Middle Eastern Pizza

It's Summer, you're feeling a little lazy, but you wany pizza so bad - and you want to be healthy at the same time: contradiction central, however I miiiiight have a recipe that will tick a few of those boxes.

We're talking pizza, but with a home made wholemeal dough, you gotta put some elbow grease into it, but then you can relax with a refreshing drink whilst the dough is rising. And the combo of these veggie toppings work SO well together - I promise you!

As far as additional toppings, you can use homemade vegan pesto, hummus, vegan-style mozzarella.... But personally, I loved this just on it's own!

Middle Eastern Pizza
(Serves 2 hungry people, or 4 with a side salad if you want to be good!)

Ingredients
For the dough:
500g strong wholemeal bread flour
1 sachet dry fast-action yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
340ml water at 37C (if you drip a drop of it on your wrist, you shouldn't be able to feel it - that's what they taught us in primary and secondary school in home ec! :D)

For the sauce (This is SO tasty by the way!):
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
Small handful fresh basil, roughly torn
1 tbsp olive oil or rapeseed oil
200g tinned tomatoes (or about 2-3 fresh ones, chopped)
1 tsp red wine vinegar (you can also use white wine vinegar, or cider vinegar)

Toppings:
50g artichokes in oil, finely chopped
1 roasted red pepper from a jar, or a handful of those tiny peppers for a bit of a kick, finely chopped
6 mini plum tomatoes, finely chopped
6 sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained and finely chopped
1/2 red onion, finely sliced

-Start by making the dough: have the flour in a large baking bowl, add the yeast and the salt and stir well to combine. Make a well in the middle and pour in the lukewarm water. Stir with a wooden spoon until it comes together - then flour your work surface and tip the dough onto it. Knead it for about 10-15 minutes until beautifully elastic. Oil the baking bowl, put the dough in, cover with cling film and leave it to rise for an hour.

- In the meantime, make the sauce; put all the ingredients in a little mixer and blitz until smooth, set aside for assembly.

- Once the dough has doubled in size, knead for a further minute, divide into two, and wrap in clingfilm, leave to rise for a second time for 15-30 minutes (it's worth it!). Now chop your vegetables whilst you wait. I placed all of mine in a bowl and stirred so it was ready to be evenly drizzled over the dough as soon as it was ready!

- Pre-heat the oven to 250C, rolle each piece of dough out into a thin pizza base, pour over the sauce evenly out all the way out to the edges, drizzle with vegetables (and vegan mozzarella - if using) and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

- Once it's done, top with your favourite topping or enjoy on its own!

I hope you love it as much as Kev and I did! I had a couple of slices with me for lunch the next day, and it was delicious, mmmm....

I hope you are having a good week so far! Here in Glasgow the weather's heating up again and I am just getting better after having a ridonculous Summer cold, but I was back at badminton last night - which was awesome!

xoxo
J

Original recipe from Bosh! Plant based cook book