My (New) New Favorite Vegan Pizza Recipe

Hi all!

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine wrote me raving about an excellent vegan pizza she’d made with her friends. The secret behind their magic pie was subbing in hummus for the traditional cheese. The idea of hummus pizza in itself didn’t take me too much by surprise, as I had already tried making it once or twice before. However, whenever I did it I just used hummus as the base—that is, as replacing both the tomato sauce and the cheese. My friend, on the other hand, started with a layer of tomato sauce and then piled the hummus on top of that, and then topped the whole thing off with lots of fresh veggies. Long story short: when I reached the end of her message I was practically drooling in my chair, and I knew I would be returning to hummus pizza once again.

And what a lovely return it was. As I’ve remarked here before, I have a bit of a troubled relationship with vegan pizza. You may think that things would be all hunky-dory now that Daiya has invaded Toronto stores, but here’s the thing: I sorta don’t really love Daiya. Granted, as a vegan cheese substitute, it is outstanding, and amazingly better than anything else on the market that I know of. However, I generally like my food to be as close to its natural state as possible, and the idea of piling a pie high with processed synthetic cheese substitute just rubs me the wrong way. For one thing, it sort of feels like cheating, and at any rate, it’s not what I want my food to be about.

This being the case, things end up getting fairly unconventional when I decide to make pizza. For the last year and a half or so, my go-to pizza formula has utilized a cheesy spread made from mashed up white beans that I once described as “my new favorite vegan pizza recipe“. However, now that I’ve tasted today’s Roasted Pesto & Hummus Pizza, I have to say: I think I have a new new favorite.

My strategy was simple, making use of a couple things I had lying around my fridge, which regular readers will probably recognize. I started by making this pizza dough recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which was easy and straightforward yet unquestionably awesome. The crust came out perfectly crisp and the crumb wonderfully soft; the only thing I’d change next time would be to roll it out a little thinner.

Once my dough was ready and shaped, I started piling on my ingredients. I started with a layer of my new favorite thing to eat: Roasted Tomato Basil Pesto from Oh She Glows (as I’ve raved about here). I tried to keep this layer thin, both because I didn’t want things to get too messy, and because I knew that this pesto packs a lotta punch, flavor-wise. And if anything, I probably could’ve gotten away with using a little less than you see here.

Next I piled on the hummus—Roasted Red Pepper Hummus from Oh She Glows, to be exact (which I’ve raved about here). This hummus is fantastic on its own, but it works really even better on pizza I think, as its strong roasted flavor really complements all the other baked ingredients.

Following this, I added the veggies, keeping it fairly simple with just tiny broccoli florets and what I like to call “beet pepperoni”—that is, a beet sliced on a mandoline’s finest setting. If you haven’t tried this as a pizza topping yet, then you must. I will seriously probably be putting beet pepperoni all my pizzas for as long as I live—it’s just that good.

After this all I had to do was bake it! This took a little longer than I anticipated, and when it came out I could hardly wait to take my first bite!

It was outstanding, and without a doubt my (new) new favorite vegan pizza recipe. I love it when friends give me such excellent ideas.

Until we eat again,

Willie

P.S. And yes, I ate the whole thing.

Oh It Wows: Roasted Tomato Pesto (from Oh She Glows)

Hey hey!

There are some recipes that stop you dead in your tracks right from the first bite. When you do a lot of cooking like I do, you cherish these moments, as they remind you of why you spend so much time in the kitchen in the first place. And today, ladies and gents, I have one such knockout recipe to pass on to you all: Roasted Tomato Basil Pesto from Oh She Glows.

It is simply fantastic: fresh, bold, and bursting with flavor with every bite. Part of the reason for this is that now is the perfect time of year for this recipe: tomatoes are filling up the farmers’ markets, and roasting them just brings out more of their incredible natural flavors. Paired with some fresh farmers’ market basil, this pesto is unbeatable.

Perhaps the only thing more astonishing than this pesto’s stellar taste is its ease to create. Simply roast your tomatoes for a little over an hour, and then whip them up in a food processor along with some basil, garlic, toasted almonds, olive oil, and (optional) nutritional yeast. It couldn’t get much simpler, yet it’s hard to imagine anything more delicious.

This pesto could elevate any accompaniment to unforeseen heights, but for my preparation I chose to pair it with some freshly spiralized zucchini pasta, topped with some roasted cherry tomatoes, roasted red pepper slices, and toasted almonds. It was divine. And it’s not just me who felt this way; this pesto also knocked the socks off some recent (and I might add, non-vegan) dinner guests, who loved it so much that they took to liberally piling it onto bread when their zucchini pasta ran out.

Two days after making this pesto for the first time, I am already making it again. It is just that good. So try it for yourself before the tomato season passes by, and happy eating!

Until we eat again,

Willie

Red Quinoa Pesto, Reposted

Hi all!

Today I am going to cheat a little: I’m reposting a recipe I’ve already blogged. So, if you’re a long time reader of this blog—and when I say “long time reader”, I mean people who have been reading UWEA for over two years, a set which to the best of my knowledge includes only my mother—then you may remember once seeing me rave about a dish I (sort of) made up called Red Quinoa Pesto. It blew me away when I first came up with it, and it’s still just as good. Unfortunately, when I originally posted the recipe, I for some reason hid it away at the very bottom of a very long post featuring photos of Rivers Cuomo and Michael Cera playing soccer, among other things. I recently revisited this recipe this past weekend, and since I want to feature in an upcoming post, I figured it finally deserved a post of its own.

So here you go: my recipe for Red Quinoa Pesto. The basic idea is simple: just make some pesto, mix it together with some quinoa, and then garnish (an idea I came up with based on a 101 Cookbooks recipe for Arugula Pesto Wheat Berries). The taste really is amazing, and of course it’s super healthy. White quinoa would work just as well here, too, and you can also use your own pesto recipe if you have one you really like (and in fact, this past weekend I chose to make it with Gena’s killer Pistachio Pesto, which was indeed killer). Have fun with it! That’s how recipes work.

Red Quinoa Pesto (serves 1, with extra pesto for further servings)

Ingredients

• 1/2 to 2/3 cup red quinoa
• 3 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup nutritonal yeast
• 2 pinches salt
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• additional basil leaves, pine nuts and nutritional yeast for garnish

Preparation

1. Cook quinoa according to package instructions, or just cook it in about 3/4 cup simmering water. When done, put in a mixing bowl.
2. Combine basil leaves, pine nuts, nutritional yeast, salt, and lemon juice in a food processor and pulse until ingredients are well mixed.
3. With the food processor still running, drizzle in the olive oil.
4. Take out about a 1/2 cup of the pesto and mix it in with the cooked quinoa.
5. Serve pesto quinoa mixture with an extra dollop of pesto with additional pine nuts and nutritional yeast sprinkled on top and a laurel wreath of the remaining basil surrounding.

Enjoy this one, friends. I’ll be back tomorrow to show you how I incorporated it into a fabulous vegan and gluten-free dinner party. Cheers!

Until we eat again,

Willie