Potluck Yums: Veggie Pizza & Apple Cobbler

Italian Veggie Pizza

For potlucks I always like to make more complicated dishes. As I mentioned in my last post, I don't eat this way on my own because my body fares better with simpler food, so whenever I get the chance to flex my culinary muscles, I'm a happy girl. This pizza really wasn't that complex, but did take time because I had to dehydrate the crust.

Crust:

 2 Cups Buckwheat groats (soaked and sprouted)

 1 Cup of ground flax seed

1 T Organic Cold-Pressed Olive Oil

1 Clove of garlic

1 Medium sized zucchini

1 T Italian seasoning

Process all ingredients in the food processor until you have a semi-sticky dough. Spread dough in circle shapes on the dehydrator sheets - size and thickness is purely personal. For these pizzas I went with a thinner, but bigger crust. Last year for Xmas I made thicker, but smaller crusts. It all depends on what you need/want! Put in dehydrator at 115 degrees for 2 hours or until the top is dried. Take it out of the dehydrator and flip it over. Dehydrate at 105 degrees overnight.

Marinara:

 2 cups Sun dried Tomatoes (soaked until soft)

2 or 3 Medium sized Tomatoes

1 T Cold-pressed Organic Olive Oil

2 T Italian Seasoning

1 Plump fresh date

You want a thick gravy so as not to make the crust too moist. In this case I used smaller tomatoes so I needed a third one to make the sun dried tomatoes move more in the food processor. This was one of the best sauces that I have made. Usually, I add basil and parsley to my marinara, but this time I opted for a straight forward thicker sauce focusing on the heartiness of the sundried tomatoes.

Mozzarella Cheeze:

 1 Cup of Mac nuts

 1 Cup Cashews 

(soaked for at least two hours)

 2 T Nutritional Yeast

 1 T Nama Shoyu or Wheat-free Tamari

 Juice of 1 whole lemon

 1 Clove of garlic

 2 t Sea Salt

Process in food processor until you reach a semi-thick, spreadable, consistency. A great idea, if you have time, is to add 1 or 2 more cups of cashews to the cheeze and then add a half a cup of Rejuvulac and let it sit over night. This will add a really tangy flavor to your mozzerella, but real mozz. is more salty so adding sea salt makes this much more like real mozzarella.

Pine nut Parmsean:

1 Cup Cashews

2 T Pine nuts

1/2 Mac nuts

1 T Ground Flax seed

2 T Nutritional Yeast

Juice of 1 whole lemon

1 Clove garlic

Process ingredients together until you get a consistency that is like parmsean cheeze which means you don't want to pulverize the nuts to release all the oils, but you want everything combined. It should be crumbly. This makes a lot and is great to store in an air-tight glass container which you can sprinkle on pasta or on a caesar salad, etc.

Marinated Veggies:

1 Package of sliced white mushrooms

1 Red bell pepper

1 Zucchini

2 T Red Onion

Marinade:

2 T Italian Seasoning

2 T Flax or Olive Oil

2 T Wheat-free Tamari or Nama Shoyu

1/2 Cup filtered water

Juice of 1 lemon

Sea Salt to taste

Dice all your veggies. Mix up your marinade. Toss your veggies in the marinade until they are equally coated. I put my veggies and marinade in a pie plate because I wanted all the juices from the veggies to release into the marinade and the veggies to soak up all that goodness! Place in the dehydrator at 105 degrees for at least two hours, checking periodically to see how tender they are and mixing them up to continually make sure that all the veggies are evenly coated. These veggies should smell/be reminiscent of the veggies you used to find on everything pizzas or in stromboli.

Last, but not least: BUILD YOUR PIZZA! And throw in the dehydrator at 115 degrees until you are ready to serve!

(Doesn't this look like you just opened a SAD pizza box??)

For the second potluck I decided to test out one of the recipes I am making for my Holiday's Gone Raw class at the Environmental Nature Center in Newport Beach.  I opted for my signature dish - Apple Cobbler. It is a cinnamon-y, rendition of the apple pie my Grandmere has been making for me since I was little. The apples are tender and tart and the walnut/pecan/date crust on top adds the perfect amount of sweetness. I added a bit of maple syrup this time even though it is not raw. It was sooooo good! I overheard the host of the potluck tell another woman that it was, "To die for."  I still have to figure out the exact recipes since most of my creations, both sweet and savory, come from my head and are thrown together on a whim without regard to exact amounts. Sorry! I really have to start writing this down as I go along! Here is a picture to tempt your taste buds! It is perfect served warm out of the dehydrator and topped with some shredded coconut!

I've said this a million times, but, why would anyone eat SAD food when you can eat this way without the guilt or worry! Apple Cobbler and Pizza, good for you?? Hell yeah, with raw food!