Cali'flour Kitchen: 125 Cauliflower-Based Recipes for the Carbs You Crave

Editor: Holly Dolce

Designer: Deb Wood

Production Manager: Denise LaCongo

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018945585

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3596-7

eISBN: 978-1-68335-583-0

Text copyright © 2019 Amy Lacey

Photographs © 2019 Andrew Purcell: this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page

© 2019 Clare Barboza: this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page, this page

Cover © 2019 Abrams

Front cover photograph © 2019 Andrew Purcell

Back cover photographs © 2019 Andrew Purcell:

top left, top right, bottom left, bottom center

© 2019 Clare Barboza: top center, bottom right

Photograph of Amy Lacey on this page

by Chelsea Sanders with Blueline

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This book is dedicated to my family, whose unconditional love carried me through sleepless nights and all the stumbling blocks of a first-time author. It is a testament to your faith in me and would not have been possible without your endless support and patience.

To my husband, Jim, my rock of twenty-four years—thank you for choosing me every day. Life has thrown a lot our way, but I can always count on your steady hand for comfort, whether you are at my bedside when I’m sick or right beside me in the kitchen testing new recipes. You have selflessly and flawlessly performed the roles of father, husband, and business partner, often without the recognition you deserve. This is but a small tribute to your contributions in helping Cali’flour Foods successfully create a new food category, keeping our home full of love and laughter, and being my biggest cheerleader.

And to my amazing kids, James, Caroline, and Grant: You are my greatest blessings in life. I know the craziness of the past few years has been hard sometimes, but I am forever grateful for your encouraging letters and late-night texts when I’m away from home. You give me the strength to keep going on my hardest days. I hope what you hold in your hands inspires you to always dream without limitations.

introduction

basics

sauces, spreads, and cheeses

breakfast and brunch

sandwiches and toasts

soups and salads

cauliflower rice

skillets, casseroles, and sheet pans

small bites and party food

veggie pizzas

meaty pizzas

seafood pizzas

sweet treats

dietary notes

acknowledgments

recipe index (recipes grouped by health philosophy)

index of searchable terms

Cali’flour Foods founder Amy Lacey

introduction

As children, we all learned the popular saying An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Well, after fifteen years of motherhood and raising three picky eaters, I, Amy Lacey, am here to challenge that age-old maxim with a modern twist: A cauliflower a day keeps most sickness at bay.

Like many great romances, my love affair with this cruciferous veggie has been both tumultuous and profoundly life-changing. It all started on an unassuming Friday night in 2012. Fridays in the Lacey household followed a treasured family tradition: indulging in pizza and battling it out on board games (we’re a competitive bunch!).

After many lively Friday nights without a hiccup, you can imagine my surprise waking up one Saturday morning to sausage-size fingers reminiscent of my pregnancy days. But this time my inflated hands did not bear good news. All my joints were hurting, and I felt awful. I couldn’t even muster the energy to get out of bed (and not just because my energetic kids had kicked my butt at Settlers of Catan the previous evening).

Not long after, I developed a strange rash on my chest that doctors assumed was poison oak. I honestly thought nothing of it, until a routine surgery landed me in the hospital with a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. Many lab tests later, I was hit with a perfect storm of diagnoses: mixed connective tissue disorder, Sjogren’s syndrome, and lupus. Stomaching the news was hard; I felt like I had been punched in the gut. To add insult to injury, our pizza nights were put on hold indefinitely until my doctors could stop my body from attacking itself.

Without warning, I had gone from Amy Lacey to a nameless statistic, one of fifty million people who suffer from an autoimmune disease in the United States. It’s hard not to let your diagnosis take your identity, but it breaks you down in ways you don’t expect.

I was faced with a hard choice: Either suffer the symptoms of this disease and let nature take its ugly course, or take a medication that might cause me to go blind or harm my kidneys. Neither option gave me the life I wanted or allowed me to be the mother and wife my family needed. I am stubborn to a fault and refused to accept my grim prognosis. There had to be a better way—I would make a better way.

With the help of my loving husband, Jim, who also happens to be a brilliant physician, I poured my time into extensive research and discovered that my diet was a huge contributing factor to my illness. Rather than slapping a temporary Band-Aid on my condition with my prescribed pills, I started tracking the foods I ate to see which ones triggered my symptoms. I found that gluten was the biggest culprit, with sugar ranking a close second. Like a bad boyfriend, eliminating these from my diet was a tough breakup. But my health and entire future were at stake, so I put on my big-girl pants (quite literally, because my body was swollen) and said goodbye to my first loves: gluten and sugar.

Almost like magic, my inflammation decreased virtually overnight. As I began to add more vegetables to my diet, I felt even better. Still, I missed family traditions with my husband and kids. I oh-so-badly craved a cheesy bite of pizza. And most of all, I missed feeling good and enjoying life on my own terms with the people I love.

Like many of you, I felt overwhelmed trying to balance everything. How would I find the time to cook healthier meals, battle my autoimmune disease, be fully present in my work, spend quality time with my family, and keep up with my household responsibilities? So naturally, I did as any insanely busy person would do—I hopped down the Pinterest rabbit hole to scroll my worries and fears away!

In all seriousness, I had come across several DIY cauliflower crust recipes on Pinterest that I was interested in trying out. Thus began the chronicle of cauliflower crust experiments that took over the Lacey home kitchen. We had family, friends, and a fellow health coach all helping at these early stages. After much trial and error (and a few accidents that left me covered in cauliflower from head to toe, laughing hysterically with my kids), we finally came up with a crust that (1) held together perfectly, (2) was nutrient-packed with a full serving of fresh cauliflower, and (3) surprisingly didn’t taste like cauliflower! As a bonus, it could be repurposed as sandwich bread or the noodles in lasagna, among many other tasty things.

More impressive, the crust left me free of inflammation and passed the taste test of my three picky eaters, and our friends and extended family loved it too! Pizza night was officially back on in our house! It was a huge victory, but the battle was yet to be won.

Now that we had found the perfect, convenient solution to the DIY cauliflower crust disasters that plagued so many people’s lives, I knew this yummy little secret was too good not to share with the world. With the savings from my previous business, a small loan from the bank, and a whole lot of passion and perseverance, Cali’flour Foods was launched.

My original desire with Cali’flour Foods was simply to reinvent one of my favorite foods by omitting the gluten that was causing me so much pain and inflammation. I had hoped to help a few others like me in the process, but I never expected to start an entire movement! In fact, I’ll let you in on a secret: I wasn’t even a fan of cauliflower until I bought some to make my first cauliflower pizza. But once a little experimenting revealed the vegetable’s incredible versatility, I was hooked.

These days, of course, cauliflower reigns supreme in my house. Cauliflower pizza is a weekly staple, as are other cauliflower-based dishes, including pancakes, waffles, white sauce, and more. You know how you can’t fully appreciate something until you’ve experienced the good and the ugly? My love for cauliflower deepened while hand-processing hundreds of pounds for production, leaving me smelling like cauliflower for days afterward. I was once even put out of commission for a week after slipping on a piece of cauliflower, skating across the entire room, and falling flat on my butt!

But my persistence in perfecting the crusts paid off. I made Cali’flour Foods a family affair, involving my husband and three kids as well as any relative or friend we could coerce into helping us. Even now, the close team we’ve built through the company feels just like family.

From its humble beginnings at the farmers’ market in my hometown of Chico, California, Cali’flour Foods has now expanded to grocery stores across the nation and nabbed the number-one best-selling spot on Amazon for all pizza crusts. Cali’flour Foods was the first cauliflower pizza on the market, and the company has grown exponentially every year. We have become a pioneer in offering delicious low-calorie, low-carb, grain-free alternatives to traditional pizza. Our recipes allow people to enjoy splurge foods such as lasagna, sandwiches, and chips without compromising their health. Our crusts have generated buzz in Hollywood and beyond, and they appeal to people across the dietary spectrum with all types of health considerations, from celiac disease to diabetes, Weight Watchers to dairy-free, plus vegan, paleo, keto, and the general plant-conscious. It makes believers of the most veggie-fearing folks among us.

People are drawn to our crusts because they are simple, delicious, and so healthy that they elevate pizza to a superfood. Most gluten-free pizza crusts are filled with unwholesome ingredients and leave you less than satisfied, but Cali’flour’s crusts are free of binders and unnatural substitute ingredients. They are low in carbs, high in protein, and contain only a few simple ingredients, with cauliflower always number one on the list.

Almost every day we hear from customers telling us how