Anne's Kitchen: Totally Scrumptious Vegetarian Pizza

Hello friends! I know most of my readers enjoy sharing recipes and if they manage to be delicious AND healthy, it's sure to be a winner. Unfortunately for our waistlines, I think every recipe I've posted on here so far has been for desserts and baked goods. No one could ever accuse me of withholding from my sweet tooth.  As much as I love baking, I wish I were better at cooking.  I'm not talking four-course dinners with foreign sounding names but just mastering simple, healthy, and flavorful meals.

As you may or may not know, I currently live with my parents, both of whom have been eating a plant-based diet for the last year.  It is primarily vegan but as it is for health reasons and not necessarily moral ones, my mom has no problem throwing in the odd bit of cheese or eggs to make certain meals more palatable to my 10 year old brother and I. (Yes, we are on a very similar level taste-wise. No, I am not ashamed.)

After being home for the last nine months, I'm slowly coming around to this lifestyle as much as I hate to admit it.  There are still many vegan staples I just cannot get behind, for example, no mushrooms will knowingly pass these lips and the same goes for beets and tofu NO THANK YOU.  But I'm surprisingly on board with black beans and sometimes I even crave quinoa.

Although that doesn't mean I don't still weep with happiness over a perfectly barbecued piece of marinated chicken. (Seriously, Ric and Carole, last Sunday's meal was the business.)

All this is to say I'd like to encourage myself to make better choices for my health and to that end, I'm starting a new blog series spotlighting my mother and her healthy plant-based recipes. At as-yet-undecided intervals, she will be guest-posting her most successful meals under the title "Anne's Kitchen".

To start us out gently, she's starting with possibly my new favorite vegetarian meal that she's ever made: Totally Scrumptious Vegetarian Pizza. mmm....take it away Mom!
(All of the following words and photos are her own)
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So, I’ve never been inclined to make pizza.  Sounds like a lot of work compared to calling Papa John’s and 30 minutes later, it’s delivered to my door.  But then I got my March issue of Vegetarian Times in the mail and decided to try their “Make-Ahead Dinners”.  In 3 hours, make 6 dinners!  Sounds too good to be true!  Well, it is.  It actually takes about 8 hours including making a shopping list, the trip to the market (with a quick stop at the bank, dry cleaner’s, gas station, and car wash), using the self-checkout and bagging your own groceries, prepping all the veggies (wash & chop times 10), cooking and assembling everything, then cleaning up the mess.  For some reason, they didn’t factor all that in, or the dancing and singing.  (Does anyone else get distracted by a good song or two on Pandora?).  But I digress.  It all turned out quite nicely.  Not only did I have 5 (not 6 because I ran out of time!) meals in the fridge/freezer, I made my first pizza (even the dough!) and it was delicious.  

{Note from Ellie: Store-bought dough works fine but if you want to make your own, the recipe Mom used was from Chloe's Kitchen, a vegan cookbook by Chloe Coscarelli. The recipe can be found on the web here.}

First, roast tomato halves with slices of garlic and sprinkled with basil at 450 degrees for 30 minutes.  

Second, roast broccoli florets and diced onion sprinkled with olive oil for 20 minutes.

Roll out the dough into a irregular 10” circle.  Spread with pesto. (The healthiest pesto would be homemade with a lot less (or no) oil than this store-bought version.) Sprinkle with Fontina cheese.

Top with vegetables.  Roll crust.  Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes.

(Reheat 15 minutes at 350.)

Yum!  

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So yummy. Also that homemade crust tasted 100 times better than the store-bought.

What do you think, will you be trying this recipe? Any good vegetarian/vegan recipes we should try?