Week 22: VegeQ

If summer had one defining scent, it’d definitely be the smell of barbeque.

Katie Lee

As a lifelong vegetarian and longtime vegan, barbeque has not been a part of my life. In researching creative pizza ideas for this blog, I kept seeing recipes that involved BBQ sauce, so I decided to try it. I found a vegan BBQ sauce that doesn’t have sugar (woo hoo!) and adapted this week’s recipe from several I found on the web.

My partner is an omnivore, but not a fan of BBQ. He wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about trying this pizza. To sweeten the idea, I loaded it up with some of his favorite toppings- peppers, tomatoes, onions, and vegan mozzarella.

The sauce we used has a very delicate flavor, which was a good entry for us into the world of BBQ. I’m mostly familiar with the flavor of barbeque from eating potato chips. Incidentally, BBQ potato chips are Gwyneth Paltrow’s favorite splurge food. Go figure!

Ingredients

• 1/2 medium onion, sliced
• 1/2 cup fresh or canned pineapple chunks
• 2/3 can of garbanzo beans
• handful cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• 3 small sweet peppers or 1 medium bell pepper
• vegan BBQ sauce
• 1 cup vegan mozzarella
• pizza dough of your choice
• Avocado oil
• salt, red pepper flakes, cinnamon (optional)

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Instructions

1. Turn your oven on to 450° and let it heat up for at least 35 minutes.
2. Strain the garbanzo beans and rinse them under cold running water for at least 1 minute. Put the beans into a bowl and toss them with BBQ sauce to cover.
3. Slice your pineapples and let the slices drain on a paper towel. For flavor, I recommend you can add a dash of cinnamon to the pineapple pieces.
4. Heat your frying pan over medium heat. Add a glug of avocado oil. Fry the onions for 2-3 minutes, then add the sliced peppers and pineapple, stirring occasionally. Let fry for another 5 minutes.
5. Slice the cherry tomatoes and sprinkle with sea salt. Set aside.

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Assembly

1. Roll out your dough to desired thickness.
2. Spread a thin amount of BBQ sauce over the center of the pizza, leaving the edge bare.
   ~~ At this point, you could bake the pizza for about 3 minutes before adding toppings. This will ensure that the center of the crust is cooked through.
3. Sprinkle with mozzarella.
4. Top with the marinated garbanzo beans.
5. Add the onion/pepper/pineapple mix over the top.
6. Bake for 13-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your dough. If you pre-bake it for 3 minutes, reduce the overall baking time, using 14 minutes as your average baking time guide.

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We enjoyed this pizza. It reminded us of our Hawaiian themed pizza during week 4. This pizza has the addition of marinated garbanzo beans. Adding beans to pizza is a great way to up the protein intake and make it feel like a more filling meal.

I still want to make one more pineapple pizza, this time with toasted macadamia nuts. It just sounds so good! After 2 years, I finally used the special pineapple peeler that I just had to have when we moved into this apartment. It was fun!

Now that I know how easy it is to use, I may be hollowing out some pineapples to make pina coladas or this recipe for healthy and delicious pineapple fried rice, inspired by a dish we ate in Thailand.

If there’s a pizza you’d like us to try, let us know. 52veganrecipes @ gmail.com.