"Almost Raw" Vegan Pizza

I got to spend both weekend days at home this weekend.  I did my cooking for the week this weekend and managed to squeeze in some treats to bring to work Monday.  I made a nice pot of beans from my cranberry beans I grew in the garden this year, a couple batches of raw cookies, a Rosemary Oregano noodle salad using fresh yellow zucchini for the noodles, and some great "almost raw" pizza with recipes from a one of my favorite vegan cookbooks, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw.

The 'almost raw' vegan pizza starts out with raw buckwheat sunflower seed crusts.  I doubled the recipe and made a dozen personal sized crusts.  I blended together some freshly picked tomatoes and herbs into a raw marinara sauce and made a batch herb cashew cheese. For a nice variety of toppings I marinated some of the Shitake mushrooms I dried last week in a little olive oil and tamari, marinated dried tomatoes in olive oil and lemon juice, roasted red bell peppers, and grilled some yellow zucchini and eggplant rounds.  I probably would have been content with the cashew cheese, but my son is very new to plant based food and I thought I should add some Daiya mozzarella cheese to the choices.  It looks more like cheese he's used to seeing for pizza. I especially like that I have the ingredients all ready to just build one this week.

There's a little bit of preparation to each part of this pizza, but once everything is prepped it can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days, the crusts a week.  We can stop by the kitchen and build a little pizza for a quick lunch or dinner.

Buckwheat Sunflower Seed Pizza Crust
     The Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw, page 212

1 cup buckwheat groats, soaked for at least 1 hour to overnight
1 cup sunflower weeds, soaked at least 1 hour to overnight
3 TB flax seeds, ground
2½ TB fresh herbs such as oregano, parsley, and thyme
1 TB freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 TB nama shoyu or tamari

1.  Drain buckwheat and sunflower seeds, rinse thoroughly, and drain again.

2. Place buckwheat in a food processor fitted with an S blade.  Add sunflower seeds, ground flax seeds, fresh herbs, lemon juice, crushed red pepper flakes, salt, black pepper, and shoyu.  Process on high spread for 20 to 30 seconds or until a chunky but unified batter forms.

3.  Scoop batter onto 2 Teflex-lined dehydrator trays in 8 equal portions.  Flatten with your hands or use the bottom of a slightly oiled glass or plastic container to form circles. Or form dough into 2 larger pizza crusts.  Dehydrate at 110º for 15 to 18 hours, flipping them over midway though and removing Teflex.

The Sun-Dried Tomato Sage Sauce is also from the Complete Idiot's Guide to Eating Raw.  It's on page 143. I am enjoying playing with these recipes.  I've been happy with everything I've made so far and most items have been very easy with maybe one or two directions.  It's mostly blender and dehydrator work.

The cashew cheese is just a basic cheese recipe:  2 cups raw cashews blended and placed in a large glass pitcher or mason jar with plastic wrap and placed in a warm spot in the kitchen overnight.  I chopped some herbs, garlic, and bell pepper and added a dash of sea salt and pepper, mixed it all together with the nut mixture and set it to cool for a couple hours.

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