Triple Vegetable Pizza

I recently watched the Jamie Oliver special Eat to Save Your Life. It made me reflect on the quantity of fruits and vegetables I eat in a day. (The average person's diet is severely lacking.) As a vegetarian, who home-cooks most of my meals, I think I eat a better than average diet. But, I'm also a massive grain lover, so I know there's room for improvement! All this has led me to the goal of trying to prepare new dishes that are not only vegetarian, but vegetable-based. In fact, I'm going to take that a step further and try to create a number of meals that are mostly vegetables! These very healthy, very vegetable-rich meals will be categorized "Eat-Your-Vegetables"! 

For my first experiment... vegetable pizza made on a cauliflower crust! Who would have thought!? This perfectly conforming veggie-rich dish is adapted from Green Kitchen Stories. It's a great food blog whose recipes have never let me down. That being said, I have to be honest, I had pretty low expectations for a cauliflower crust. Silly me! After being baked, it looks and feels just like a flour pizza crust - crisp on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. It also has a very mild, neutral taste (meaning it hardly tastes like cauliflower!).

This is just one way of topping your pizza. Feel free to be creative and use any (and many!) of your favourite vegetables.

I'm a big fan of leftovers for lunch. This recipe makes 2 pizzas, which will serve 6, each containing 8(!) servings of vegetables. 

Cauliflower Crust

1 head of cauliflower, cut into small florets
3/4 c. almond meal or almonds, finely ground
3/4 c. rice flour
2 tbsp. dried oregano

1 garlic clove, minced
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. black pepper
6 eggs, beaten

Chunky Eggplant Tomato Sauce
2 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 large eggplant, roughly chopped into 1-2" pieces
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 red chilli, finely diced (remove the seeds to reduce heat)
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
400 g. tin organic whole tomatoes, no salt added
10 olives, pits removed and halved
1/4 tsp. salt
freshly ground pepper
pinch of sugar
10 basil leaves, chopped

2 zucchinis
2 c. old cheddar cheese, grated
150g. arugula/spinach mix (or arugula only)

Lemon Vinaigrette
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. honey
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a food processor or blender, blast the raw cauliflower until finely chopped (it will resemble rice). Measure 6 cups of cauliflower and place it in a large mixing bowl. Add all the dry ingredients and stir together. Pour in the eggs and combine. Place half the mixture on each baking sheet and press into a large circle, just less than half an inch thick. Bake for 20 minutes, until it holds together and starts to brown.

During that time, prepare the eggplant & tomato sauce. Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large frying pan with a lid over medium heat. Add the eggplant, cover and cook for 7-10 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender. Add the other teaspoon of olive oil to a small pot over medium-low heat,  cook the onion for 5 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and chilli. Let cook for another minute or two then pour in the balsamic vinegar, followed 30 seconds later by the tin of tomatoes. Stir in a quarter of a tin of water, the olives, salt, pepper and sugar. Transfer the tomato sauce to the eggplant pan, reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all the vegetables are very soft and the sauce has thickened. Stir in the basil and remove from the heat.

Top each pre-cooked pizza base with half the eggplant tomato sauce. Thinly slice the zucchinis using a vegetable peeler and arrange the slices in an even layer on the sauce. Sprinkle each with one cup of cheese. Bake for 15 minutes until the zucchini has softened and the cheese is melted. Combine the lemon juice, olive oil, honey and salt in a small dish. Add the greens to the pizzas and bake for another 2-3 minutes until wilted. Remove from the oven and drizzle with lemon vinaigrette.