Week 28: A Midsummer Night’s Pizza

If music be the food of love, play on.

William Shakespeare

Here in Northern California we have been blessed with a mostly mild summer, with daytime highs between 80-90° and cooler evening temperatures. Baking a pizza necessitates cranking up the oven to a hot 450° for 45 minutes before baking. If it’s sizzling wherever you are in the world, you may want to make this pizza for dinner or fry the dough in a frying pan on the stove. That’s a yummy, quick way to cook your dough and it works well for this recipe, just omit the mozzarella.

I have been experimenting with different flours and today used a blend of whole wheat and all-purpose flours and a tablespoon of honey instead of a teaspoon of sugar to activate the yeast. I otherwise use this recipe as my “go to” and it’s come out tasty every time.

Pesto Ingredients

• vegan plain cream cheese (I used 1/2 of a Violife container.)
• 2 handfuls spinach leaves (I bought pre-washed organic spinach in a bag.)
• 1/2 ripe avocado
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• pinch salt (I used Maldon smoked flake sea salt.)
• dash pepper
• 5 cloves garlic, smashed or diced
• water to thin
• squeeze lemon juice (optional)
• dash nutritional yeast (optional)

Pesto Instructions

1. Place cream cheese and avocado in the base of your blender.
2. Add salt, pepper, and garlic cloves.
3. If using, add nutritional yeast and lemon juice.
4. Add a dash of water, just enough so that the mixture moves around in your blender. The amount needed will depend on your blender. Don’t add too much! Just enough to blend.
5. Add the onion and spinach and blend until thoroughly mixed, about 1 minute.

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Ingredients

• pizza dough of your choice
• handful vegan shredded mozzarella
• 1/2 cup frozen or canned corn (If frozen, use hot water to unfreeze and bring to room temp.)
• 1 medium zucchini (I use a peeler and peel them lengthwise, leaving the skin on.)
• 1/2 ripe avocado (use the other half in the pesto recipe above)
• 1-2 vine ripe tomatoes, sliced thin
• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• red pepper flakes (optional)

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Instructions

1. Heat your oven to a balmy 450° for 45 minutes before baking.
2. Prepare all your veggies so that when you start cooking, you are ready to go.
3. Heat your frying pan over medium-high heat while you hand shape or roll out your dough. Brush dough with olive oil and sprinkle with a dash of salt. Bake for 5 minutes without any toppings.
4. While your crust is baking, add a glug of olive oil to your frying pan. Add onions. Stir to coat and stir frequently for 2-3 minutes until onions become translucent.
5. Add garlic, stir.
6. Add zucchini, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir for 2 minutes then turn off the heat and add corn.
7. Carefully remove the crust from the oven and quickly shut the oven door.
8. Sprinkle cheese over crust. Layer with tomato slices. Spoon the pesto over the pizza. Top with the zucchini, onion, garlic, and corn mixture.
9. Bake for an additional 7-10 minutes, for a total baking time of 12-15 depending on the true temperature of your oven and the type and thickness of your crust. Our half whole wheat/ half all-purpose flour crust was done in 14 minutes.
10. Allow to cool 5 minutes. Top with slices of avocado. Serve and enjoy!

I loved the toppings on this pizza. I have to say the whole wheat crust was not my favorite. I’d rather have just white flour, but whole wheat is the healthier choice. As toppings go, this is my among my top three favorites. Zucchini, tomatoes, sweet corn, mozzarella and avocados go great together and make for a filling meal.

If you make this or any other vegan pizza, we’d love to know @52veganpizzas. Until next week, happy eating.