Posh Pizza

We’ve been doing the pizza thing for the last couple of Fridays ranging from our standard pizza (red sauce, onions, peppers, mushrooms, olives, pineapple and cashew cheese) to white pizza (hummus in place of sauce, onions, mushrooms, smoked tofu and thinly sliced cooked potatoes and nutritional yeast/almond parmesan cheese) to Mexican Pizza with black beans, salsa, sweet corn and cashew cheese to this creation last night which was like the kind you’d get at a posh restaurant. It is a white bean and olive hummus, topped with caramelised onion, mushroom and toasted walnuts. Then topped with fresh, ripe tomatoes marinated in agave syrup (or honey if you’re a beegan), fennel seeds, mild chilli powder and red pepper flakes. Then dotted with cashew cheese made with nutritional yeast and then garnished with rocket (arugula for my American peeps)

click on me to see me in my full delicious glory

To make Posh Pizza you need to make the “hummus” ahead of time.

To make the olive hummus:

Mix in a food processor the following and blend until thick and creamy.

1 ½ cups white beans (like haricot or navy)

1 small garlic clove

2 spring onions, chopped

1 TB olive oil

1TB tahini

Juice of 1 lemon--about 3-4 TB

1/3 cup olives

¼-½ tsp seasoned salt like Herbamare

Refrigerate until ready to make the pizza.

Use whatever crust you like. I make my own GF one that is quite hardy and whole grain. It is really good and wholemeal-y but not as doughy as a white bread crust would be. Do what you like. Use a store bought crust to make it go quicker. Whatever. But follow the directions for baking it on the label. Because I make my crust from scratch it has to bake 15-17 minutes on its own before you add the toppings.

 Part 1:

1. Before you start putting the crust together, start to slow cook a thinly sliced white onion for about 20-25 minutes and for the last few minutes add some thinly sliced mushrooms to the pan to wilt them. Also throw in about 1/3 cup broken walnuts to toast in the last few minutes. Set aside.

2. Chop 3 ripe tomatoes and stir over 1 ½ TB agave (or use what I used which is called Sweet Freedom and is low GI and is a syrup made from grapes, apples and carob. Who knew?)

Add 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp mild chilli powder, ½ tsp red pepper flakes. Let marinate while the crust is cooking.

3. If you are baking from scratch , bake crust 17 minutes then add the toppings. If you are using a pre-made crust, then just add the toppings.

 Part 2:

1. Spread olive hummus where the red sauce would be

2. Add your previously caramelised white onion, walnuts and mushroom

3. Add the tomato mixture making sure to pour over any sauce in the bottom of the bowl

4. Dot with cashew cheese

Then bake for about 10 minutes. When it comes out of the hot oven sprinkle on some torn rocket leaves.

That’s it. Easy peasy and a new take on pizza.