Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Cauliflower Pizza - the dinner of champions

Last nightt's meal actually ended up being what's for dinner tonight. Due to a broken radiator hose that took a couple of days to be repaired...like my life of late, a series of follies delayed the repair, in addition to children who would rather be with their friends on a Friday night than their parents, last night's dinner is being served tonight. One of the reasons is a result of this meal being requested by my daughter for several past grocery trips. Unfortunately, between the poor choice of product combined with the insanely high costs, this meal has been unattainable for most of the summer. However, finally this past week, a BIG sale on cauliflower and they were actually good heads allowed my daughter's dreams to come true...at least her pizza dream.

You have probably looked at the title and are thinking cauliflower pizza, are you (freakin') kidding me? Gross. These were my thoughts...at first. I actually skipped by this recipe a while back, thinking nothing in the world could make me consider such a thing. Enter the beginning of it all: the middle of May 2012. A week prior my son had been sick, and low and behold, the following Monday it seemed that I had caught whatever he had. However, this had become an all too familiar cycle for me since the end of Oct 2011. It started with a kidney infection and from then on, I'd be well for 2-3 weeks and then sick for 1-2. Everyone suggested it was because of how stressed/busy I was (I have some other thoughts on it, now...but I'll save those for another time). Anyways, in May, I followed the same pattern of being sick and then close to the second week, I started improving until I didn't, I got worse a lot worse. I finally made an appointment to see my doctor... again. Between the insane increase in migraines and the regular infections I had had the past several months prior, I think I had the appointment line on speed dial. My initial diagnosis was pneumonia; against the doctor's wishes, I went home. Habibi, as I affectionately call him, was headed to the field the following day and there was no way a hospital stay was in my future. However, by the time said Habibi was supposed to go, I had gotten worse, severely worse. So off tot the hospital, he whisked me. After revisiting the x-rays, they felt that I didn't have pneumonia but a fairly bad case of bronchitis, and sent me home with additional meds, but told me to still take the ones for the pneumonia, just in case and I would be much better in 3-5 days and I should follow up with my doctor after I'd finished my 10 days or so of meds.  Well, I didn't get better really. I had no energy, seriously, I had to stop and rest half way up a flight of stairs. Back to the doctor, I went. And this carried on several times over the course of several months. Finally, in September I was sent to a specialist, who to his credit took over my care and scheduled several tests, starting with the most basic possibilities and as those results came back negative, he'd schedule more. In the meantime, he was certain the answer was related somehow to my esophagus. I have a hiatyl hernia, which I was diagnosed with when I was about 23 years old which turned out was the reason for my hellish pregnancies and the reason we only have 2 children...another story for another day. So after convincing me to try things his way and begin retaking my reflux  meds (I had been treating myself with a honey/apple cider vinegar tonic as needed) w/no improvement he sent me on to the GI doc who in turn scheduled me for an upper GI, he too was convinced this must have something to do with the reflux. When that test came bad negative and actually a huge improvement and a dwindling of the hernia (hello!!! apple cider vinegar tonic), he sent me back to the specialist. However, these tests came back 1 week before Christmas, and the doc was on leave. I couldn't be seen again until after the holidays. My sluggish, coughing self was so discouraged. Christmas came.