PIZZAS
Pulp-Based Pizza Crusts
low carb vegan recipes
As someone who has both lived in Chicago and eaten pizza in Naples — where pizza was invented — I can attest that some pizzas are best eaten with a fork and spoon, and not handheld in the American-in-a-rush style. The pulp crust pizza is in this more polite sit down tradition even though it is technically possible to eat it with your fingers.
If you want to get a perfectly circular shape out of this dough, simply take one of your pots or pans with the vertical edges of the desired diameter, turn it upside down and, you guessed it, press down hard and eliminate all the extra bits that remain outside the circular edge.
2 cups broccoli and cauliflower pulp (combined)
1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax seed & 3 tbsp water)
¼ cup coconut (or almond) flour
¼ cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
Thaw two packages (as these are usually sold separately) of frozen cauliflower and broccoli, ~ 1 bag of ~800g each.
Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.
Make a flax egg by mixing 1 tbsp ground flax seed with 3 tbsp water in a small bowl. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.
Using a juicer, juice the cauliflower and broccoli, and move the pulp to a large mixing bowl (the juice is the basis of the Pizza Penance recipe in the Drinks section). Add the flax egg and all remaining ingredients to the pulp and knead into a ‘doughy enough’ consistency and make a ball out of it.
On a parchment paper lined pizza pan, flatten the doughy pulp ball into either a circular or rectangular or if you prefer, a random shape. You will get to a point that if you keep pressing to make it thinner, it will start breaking up, so stop at the point of thickness where it retains its shape, but get it as thin as you reasonably can.
Bake for 30 minutes, then remove it from the oven to add the toppings, and then bake for another 15 minutes.
The Savory Coast
Add the following to the pulp pizza crust after the 30 minute mark (as described above):
Marinara sauce
Truffle sauce
Sun-dried tomatoes
Fresh thyme and oregano
Small slices of vegan cheese
Small slices of vegan chorizo
Run the cheese through a V-slicer to make thin pieces of it (be careful as cheese is sticky and tricky to work with on a V-slicer: use the hand protector, as you always should, incidentally, when slicing with this tool). The chorizo is easy to cut with scissors.
Brush the marinara sauce over the crust. Make little dollops of the truffle sauce with a small spoon here and there across the crust, and then brush it into the marinara sauce in artsy dark swirls. Arrange the slices of cheese, chorizo and pieces of sun-dried tomatoes into an arrangement that you like, and top with the fresh herbs. Bake for another 15 minutes.
This pizza is savory! And should remind you of the Mediterranean coast.
Rorschach Flatbread
This flatbread goes against the idea of ‘don’t play with your food.”
Take whatever pulp you have left after making a pulp crust pizza, and make a new dough ball out of it. Follow the same general steps of making a pulp crust, but scale the ingredients to the amount of pulp you have left.
Then, shape the dough into a very random and yet symmetrical shape on the parchment paper lining the pizza pan. The trick is to try to make the shape symmetrical while also making it as blobby and random as possible. Stop when you achieve a shape that triggers neurotic mental associations.
After baking for 30 minutes, top it with whatever you feel like, or with whatever you associate with its Rorschackian shape, then bake for another 15 minutes.
