Vegan Pesto Pizza

Like many, I love pesto. And luckily, pesto can be made vegan really easily. It's so easy that I can make it in under 10 minutes. Yep, this dish can be thrown together and be ready to eat in less than a half hour. Who doesn't love a simple, quick recipe that even carnivore friends will love? 

Vegan Pesto Pizza

 

Sauce Ingredients: 

3 garlic cloves 

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast 

1/3 cup pine nuts 

4 cups basil leaves 

1/2 small lemon, juiced 

1/3 cup olive oil 

salt and pepper 

 Topping Ingredients: 

a few grape tomatoes, thinly sliced 

1/4 red onion, thinly sliced 

Anything else you think might work, for example sun dried tomatoes, pine nuts, and olives would be delicious. 

 Everything Else: 

2 large pizza crusts (30cm) 

 Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

 2. Add all sauce ingredients to food processor and blend until the sauce is smooth. 

 3. Distribute sauce over two pizza crusts until covered evenly. 

 4. Scatter toppings over pizza. 

 5. Cook in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the pizzas are browning around the edges. 

 6. Let cool for 2 minutes before slicing. 

 7. Serve with olive oil if needed.

Pesto Lasagna

Lots of work went into this one.  I'm ever so grateful for my friend, Amanda, for helping me!!

Pesto Lasagna
Source: The Accidental Vegan by Devra Gartenstein

Takes about an hour and a half total.

Ingredients:

• 12 to 15 lasagna noodles
• 2lbs soft tofu
• 2 cups pesto (see appendix a, below)
• 4 cups tomato sauce
• 1 cup faux cheese (see appendix b, below)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over medium-high heat, and add the lasagna noodles.  Cook until noodles for about 8-10 minutes (or until noodles are soft).  Drain and set aside.
2. While the noodles are cooking, crumble the tofu into a bowl with the pesto.
3. Then layer the ingredients in a 9 x 11 pan as followed:
• 1/3 of the tomato sauce
• 1/3 of the noodles
• 1/2 of the tofu/pesto mixture
• another 1/3 of the noodles
• another 1/3 of the tomato sauce
• the rest of the tofu/pesto mixture
• the 1 cup of faux cheese
4. Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes, or until the "cheese" starts to brown.  Let cool for a little while, and serve hot.

Appendix A: Pesto

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 cups loosely packed basil leaves
• 1 cup raw walnuts
• 2tbs extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in boiling water for a few minutes, until softened.
2. Put the garlic in a food processor and pulse several times until chopped finely.  Drain the sun-dried tomatoes and add to the garlic, along with the basil, walnuts, olive oil, parsley, salt, and pepper.  Process until smooth.  Note: If you mix this with pasta or veggies that have just been cooked, don't reheat the mixture further, as you may risk burning it.  You can also serve pesto cold, as a spread on bread or crackers.

Appendix B: Faux Cheese

Ingredients:

• 1tbs olive oil
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or any flour will do)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast, preferably large flake
• 3 cups water
• 1tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp prepared mustard

Directions:

1. Gently heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat.  Then whisk in the flour and nutritional yeast.  Turn the heat down to low and cook, whisking constantly for a minute or two, or until the mixture is reasonably homogenous, with few lumps. 
2. Add the water and raise the heat to medium.  Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking until it is relatively smooth.  Simmer for 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture thickens to the consistency of pea soup.  
3. Remove from heat and whisk in the salt and mustard.  Be sure to use immediately, as this mixture forms a layer on top.

When Amanda and I finished our dinner, we finished up some vegan sugar cookies Amanda started earlier in the day.  Sorry I don't have the recipe for this one, but I wanted to share the pretty pictures: