Smokey's Cheesy Low-Carb Homemade Pizza

Pizza is one of our go-to comfort foods, which we have loved for years!

Who doesn’t love a fresh and hearty pizza?  I know we sure do. We would order pizza in college, for family night, or just for any occasion.  However, we recently resorted to only eating pizza on special nights, since there are so many carbs in the crust and sauce.

Well, we have a crust recipe, made without flour, that will make you drool for a slice.

The crust, made mostly of cheese, smells, looks, and tastes like original pizza crust. As this is one of our favorite meals, we will usually make a double batch, which will last us for two night's meals. 

Preparation time is only 10 minutes, while baking time is about another 30 minutes.

Our ingredients include:

• 4 eggs
• 4 Cups + 2 Cups + 1 Cup of Shredded Cheese of choice
• 2 - 8 oz. Packages Cream Cheese
• 2 - 8 oz. Cans of Mushrooms
• 2 - 8 oz. cans of Tomato Sauce
• 1 Medium Onion
• 1/2 Cup Sweetener
• 1/2 Cup + 1/2 Cup of Parmesan Cheese of choice
• ½ tsp. Garlic Powder
• ½ tsp. Italian Seasoning

We'll begin by placing our cream cheese in our mixing bowl and will melt in our microwave for about 1 minute.

This will allow our cream cheese to soften, so that we may stir our ingredients together,  a little easier.

Next, we'll add our eggs, 1/2 cup of Parmesan Cheese, Garlic Powder, Italian Seasonings, 4 cups of our shredded cheese, and will stir until our mixture is fully blended.

We'll then,  spray 2 of our 8 x 13-inch baking pans with cooking spray, before lining them with Parchment Paper.

Although Parchment Paper is supposedly non-stick, we will continue to spray our paper with cooking spray, just to be certain our mixture will not stick.

Next, we'll divide our mixture in half.

We'll place one half of our cheesy "dough" onto the middle of our first baking pan and the other half onto the middle of our second.  

Using a spoon, we'll evenly spread our mixtures around our pan, until fully covered.  

We'll then, place our pans in our oven on separate racks and will bake at 350F for about 10 minutes, or until our "crust" is slightly browned.

Once our crust has browned, we'll remove them from our oven and place them on our stove. 

Now, it’s time to flip our dough onto each pan.  

We'll, merely grab one of the long sides of our parchment paper and will carefully flip our dough over and onto our pan.

We'll then, pour each can of Tomato Sauce onto the middle of each crust.

Using a spoon, we'll spread our sauce over most of the crust, leaving a tiny border.

Since we prefer a sweeter Tomato Sauce, we'll sprinkle ¼ cup of our sweetener over each of our crusts.   

Next, we'll spread about 1 cup of Shredded Cheese over our sauces.  

We'll then, place our toppings over our pizzas.  

We enjoy a basic mushroom and onion cheese pizza. However, you may add any topping that your heart desires. 

Next, we'll cover each pizza with another 1/2 cup of extra cheese and 1/4th cup of extra Parmesan Cheese, to ensure a cheesier pizza.

After placing our toppings on our pizzas, we'll then, place our pans back in our oven and will bake on 375F for an additional 20 minutes or until our top cheese has slightly browned.  

As we say in France ~

Voila!

There we go! 

Our slightly chewy and crispy crust is complementing our savory toppings. 

We are completely amazed at the flavor of our mock pizza!  

We've invited relatives over for our pizza night and they have had no idea, we weren't serving real pizza crust!

Now we can all enjoy a low carb pizza alternative, without skimping on flavor.

From our kitchen to yours ~

Bon Appétit! 

Giraffe's Zesty Low-Carb Pizza Soup

Winter is one of our favorite seasons of the year...well, at least until the first snowfall.  😁 The cold and crisp air, along with the beautiful snow on the horizon, makes for lovely scenery.  

During those cold and freezing nights, there's nothing better than a hot bowl of soup - especially, Giraffe's Zesty Low-Carb Pizza Soup, guaranteed to warm any soul.

Who knew that soup could taste just like pizza?  We were pleasantly surprised.  Not only did our soup warm our bodies, but our pizza cravings were also satisfied.  

Our preparation time was 20-25 minutes and cooking time another 1 hour.

This week's ingredients include:

• 4 Roma Tomatoes
• 2 Packages of Sausage of Choice (we used 1 package of Sweet Italian Sausage and 1 package of Mild Italian Sausage)
• 2 Cans of Beef Broth
• 2 Small Cans of Tomato Sauce
• 2 Small Cans of Mushrooms
• 2 tsp. Oregano or Italian Seasoning
• 2 tsp. Minced Garlic
• 2 Bell Peppers (we used 1 green and 1 orange)
• 1 Chopped Onion
• 1 Cup of Parmesan Cheese
• 1 tsp. Sweetener
• 1/2 Cup of Reduced Sugar Ketchup
• 1/4th Cup of Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

 We'll begin by removing our sausage casings, by slicing the top of each link.

Once the top of each casing has been sliced, the skin may be simply removed.

We'll then, spray our pot with cooking spray and will fry our sausages for about 10 minutes or until they are slightly browned.

As our sausages are cooking, we'll occasionally stir and cut them with our spoon, until bite size pieces are formed.

We'll next, chop our onion using our 1-Second Slicer (bought from Amazon.com) and will add to our cooked sausage.

Our 1-Second Slicer is amazing!  We've been using this slicer/chopper for years. Having this makes chopping soooo much easier.

We'll then add our garlic to our onions and sausage, will stir, and will cook for about 10 minutes or until our onions have become translucent. 

While our mixture is cooking, we'll slice our tomatoes, also with our 1-Second Slicer, and will place aside.

Before slicing our tomatoes, we want to ensure they have been topped and those pieces discarded.

Since our onions have completely cooked, we will add our Beef Broth, chopped tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, Ketchup, mushrooms, Sweetener, Oregano, and Parmesan Cheese, and will stir.  

We'll now, cover and cook for about 35 minutes on medium heat, and will occasionally stir, to ensure our contents do not stick to the bottom of our pan.

Cooking our soup on medium heat will allow our diced tomatoes to somewhat boil down and enhance their flavors.

While our soup is cooking, we'll top, clean, and slice our peppers and will then place them aside.

After our 35 minutes of cooking have passed, we'll lower our stove's temperature just a little, and will again stir our soup.

We'll now, add our peppers to our soup and will cook for another couple of  minutes or until our peppers have slightly softened.

We enjoy our peppers to be slightly softened, yet crisp.  Cooking them longer than a couple of minutes might jeopardize their crisp texture.

Our soup is now ready to be savored!

We'll now, transfer our delicious soup to our soup bowl.

MMmmmmmmm.  Our soup's aroma is alluring. 

However, before tantalizing our taste buds with our warm and flavorful soup, we want to add our final touch  - a dollop or large pinch of shredded Mozzarella Cheese.

Our pizza soup is slightly sweet from our Sweet Italian Sausage and offers a zesty flavor, coupled with the bright colors of our Bell Peppers.

Our zesty low-carb pizza soup completely hits the spot, especially on this cool day in Arizona.

Our moist and juicy sausages, coupled with our fresh tomatoes and slightly melted Mozzarella Cheese, allows our dish to taste exactly like a meaty Italian Pizza!  

Our pizza soup recipe is definitely going to be recycled within our family for years to come.  

Hopefully, you'll enjoy our recipe as much as us.

From our kitchen to yours ~

Bon Appetit!