Every morning, I make a smoothie for breakfast. And I take it seriously as a meal. None of this just-put-delicious-fruits-in-a-blender-with-sweetener business. That’s sugar overdrive with some fibre. Into my smoothie goes fruit, fat, nuts/seeds, and protein powder. Often I add veggies, garlic if I’m feeling sick (before, not after), and other powders. Today I had leftover pizza in the fridge and I thought, why not make that into an actual meal? I prefer to chew rather than drink my meals anyway, so this should be fun.
I took the leftover pizza as a base. It consisted of crust, pizza sauce, tomatoes, green peppers, and mushrooms — the three things they put on a veggie pizza that make me very sad. Green peppers especially, and also I don’t like mushrooms. They feel like sad, sad pizza toppings. Toppings that make me happy include eggplant, artichoke (yum!), onion, basil, spinach, olives, and I love seeing interesting things like corn, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, caramelized pears, and fresh herbs. Something that’s drastically changed my pizza-eating habits is a lifestyle change that I made around the time of my last post to this blog: I became vegan. This has cut out all of the delicious cheese options that I could be adding to my pizza. But not the vegan cheese options! And there are so many delicious kinds, from fancy artisanal vegan cheese made from nuts, to soy-based packaged vegan cheese that melts, to liquidy nacho vegan cheese like they make at the nearby vegan restaurant for their grilled-cheese sandwiches and they also sell in tubs.
Anyway — start with your crust as base. This can be regular bread or veggie burger bun, a cauliflower crust, or you can make one with almond flour, or use a tortilla. Or you can start with the sad excuse for a pizza that you spent $10 on last night. If you don’t use the latter, pour atop it marinara sauce or any tomato-based pasta sauce that you want. (Except ketchup. Don’t do that.) Then add any herbs you want — such as basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, cumin, ground coriander, maybe even za’atar.
Now for the smoothie ingredients. First, chop up a fruit, such as apple, pear, banana, citrus, or even berries. Then, add whatever vegetable you have on hand, such as spinach, kale, broccoli, or leeks. Also chop up garlic and/or onions. Spread all your choppings on the pizza. If you want to do this the lazy way, do it while it’s still in the box. But you might be concerned about the pizza box. If you remove the pizza and it’s still clean, you can recycle it. If it’s full of grease and food debris, you can only recycle the top and whatever part is clean cardboard. The rest goes into compost.
On top of my pizza, the way most people use those lovely herbs or chilli toppings or whatever, I poured out my usual smoothie ingredients: flax seeds, chia seeds, hemp hearts, and nutritional yeast. I’m not sure about Spirulina because the package says not to use it after six months, and it’s definitely been more than six months since I’ve discovered spirulina, and what’s the deal, anyway? What happens if I continue eating seaweed for my whole life? Will I become a mutant?
I didn’t, but here are other things you can add: nuts like crumbled walnuts or pecans, slivered almonds or cashews; seeds like sesame, pumpkin, or sunflower; powdered protein. What I did add was olive oil all over it. Yum!
And there you go! A pizza made like a smoothie, but with more carbs. You could toast it, I’m just too lazy for that. And if you don’t want to put fruit on top of the pizza, you could eat it on the side. Come to think of it, I’m going to grab an apple now, because I didn’t include that on my pizza. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
The Laurentina Cookbook 