Pizza For Dinner

My recent European Adventures inspired me to create some more complicated dishes especially because I’m anticipating the days to turn cooler, when we all feel like eating “heavier” or more substantial foods. Also, people’s interest in raw foods is ever-growing and so does the need for transitional* foods on my blog! I had the best raw pizza at a restaurant in Copenhagen, which I wanted to duplicate ever since.

This pizza is even more amazing than I imagined it could be. The end result is just absolutely delicious cold and when put in the dehydrator for 20 minutes to 2 hours your guests might not even be able to tell that they're served a raw dinner!

*Transitional raw foods are those that help you convert to a raw (or high raw) lifestyle by their resemblance to cooked dishes. They usually have more ingredients, are more complicated to create, heavier on nuts and/or seeds, and very often dehydrated and/or even served warm straight out of the dehydrator. It is often very helpful to rely on foods as such for the first days/weeks/months (or however long it may take) because of the satisfaction and fullness they provide.

Raw Pizza Crust
(Makes 6 pieces)
1 cup buckwheat groats
½ cup sunflower seeds
1/6 of an onion (or garlic, if preferred)
splash of olive oil
splash of water
~ ½ tsp salt
basil, oregano to taste
½ cup flax seeds

Soak the buckwheat for a few hours or overnight. Rinse and drain them. Grind the flax seeds until fine. Using a food processor, combine all of the ingredients but the flax seeds. Salt to taste and transfer ingredients into a mixing bowl. Fold in the flax seeds and mix well. Spread the mixture on a teflex sheet (you will get just enough to cover one sheet at a thickness of about 1/3 in or 8 mm). Score as desired (I made it into six triangular slices) and dehydrate at ~130 °F (54 °C) for about an hour then lower the temperature to 115 °F (46 °C) and keep dehydrating until you can flip them over to a mesh sheet. Dehydrate for a few more hours to pizza crust-like consistency.
Now that you have the base, you can store them in the fridge (or freezer) to use later, or you can assemble pizza right away using the recipes that follow.

Raw Marinara (Pizza Sauce)
 (Makes about a cup)
Blend the following ingredients:
½ cup sundried tomatoes*
2 small tomatoes
juice of half a lemon
couple of slices of red onion
2 cloves of garlic
salt to taste/splash of soy sauce
splash of olive oil
basil, oregano

*soaking the sundried tomatoes beforehand helps a lot, especially if you (just like me) don’t have a high-speed blender

Raw Seed Cheese
Ingredients:
(Makes about a cup)
1 cup sunflower seeds
juice of half a lemon
2 cloves of garlic
3 tbsp soy sauce/nama shoyu/1 tbsp umeboshi vinegar + some water (if you avoid soy)
optional: dash of turmeric for color

Directions:
Grind the seeds as finely as you can. Blend the rest of the ingredients and add the seed “meal” to the blender. Add some water if necessary for desired consistency. I like it more runny than thick but everybody’s different.

Both, the pizza sauce and the seed cheese will keep in the refrigerator just like the crust, so guess what, once you prepare them all you'll have some grab-and-throw-together lunch waiting for you for days!

Toppings
This is where you can go as simple or as crazy as you wish! I put spinach, tomatoes, and marinated mushrooms on these (above), and the first image shows the one with herbed walnuts and lemon boy tomatoes. You may put pineapple for Hawaiian or pesto for a green pizza. It’s hard to go wrong…

So grab a piece of crust, spread some pizza sauce on it, add your favorite toppings, and drizzle with some seed cheese. You may put the assembled pizza slice(s) into the dehydrator for a few minutes to warm up or for a couple of hours for more of a “baked” feeling.

Dinner is served!

What are YOUR favorite toppings??