Happy Thursday guys!
For some yummy and healthy dinner ideas this Thursday, I made this Vegan Pizza with Homemade Pesto for you guys. Now that it’s finally summer, and the weather is perfect, it’s a great time to invite friends and family over for dinner and sit out on the deck, eat and enjoy the weather. So I thought this would be the perfect pizza recipe for that occasion. And it’s full of healthy, clean ingredients, awesome superfoods, and very easy to make with only a few steps.
With this recipe I made a homemade organic pesto to go with it. Why make your own pesto? Well here’s the deal with pesto:
I created this homemade pesto because I’ve found that it’s difficult to find a healthy store-bought version. The reason for this is that many store-bought pestos have vegetable oil in them. And the problem with vegetable oil is that if it's not labeled organic or non-GMO, you can be almost 100% sure that it's GMO and very, very bad for you. Please check out my earlier post on GMOs by clicking here. This will give you a detailed summary of the effects of GMOs.
Essentially the problem with genetically modified crops, like soy (commonly used for vegetable oils), is that you end up with a food that is not at all nutritious to the body. And in addition to that, when oils are produced from a genetically modified vegetable, the processing involved creates a type of oil called a hydrogenated oil, (just another word for processed oil). And this is something that your body is not capable of breaking down. And studies have shown that it can actually be linked to high cholesterol and heart disease.
So, in my book, any sort of hydrogenated oils or GMO vegetable oils are the primary ingredient to stay away from. I mean the fact that something cannot be broken down by the body just rubs me the wrong way. The point of eating food is to provide the body with the nutrients it needs to carry out all of its very complex systems. Why add something like this to the mix? I just think the result can only be negative. So in this homemade pesto I've used certified organic olive oil and completely avoided GMO vegetable oils.
I’m very happy with the way this organic homemade pesto turned out. It's got a rich basil flavour, it's packed with nutrients, and the garlic and olive oil give it a nice rounded-out pesto taste. And I finally have a substitute for the regular store-bought pesto! And the pizza is a light gluten-free, thin-crust, made with almond flour, and topped with superfoods, like avocado, and lots of veggies.
Here’s how I did it:
Ingredients
For the pesto:
4 cups baby spinach
1 cup fresh basil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup Parmesan (can substitute this with 1 tbsp nutritional yeast to make it vegan)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
ground black pepper to taste
For the pizza crust:
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of sea salt
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp organic olive oil
1 egg
Toppings (you can choose a variety of other toppings in place of this):
Asparagus
Sun-dried Tomatoes
Kalamata Olives
Red Peppers
Avocado
Spinach
Chili peper flakes
Directions
For the pesto:
Take your spinach and fresh basil and remove the stems and wash thoroughly.
Next add the spinach, basil, olive oil, garlic, parmesan (or nutritional yeast) and sea salt to your food processor or blender, and blend until smooth. (If using a blender I would add a bit of the greens in at a time with a bit of oil, gradually adding more until all greens are blended. Then lastly, add in your garlic and parmesan or yeast.) Then add ground black pepper to taste.
Yields about 8 servings (1/4 cup each). Store in a glass container in the fridge.
For the pizza crust:
Preheat your oven to 375 F. Combine the almond flour, baking powder and sea salt in a bowl and mix well. Then add in your olive oil, water and egg quite quickly and stir. Knead the dough with your hands. Then form the dough into a ball and set aside in bowl with plastic wrap covering the bowl. Let sit for 15 - 20 minutes.
While you leave your dough to sit, chop and prepare your toppings. Then grease a pizza pan or other baking pan with olive oil. Take your ball of dough and place on the pan.
Take two large pieces of plastic wrap and cover the top of the dough with the plastic wrap so that the entire pan is covered.
Then use a rolling pin or your hands to flatten out the dough into a pizza shape, adding a little extra dough around the edges for the crust. (You can fold up the edges or just bunch the dough together with your hands to make the crust).
Next spread on a thick layer of pesto.
Then add your toppings (see above for the toppings I used).
Bake at 375 F for 20 - 25 minutes. Top with avocado slices and raw spinach, and you’re all done.
This recipe serves 8 slices, at about 200 calories per slice.
I hope you guys enjoy this recipe!
All photos and recipe are my own original content.
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