Black-eyed pea quinoa pizza

As promised, here is what I made with yesterday’s Thrive Diet raw sauces: pizza! Kind of. Brendan Brazier himself says he uses the term "pizza" loosely. It has a base, sauce, and toppings, but the similarities end there. The crust isn’t firm or crispy, and you’ll need a plate and fork to eat it—to me, it’s more of a flat casserole. Whatever you want to call it, it’s highly inventive and unexpectedly yummy.

For the crust:
1 cup cooked quinoa
1 cup cooked black-eyed peas (1/2 can)
1/2 cup chickpea flour (or whole wheat)
1/4 cup coconut oil or hemp oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Sea salt to taste

Sun-dried tomato marinara
Sweet pepper hemp pesto

For the topping:
2 carrots, peeled and grated
1 cup cooked black-eyed peas (other 1/2 can)
1 red bell pepper, sliced or diced
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 medium sweet potato, grated
4 green onions, minced
1 tsp crushed red pepper
2T sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a food processor, combine all crust ingredients.



Process until the mixture starts to ball up.



Lightly grease a 10x15-inch baking pan with coconut oil (or cooking spray). Spread the mixture across the entire pan, about 1/4-inch thick. Spread about one cup of the sun-dried tomato marinara across the crust.



Evenly sprinkle on all topping ingredients.



Bake for 45-50 minutes. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting.



Top each piece with a drizzle of the sweet pepper hemp pesto, sprinkle with sunflower seeds, and serve. Even though the pizza is huge, it’s quite thin, so you’ll easily be able to polish off 1/4 of it at a time. I love the salty-savory black-eyed pea and quinoa crust, and it was perfectly complemented by the sweet sauces. Use whatever veggies you want on top (I strayed pretty far from the original recipe’s toppings), but I particularly recommend including the grated sweet potato. This thing is packed with nutrition, from healthy fats to soluble fiber to plant protein. The initial prep work was a little time-consuming, but worth it. I just lent the book to a friend, but when I get it back, I plan to try some of Brendan’s other pizza recipes as well.



Yield: 4 servings. Per serving: 492 calories, 26.2g fat (8g sat), 52.6g carbs, 11g fiber, 15.8g protein.

A duo of raw sauces

I’ve got another two-part post for you, this time from Brendan Brazier’s Thrive Diet. He’s a vegan Ironman triathlete, and his book contains information, recipes, and meal plans for an all-vegan, high-raw, whole foods diet. I made his curry lentil crackers a few weeks ago, and really liked them. When the book came, I devoured the whole thing in just a couple of days, and excitedly high-tailed it to Wild Oats to gather some of the more uncommon ingredients he uses, including hemp oil and hemp seeds, which are called for in these recipes here. This post contains the two raw sauces that will be utilized in tomorrow’s recipe. Feel free to substitute olive oil or sesame seeds if you don’t have the hemp products.

Sun-dried tomato marinara:
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1 cup water
1 cup canned tomatoes
1/2 cup grated cucumber
3T hemp oil
1T balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/4 tsp thyme
Sea salt to taste



Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in the water for 20 minutes (retain this water). In a food processor, process all ingredients together, including sun-dried tomato water. Keep refrigerated for up to 1 week. This sauce is chunky, richly tomatoey, and very sweet. Feel free to increase the crushed red pepper to balance this, and/or be liberal with the salt.



Sweet pepper hemp pesto:
2 red bell peppers
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1 heaping T nutritional yeast flakes
1 heaping T sesame seeds
2T hemp seeds
2T hemp oil
2 cloves garlic
Sea salt to taste



In a food processor, process all ingredients together. Keep refrigerated for up to 1 week. This one was my favorite—I thought it was actually less sweet than the marinara, and I really liked the thick-but-smooth texture.



You can eat these sauces in any way your heart desires—on pasta or vegetables, as a veggie burger or sandwich spread, as a cracker or crudité dip, etc. You’ll want to come back tomorrow, though, to see how I put them to delicious use.



Marinara—Yield: about 3 1/2 cups. Per 1/2 cup: 109 calories, 6.1g fat (1g sat), 11.3g carbs, 3g fiber, 2.2g protein.
Pesto—Yield: about 2 cups. Per 1/4 cup: 71 calories, 5.6g fat (1g sat), 3.6g carbs, 2g fiber, 2.3g protein.

Curry lentil crackers w/spinach-avocado dip

When I ordered Brendan Brazier’s The Thrive Diet from Amazon a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t wait till it came in the mail to try out one of his nutrient-dense dishes. A web search yielded this cracker recipe on the Vegetarian Times site. Curry + lentils? It was made for me! It also brought to mind another VT recipe for a great raw Indian dip I’d had my eye on for some time, and it just so happened I actually had spinach in my fridge (left over from my green smoothies). I knew they’d make a perfect pair.

For the crackers:
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1/4 cup cooked or sprouted lentils
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
2T balsamic vinegar
1T coconut oil
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp agave nectar
Salt to taste

For the dip:
4 cups (about 6 oz.) spinach leaves
1 large avocado, peeled, pit removed
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
1 clove garlic, peeled
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp minced fresh ginger
Dash chili powder
Dash cayenne pepper
Dash cumin

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a food processor, combine all cracker ingredients. If you don’t have chickpea flour (I happen to, since I cook a decent amount of Indian food), I’m sure whole wheat pastry or all-purpose would work fine.



Pulse ingredients together, then process until incorporated. It will still appear grainy.



Lightly grease an 11x15-inch baking sheet with cooking spray or extra coconut oil. Spread the mixture on the baking sheet as thinly as possible. I used a wooden skewer as a miniature rolling pin, but this was still the best I could do:



Not quite a full pan, to say the least. Oh well; just call it "rustic." Gently score it with a knife to mark desired cracker size before baking. I also sprinkled them lightly with salt. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool before breaking apart.



Meanwhile, make the dip. So as not to overload the food processor, I pulsed together half the spinach and half the avocado first, then added the other halves of each.



Once roughly chopped, add the remaining ingredients...



...and process until smooth. Transfer to a small bowl or container and refrigerate. The longer it chills, the yummier it gets. When the crackers have cooled completely, dip away! Is that a ridiculously vibrant green, or what?



The crackers are delicate, but hold up just fine against the lightly-textured dip. They’re hearty and filling (remember, all the saturated fat in these is coconut-derived), and the flavor is super-unique. I could pick out a faint taste of sunflower seeds, a tiny tang of balsamic, and just a whisper of curry and cumin. They’re salty, savory, and full of "umami." When the crackers are gone, there will be plenty of dip left, so plan to eat it with raw veggies, in sandwiches, on pita bread, as a veggie burger topping (which I tried; delicious!) or any other way you can dream up. Despite the seemingly minimal seasoning, it packs a massive flavor punch. I don’t see seasoned salt called for often in recipes, but I think it really made a difference here. And I’m telling you, this dip is downright silky. The luxuriously smooth avocado sends the spices spinning in all directions across your palate. And I couldn’t taste the spinach! Victory!



Crackers—Yield: 2 servings. Per serving: 258 calories, 17.6g fat (7g sat), 18.5g carbs, 6g fiber, 8.8g protein.
Dip—Yield: about 2 cups. Per 1/4 cup: 102 calories, 8g fat (1g sat), 8g carbs, 5g fiber, 2g protein.

If you like this, you might also like...
Indian spice hummus
Tuscan white bean dip