Roasted vegetable cauliflower pizza

healthy pizza

I love this dish as it is a pure celebration of vegetables rather than attempting to mimic meat, which I feel many veggie options try to do. Let the vegetables do the talking!

The creamy cashew cheese and basil pesto teamed with roasted vegetables invoke authentic pizza vibes but with none of the guilt.

The cauliflower base is a revelation, as you could easily believe it is a bread dough.

Feel free to mix up your veggie choices, add a tomato base in place of pesto- play with the flavours.

I served the pizza with a dressed rocket salad and a chunky guacamole.

Nourishing, gluten free and delicious, enjoy!

Shopping list:

1 head of cauliflower

almond milk

linseeds

nutritional yeast

corn meal

½ aubergine

½ sweet potato

dried oregano

cherry tomatoes

½ courgette

6 medium chestnut mushrooms

large handful of basil

small bag of pine nuts, toasted

garlic

olive oil

lemon

1 cup cashews, soaked in water for as long as you have time or manage to remember in advance!

First, prepare your veggies. Chop the sweet potato and aubergine into 1 inch cubes and put into a large roasting tray and toss with olive oil, salt and dried oregano. Put into the oven at around 200 Celsius to roast until soft.

Next move onto the cashew cheese and pesto so you’re all ready to go later once your ‘dough’ is done. To make the cashew cheese, drain the nuts and blitz in a food processor until smooth with 1 garlic clove, ½ lemon juice and a heaped tblsp of nutritional yeast.

For the pesto, first add your basil, pine nuts, lemon and garlic to your processor once you’ve removed the cashew ‘cheese’ and blitz. No need to clean it out first, it won’t matter if these flavours mix a little. Pour in olive oil while blitzing until you have a nice creamy pesto. Set aside for later.

Next free your cauliflower from the leaves and chop into small florets. Put this into a food processor and pulse until you achieve a fine crumb. You may need to do this in batches as I did, my processor couldn’t handle the whole head!

If you have a microwave, nuke the cauliflower crumb for roughly 4 minutes or steam for about 10 minutes until softened.

While this is happening, mix a cup of linseeds with enough almond milk to cover, this concoction acts a binder for the cauliflower ‘dough’.

Pan fry sliced mushrooms and courgette with garlic.

Once the cauliflower is cool enough to touch, or if like me you are impatient, put on rubber gloves and combine with the linseed mix, salt, pepper, roughly 1 cup of corn meal, ½ cup of nutritional yeast (this adds a cheesy flavour) and combine until evenly amalgamated. If it seems too dry, add a little more almond milk, if too wet then a little more corn meal until you achieve what seems like a good dough.

With a spatula carefully spread evenly onto a large baking tray lined with baking paper and bake at 200 Celsius until darker in colour and a little crispy at the edges.

(Your roasted veggies should be finished so you can exchange them for the dough.)

Once your base looks ready, spread over evenly your cashew cheese, dollop on the pesto and spread, then tumble over all your veggies. Roast for another 10 or so minutes until everything looks roasted and delicious!

leftover pizza, broccoli mash and garlicky beans

Proper healthy fast food- broccoli soup

 

Creamy broccoli soup

 

We all know the feeling, the end of the day, exhausted and lazy, wanting nothing more then to collapse into bed and watch Gilmore Girls (…or is that just me?). Cooking sometimes, no matter how much you may love it, is the last thing that you want to do.

Well, these soups are proof that you can have super healthy, yummy and cheap fast food, and will definitely stop you from reaching for a take- away menu.

You just need a handful of ingredients and of course you can play around with the choice of vegetable, here I’ll show you broccoli and cauliflower, but you could use anything from cabbage to carrot, whatever is at hand. Here, I have used frozen veggies which makes everything almost sinfully quick and easy, but of course fresh is great too, just means a little longer cooking  and prepping time.

The use of garlic and onion powder follow the frozen vegetables’ lead and of course fresh is fine, but the key here is to do as little as possible to create a delicious soup.

These soups are so easy it seems almost un-blog worthy. However, because of their ease ,yet undeniable yumminess and the satisfaction in being able to put together a lovely vegan meal at such tired times, makes them worth a little write up.

Shopping list:

Bag of frozen broccoli/cauliflower

onion & garlic powder

cumin

salt

lemons

tahini

1x large can of white beans (often i mix it up with using butter beans or chick peas)

Pickles, hot sauce, balsamic vinegar to serve (optional)

 

pickled radishes

 

Take a large pot or sauce pan and pour in the frozen vegetables and cover with water, just so the tops of the veg is peeking out. You do not want too much liquid as the frozen vegetables will give out a little extra while cooking.

Add a teaspoon of garlic powder and 2 tsp of the onion powder and a tsp of cumin.

Cook until soft and add the drained beans. Cook for a further 3-5 mins to warm the beans.

With a stick blender blend the veg and beans.

Add about 2 tbsp of tahini, juice of 1 lemon, season. I add a glug of balsamic vinegar and some hot sauce for a little kick.

Blend until completely smooth and combined.

Serve, thats it! How easy?

If you like, reserve a floret of the broccoli for some pretty presentation and sprinkle a touch of sumac fairy dust over.

Sumac is a beautiful, citrusy spice from the berries of Sumac trees typically grown in Africa. It is commonly used in Middle Eastern cuisine, and I tend to put it on everything.

Beautiful sumac

As I like a fresh, tangy flavour to cut through the creamy soup, the sumac works beautifully, as does some pickles. For example, I topped my cauliflower soup with some pickled radishes I had pickled earlier in the day. The tart crunch is perfect with the creamy soup lended by the beans and tahini.

Enjoy!

cauliflower and butterbean soup topped with pickled radish