, around 8:00 p.m., hubby and I ran out and picked up a rotisserie chicken and brought it back home.  I didn't even feel like making a salad at that point...so we had rotisserie chicken and water for dinner...LOL.  Fortunately, I was able to reach our repairman and he came out late Sunday afternoon to fix it for us.  We needed a new capacitor and in just 30 minutes he had us cooling again...thank God!  Enough of that...let me tell you about the new pizza recipe that I finally ended up making for dinner tonight.

I recently found a recipe that I wanted to try for pizza crust using flax seed meal as its base/main ingredient.  It didn't have a lot of ingredients and the pictures looked really good.  I found it on a blog called "Delighted Momma".  It actually looked like whole wheat pizza crust, and was very similar looking to a whole wheat Boboli, if you've ever seen or bought one of those.  I tweaked it just a tiny bit by adding about 1/3 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese to the dough.  I must say...it was really good and it actually looked like dough, felt like dough, and cooked into something that was more "genuine pizza crust looking, feeling and tasting".  It was like REAL pizza crust (much more so than the cauliflower crust I made recently).  Let me just put it this way...this recipe pushed the cauliflower pizza crust off of the map completely for me.  This recipe was much less time intensive to make...and the end product was a significantly more authentic and satisfying alternative to a regular wheat based pizza crust than the cauliflower crust I tried a couple of weeks ago.  Flax is very healthy for you too, and if you want to reduce the cholesterol a bit, you can substitute Egg Beaters in place of the 3 whole eggs this recipe uses.  I used organic golden flax seed meal because it has a much milder taste than some of the darker flax seed meals.  At this moment, I believe I have found my new "go to" wheat free pizza crust recipe.  I snapped a few pics below for you to see, as well as the recipe.  Enjoy!

Here is the crust after baking...looks similar to a Boboli crust

I put Rao's Pizza Sauce on it...it was good!

Fresh out of the oven, loaded with cooked onions, red, yellow and orange peppers and some diced leftover rotisserie chicken...not to mention mozzarella cheese!

Check out that crust...it looks awesome!

It even cuts like regular pizza crust...this is the real deal...just healthier!

BOOM!

Low Carb Pizza (Flax Crust)

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups flax seed meal (I used organic golden flax which has a milder taste)

2 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum free)

1 teaspoon dried oregano (or Italian seasoning)

1 teaspoon Kosher salt, more or less to taste

1/2 teaspoon of Truvia (optional)

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated

3 eggs (or 3/4 cup egg substitute such as Egg Beaters)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup water

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Mix dry ingredients together; add wet ingredients and mix well.

Let the dough sit for about 5 minutes to thicken. Spread dough on a lightly oiled large round pizza pan or on a cookie sheet with greased parchment paper (I used Reynolds non-stick foil, lightly brushed with olive oil).  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through (check it after 15 minutes and take out if it looks done).  Add sauce, cheese, pre-cooked toppings and place back into the oven for 5-10 minutes to melt the cheese.

*Note:  Pre-cook any veggie or raw meat toppings such as sausage, beef, etc. before topping the pizza, as you are simply heating and lightly browning the toppings when returning it to the oven for the last 10 minutes of cooking.  You may want to place it under the broiler for a few minutes for additional browning before removing.