Saturday Night's alright for ....pizza !

Another Saturday night and...time to think something easy and kind of fun for dinner. A lot of times in this house , Saturday Dinner thoughts turn to pizza. With a low carb approach pizza means getting creative , and that is exactly what I did. A few weeks ago I tried a flax crust pizza, and the results were good. Tasty and the proper consistency,but something in me always asks if things could be done better, so I determined to try another alternative. This week was an almond meal crust.

Almond Meal Pizza Crust

2 cups almond flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 c olive oil
1 c egg beaters
1/3 c water
1/3 c Splenda

Mix well and pour onto a large baking sheet with sides. Bake 20 minutes at 350, remove, add toppings and bake 15 minutes.

I topped ours with homemade pizza sauce( tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, dried onion, garlic , salt ) , cooked Italian sausage and mozzarella. The results were very tasty- almost like a famous chain's Chicago style deep dish pizza crust( their secret is using a lot of oil so the crust has a biscuit like consistency), but more important is what it inspired. My husband commented that if i had cooked it a little bit longer it could have been the perfect consistency to be a terrific short bread cookie. This got me to thinking that if I swapped the oil for butter and increased the splenda to a cup , this could make a great low carb cookie ! Bake it on the cookie sheet and cut into diamonds immediately upon removing from the oven. Then you could frost them with a low carb frosting ( softened cream cheese with heavy cream and splenda) and top each with a pecan half. Not an every day thing but something that would be really nice for the holiday- and most people would definitely eat this !

We went out to look at a new light display, but it seems that they are waiting a week to really fire things up. Son was a little dissapointed, and so was I. Our plan was to walk the display , and the weather was perfect for such a thing. We came back home and decided to watch Handsel and Gretel on Encore On Demand. What a great little jewel ! It is a live rendering of the classic tale with new twists. Cast included Howie Mandel, Delta Burke, Gerald McRainy and Glen Close. Its one where you can safely watch with your kids and not worry about moments that might inspire discussions you don't really wish to have. Then we watched Four Christmases, and both hubby and I thought it was a pretty badly written movie that just failed to be funny or endearing. However, while we were all watching Handsel and Gretel we studdend oranges with cloves to add to the decorations and scents of the house. It was a definite good time !