We’ve been meaning to make a pizza with a vegan topping for a while, but somehow we haven’t get round to it yet. Our recent dinner at a great pizza place on Antiparos (a little sister island of Paros) Lollo’s has put vegan pizza back on our culinary roadmap. I was very nicely surprised that they had added not one, but two vegan pizza toppings to the menu – they seem to be very in tune with people’s changing eating habits, which is awesome. I had a spicy cherry tomatoes number and it was so delicious and satisfying. Ever since I had it, I’ve been thinking that we need to make one for the blog too.
So we bought all the necessary groceries and we were ready to go. As luck would have it, it was one of the hottest days of the year so far (30° C) and we had to turn our oven up to as high as it would go. We were a bit cranky about that and drank gallons of water while working. It was a true joint collaboration. Duncan is the dough master in our house (he calls the kitchen the dough-jo) so he kneaded and shaped the dough while I came up with and prepared the topping. I whipped up my pesto in a pestle and mortar from a basil plant that I miraculously have not managed to kill yet, but if you can buy a vegan pesto why not make your life easier? Especially when it’s so hot… Really, it’s the pesto and sweet cherry tomatoes that make this pizza. After the pizza came out of the oven, I had two jobs: one of photographing it and the other of stopping Duncan from eating it. He was put out by the fact that there was all this beautiful-smelling pizza around him and he couldn’t eat any of it. Then I came up with a brilliant, yet slightly cruel idea, of photographing him holding a slice of pizza. Good job you cannot see his face in the photo – it was not a happy one…’Are you done yet? Can I eat yet?’ – like a three-year-old, I swear…;)
250 g strong flour 250 g all-purpose flour 10 g salt 7 g sachet fast-action dried yeast 320 ml water (lukewarm) 1 tbsp olive oil
PESTO (makes 200 ml)
¼ cup pine nuts or walnuts 50 g basil leaves ½-1 small garlic clove, pressed about 90 ml / 6 tbsp virgin olive oil squeeze of lemon pinch of coarse salt pepper
TOPPING
3 small courgettes 10-15 cherry tomatoes, halved 2 tbsp pine nuts, raw 1 tbsp of olive oil + ½ crushed garlic clove mixed in 2 pinches of chilli (if using) fresh basil leaves (optional) salt & pepper
PESTO ASSEMBLY
