papaya ice cream – Working My Way Through Pinterest Pins…

Hellooooo readers and fellow pinners 🙂 I am happy to start my week off with this tasty treat for you! First, let me assure you that my two shared recipes here are separate, haha….zucchini crust and papaya ice cream don’t sound too appetizing together.

Ok, so let’s tackle the pizza first. I am ALWAYS looking for ways to get my husband to eat vegetables (he needs fruit too, but that’s another blog entry!)…outside of green beans, mushrooms and white potatoes, I have to hide vegetables in his food. It is a work in progress, but most of what I have tried has been a success. Side Note: He does NOT like corn! How is that possible? I have tried to find the answer and have been left scratching my head 😉

While scanning Pinterest one day I came upon a recipe for zucchini crust pizza from, Seattle Local Food, and I thought I would give it a try. (I have used zucchini in place of noodles in lasagna, with 100% success, so I thought this would be awesome!) The recipe and assembly is simple, but I do think there is room for tweaking. I will post the recipe and instructions first (add in my changes) and then what my suggestions are.

Zucchini and Cheese Crust Pizza – Taste Score: 9

Ease of Preparation: 8.5-9

Ingredients:

2-3 medium zucchini

1 large egg (I used 4tbsp of liquid egg white)

1.5c mozzarella or parmesan cheese (I used a roasted garlic cheese, see pic)

Pizza toppings of your preference

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees

If using a pizza stone, put it in the oven while preheating.

Wash the zucchini. Grate the zucchini. Ring out the water from the grated zucchini. (press bw plates, ring with a clean towel…get as much water out as you can) If you are using block cheese, grate the cheese too.

Put the grated cheese and the grated zucchini in a large bowl. Add 1 large egg. Mix well. (I added some garlic powder, salt, cracked pepper an minced dry onion…I like flavor!)

Place parchment paper on the pizza stone and spread the mixture into a circle. About 1/2″ thick. (I used aluminum foil bc I don’t ever have parchment paper on hand. I also lightly sprayed it with a non stick spray. I also pressed the crust out thinner than 1/2″ in hopes of it crisping easier)

Bake for 15-20min.

Take the crust out of the oven, add toppings and bake until toppings are cooked. (the original recipe suggested sautéing vegetables before putting them on the pizza, but I added my mushrooms raw an it was fine) I used Barilla marinara, pepperoni and raw mushrooms. I also added about 1/2c of mozzarella cheese.

Note that the edges are dark. This is where the edges thinned out as it cooked…its just crispy cheese! You can cut it off at the end if you want, but we ate it! Let it cool before you cut it. The cheese hardens and helps to set your crust.

While this pizza looks perfect, it is not. As you move toward the center from the outside edges, it gets a tad mushy…it stays together, but definitely not crispy and set like the outer inches. My first thought was that the pizza stone wasn’t hot enough to brown the bottom, like it would have if I had just used foil or maybe a cookie sheet. So, I took it off the pizza stone and popped it back in the oven to try and brown the bottom. I think it was too late for this. We let it cool and gobbled it up…knife and fork style. Next time I will try the cookie sheet and maybe try individual pizzas, so the “crust” gets browner and possibly more solid. I was also thinking of adding some flour to the crust…this would soak up some of the water from the zucchini. (this is not an option if you are trying to go flour free! Maybe add some corn starch?) If you make this and try one of my suggestions or something new, let me know…I would love to hear how it turned out!

Regardless of the “not crisp” factor….it was full of flavor and seeing my husband eat veggies was a WIN WIN!

Now for dessert 🙂

Papaya Ice Cream: 2 servings

Taste and ease of making score – both 10

1 sliced then frozen papaya (I am sure you could buy this in the frozen fruit section at the market, but here in Hawaii I have access to the fresh…so good!)

Vanilla Almond Milk (whichever one you like!)

Vanilla Protein Powder (optional)

Cube the frozen papaya and put it in the food processor. (you can use a blender, but my expensive Cuisinart blender has trouble blending bananas…user error? hahaha)

Add the almond milk and little at a time. How much you use will depend on how much papaya you start with. You are looking for a thick consistency, while also smoothing out any fruit lumps. (once I had the consistency right, I added a scoop of protein powder, bc I ate this for breakfast!) Also, if you want a smoothie, simply add more almond milk.