Creamy Pizza Goodness

Alright, take the herbed dough recipe below and then top it with some basil cream (recipe to follow) and your favorite roasted veggies (method to follow) and you will probably find yourself scarfing an entire pizza in one night, but you can just blame me.

Okay, so you've made your dough, you've baked it at 425 for about 7 or 8 minutes already (on your pizza stone if you have one) and now you're ready to top it and finish it. Smear it with basil cream if you like a different take on pizza or your tired of marinara or if the thought of something called basil cream makes you squeal with delight (I fall into all three categories).

Basil Cream

You'll need:
1/3 cup raw cashews
1/3 cup firm silken tofu (like Mori-Nu)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 T olive oil
1 t salt
1 t ground pepper
1 T dijon mustard
1 t onion powder
3 or 4 cloves of garlic (or more if you're me), minced
A huge bunch o' basil (anywhere from 3 to 6 loose cups, chopped)
soy or rice milk to achieve desired consistency, you may not need any

Powder your cashews in a coffee grinder or a really good blender or food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients save for the basil and oil. Blend until creamy and super smooth. Add basil and blend until combined. Drizzle in oil slowly until mixture is uniform and add your soy milk 1 t at a time if you want a thinner sauce (this is recommended for using this as a pasta sauce or a dipping sauce of sorts, but for the pizza topping, thicker is better!)

Smear this mixture of wonderful all over the top of your pizza and then lick your spatula.

In the meantime you should have been roasting vegetables. Whoops, I hope you read the whole recipe first.

In this photo I have chosen red peppers and eggplant because they are super good and go well together and with the basil cream. But seriously, any vegetable will do. Slice whatever your choice is pretty thin, toss lightly in olive oil and less than a teaspoon each of salt and pepper (more salt if roasting eggplant). Put in a baking sheet and roast until brown and ooey and delicious (this varies greatly depending on the vegetable, but I would say 30 to 45 minutes would take care of most things). Watch to not burn the vegetables too badly, this may start to happen after the half hour mark if you roast at 425, which I recommend.



Add your roasted vegetables on top of the basil cream and bake (still at 425 - this recipe is nice because the veggies roast and the pizza bakes all at the same high temperature) for an additional 10-15 minutes (until crust crunchiness is at your desired level, I like mine super crunchy, which means I bake my crust alone for about 10 minutes and then topped for about 15 more).

Slice in half and pretend you'll save the second half for later. Enjoy!