3/16 Pizza Night
Before the vegan challenge I had pizza nearly once a week. We had it delivered from our local joint. It was amazing…dripping with garlic butter crust and topped with veggies and olives. I also ordered a greek salad and cheezy bread sticks that I would dip in ranch dressing. It was one of my favorite rights of passage to celebrate the week, to relish in food delivered to our door and to indulge in dairy and oily decadence. I couldn’t have imagined being without this pizza ritual. These seemed like perfect flavors, the epitomy of pizza making, until now.
What I am discovering is that my palate is learning to enjoy foods without the oils, without the sodium and tasting some foods for what seems like the very first time. To honor our beloved pizza night, Sandy grabbed an E2 recipe for
“Green Pizza”, with a few alterations and served an amazing pie to rival an old friend, unseating it as a pastime with a world of new tastes. Use this as a starting point for your pizza and add your own veggie toppings as you choose.
Green Pizza (Engine 2 Diet)
Ingredients
1 jar pasta sauce (low sodium, no oil) (I used a total of a 1 cup)
2 Kabuli crusts (I used 2 individual size frozen brown rice crusts from Nature’s Hilights)
8 oz frozen spinach, thawed, rinsed and drained (I replaced this 2 cups of chopped kale, lightly wilted in balsamic vinegar and garlic)
1/2 C fresh whole basil leaves
2 green bell peppers, seeded and diced
2 C broccoli florets (I lightly simmered these first in water so they would not be crunchy)
1/2 C sliced mushrooms (I sauted these first in balsamic vinegar in garlic)
1 onion diced (I omitted this)
2 cloves garlic minced
6 sliced olives per pizza (I added this)
1/4 C finely ground raw cashews or 1-2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (I used a bit of both)
Make it happen:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Generously spread teh sauce on the crusts, and layer with the remaining ingredients except for the cashews/nutritional yeast. After all the veggies are added, sprinkle cashews/nutritional yeast on top. Bake on a sprayed cooking sheet or pizza stone for 15 minutes. The crusts I used provided slightly different cooking instructions, thawing and then pre-cooking the crusts for a few minutes first. Then, once topped, cooking directly on the oven rack.
Tags: compassionate eating, dairy free, E2 Diet, Engine 2 Diet, going veg, plant based diet, trying vegan, trying vegetarian, vegan, vegan challenge, vegan entree, vegan experience, vegan pizza, vegan recipe Nature's Hilights, vegan transition, vegan wannabe
