I love experimenting in the kitchen.  This weeks experiment=using quinoa to make a pizza crust.

Quinoa is a gluten free and FODMAP friendly grain, but more than that…it is great source of protein & fiber AND tastes yummy too!

This is tricolor quinoa.

I found this recipe to make a quinoa crust with relatively few ingredients and thought I would give it a whirl.  It required soaking the quinoa all day, but I just soaked it for about 4 hours and that seemed to work quite nicely.

Quinoa should be soaked, drained and rinsed to remove the bitter tasting saponins on the outside of the grain.

To create a pizza crust, the recipe called for blending the quinoa in a blender or food processor.

This recipe also requires a cast iron skillet.   After I blended up the quinoa with water, oil and spices, I pour it into the well-oiled skillet.

The recipe I found blends all the quinoa in the blender to a pancake batter consistency but I saved some of the quinoa to blend in to the batter to add a bit of texture.

I sauteed a few yellow, red and orange bell pepper strips and some zucchini too, in a bit of  garlic infused olive oil with a dash of salt and pepper.  Then, tossed the veggies on top of the pizza crust.

Then I added a handful of pine nuts, about 1/3 cup of part-skim mozzarella cheese and a bit of freshly grated asiago and parmesan cheese.

And voila…{drum roll please}….

So here is the link for the recipe I found for the quinoa crust.  AS usual, I modified the recipe by not blending all the quinoa and adding about 1/4 cup back into crust mixture to add a bit of texture and I deleted the garlic powder too and used garlic infused oil.  For the topping, I used:

• 1/4 of a red pepper, seeded and cut in strips
• 1/4 of a yellow pepper, seeded and cut in strips
• 1/4 of a orange pepper, seeded and cut in strips
• 1/2 medium zucchini, cut in strips
• 1 TB garlic infused olive oil
• Cook veggies with oil over medium heat in medium size skillet.
• Add a dash of salt and pepper.
• Top the veggies on the pizza crust once you flip it–per direction in link.
• Add 1/3 cup part skim grated mozzarella cheese and 1-2 TB parmesan and asiago, grated cheese
• Add 1 TB pine nuts and scatter across top of pizza.
• Place pizza back in oven for about another 15 minutes to melt cheese and firm up crust.

Hope you enjoy…