Low Carb Guest Post: Cauli-Tortillas

I was so thrilled when I saw that one of my good friends, Sarah Dover, had been experimenting with low-carb recipes, and posting to her social media pages! In my efforts to continue to be low-carb in 2016, I will take all the inspiration I can get.

Sarah recently posted about her adventures in making Cauliflower Tortillas, and I was practically drooling over the pictures! She was kind enough to share the recipe with DBS Obsessed readers! Here it is... ENJOY!

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Low Carb CauliTortillas by Sarah Dover

​Holy cau-liflower, Batman! Cauliflower is definitely the in veggie right now. It’s often an overlooked option but packed with plenty of nutrients and minerals, low in calories, and provides detox and anti-inflammatory benefits, along with many others! With such an emphasis on low carb and low/no sugar shifts in eating habits, (I won’t use the D-word because it really is a lifestyle change, not a fad or quick fix) cauliflower is re-emerging quickly as a superstar in the culinary arena. 
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Recently, I saw a recipe for cauliflower tortillas. While I usually scroll and pin, pin and scroll on my favorite time-waster, Pinterest, this one caught my attention as I had just been talking with a friend about missing bread and tortillas. Now I don’t miss them because of the taste or I can’t live without carbs in my everyday meals – in fact, I normally don’t go after bread at restaurants, order sandwiches, or reach for a loaf on Sunday mornings for toast. What I missed was the versatility of them – to make sandwiches, wraps, quesadillas, tacos, etc. So I clicked on the recipe and scanned through. Pretty interesting? Yes.  Somewhat easy? Potentially. And the best part? I had all the ingredients: cauliflower, eggs, salt and pepper. So off I went.

​First of all, I recommend having a food processor big enough to support at least ½ a head of cauliflower. If you have a small 1-2 cup machine, it takes forever and the hard work doesn’t quite seem worth it! So, I cleaned and trimmed a head of cauli. Next, I halved it and began cutting florets off – you don’t want the pieces too big otherwise they get stuck on top of what’s been chopped. Some recipes have you remove the stalk, though I included it to have more “rice.” Once the half was chopped into smaller pieces, I tossed it into my 10 cup capacity B+D food processor and pulsed away! 

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Once chopped to a fine cauli “rice,” I emptied the contents into a big microwave safe bowl and started on the other half. Once the whole cauliflower was “riced” and transferred to the bowl, I popped the bowl into the microwave for 2 minutes. After the first 2 minutes, I removed the bowl from the microwave – BE CAREFUL because it’s pretty hot at this point! – and fluffed the cauliflower with a big rubber spoon. Now I’m not sure what fluffing cauliflower looks like, but what I did was gently mix the contents, moving the bottom to the top and top to the side and side to the middle, so on and so forth. Basically, just getting in unpacked and rearranged (that may have been an easier way to say it!). Then, I stuck the bowl back into the microwave for another 2 minutes. Now at the end of this, the cauliflower is really hot! I mean we’re talking free facial here from the steam, as long as you don’t mind the cauli scent you’re left with! I poured the steamed cauli-rice onto a dish cloth I had laid out. I tried to use one that’s rather thin to allow the water to drip out easily. After wrapping the “rice” in the towel, I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. And then I squeezed a little more. And then squeezed one more time for good measure. The point is to get as much water out of the cauli-rice as possible! 

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I have usually gotten well over a cup of water for an entire head of cauliflower.  Once the water is as squeezed out as much as possible, return the cauli-rice back to the bowl. Since I used an entire head of cauliflower, I upped the egg count to 3 instead of 2 to help with binding. Crack your eggs and add the salt and pepper to the bowl. Mix it all together until well combined. The recipe I was following said “S+P to taste.” Again, not sure how I was supposed to know how to taste it, as the cauliflower was now mixed with raw egg. So I measured out ½ tablespoon of garlic salt (regular salt works just as well, just less garlic flavor which is no Bueno for me!) and ¼ tablespoon of pepper. I’m not a pepper person so that’s why I added less, though if you love it, knock yourself out! 

I tried two methods for the cookie sheets – parchment paper and a silpat mat. Once both sheets were lined, I lightly sprayed Pam on both just in case and believe me, I’m glad I did! Once all the ingredients were mixed together, you’re ready to start “sheeting” your tortillas! BE READY FOR THI: The mixture will be a little runny. I know, I know… I thought to myself, “I squeezed my you-know-what off to get all that water out!” But this is just because of the egg and the salt. It’s all good! 
The original recipe said this amount would make about 6 tortillas – I decide to make mine a bit smaller so that I could get more out of all my hard work! I grabbed a medium-sized chunk and balled it in my hand to give me some sort of similarity in size. I wanted my tortillas to be about the size of my palm, think corn-tortilla sized. Ok, maybe a little bigger than my palm. But about that size once the ball of cauliflower was pressed down into a circle. And you don’t want to make them too thin or they will rip when you’re trying to flip them – I lost a few the first time! Think about ¼ of an inch thick. They did shrink a little after baking so that is something to take into account as well.

Once my “tortillas” were laid out on the parchment or silpat covered cookie sheets, I popped them in an oven that had been pre-heated to 375 degrees. Leave it for 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes had passed, I took them out and sprayed another light mist of Pam over the tortillas before very carefully flipping them over. When all those babies were flipped over, I put them back in the oven for 7 minutes more. At the buzzer, I removed the tortillas and placed them on a cooling rack to to cool just a bit.

The final part is to “toast” them in a pan – which I HIGHLY recommend as it gives it another dimension of flavor, think toasty like toasted almonds. You can either do this part once they’ve cooled a little or you can do it right before you eat them. Either way, they’re delicious! All I did to toast them was place them in a single layer in a pan and let them sizzle, pressing down lightly with a spatula. After 2-3 minutes, flip them to toast the other side and voila, you are done!  I was amazed at how they tasted, how they kept (I ziplocked them and kept stored in the fridge for over a week), and the various ways I could use them! I dared a grilled cheese “sandwich,” a ham and Swiss Panini, and even open-faced mini-tacos!

​4 cauli-tortillas per serving, depending on what I was making. I’ve even taken them to go, making a few mini “tacos” of deli meat and cheese and sandwiches! The uses are unstoppable! And sometimes I have to pinch myself because no I’m not dreaming, these babies are LOW CARB but not low deliciousness  At the size I wrote about, they’re not big enough for a traditional wrap but I guess that’s just another cauli-adventure to attempt. Enjoy!

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Cauliflower Tortilla Recipe:

Ingredients:
•    1 medium cauliflower head, riced about 2 cups packed
•    3 eggs
•    ½ T salt
•    ¼ T pepper - or S+P to taste
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Instructions:
1.    Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silpat mat.
2.    Put ½ head of raw cauliflower, cut up, and pulse until you get a texture slightly finer than rice. (Once it’s riced, measure it to make sure you have 2 cups packed.)
3.    Place in bowl and microwave for 2 minutes and stir, then another two minutes and stir again.
4.    Next place in a thin dish towel and squeeze excess water out as hard as you can. (Get out as much water as you can and be careful not to burn yourself because it’s going to be very hot.) 
5.    Place drained cauliflower back in bowl and add three eggs, salt and pepper and mix until well combined.
a.    Note: It will be a little bit runny but shouldn't be pure liquid either. Spread mixture onto a baking sheet into small fairly flat circles about ¼ inch thick.
6.    Place in the oven for 10 minutes then carefully peel them off the parchment and flip them and place back in the oven for 5-7 more minutes. 
7.    Once they’re done place them on a wire rack to cool slightly.
8.    Heat a medium sized pan over medium heat and place the tortillas into the pan pressing down slightly and brown them to your liking.
a.    Don’t skip this step because it gives them a wonderfully nutty taste!
9.    Makes roughly 20 small tortillas.

Recipe adapted from www.ondietandhealth.com