Summer in Minnesota (especially July) is a great time for vegetables. Gardens are overflowing with bright, fat peppers, zucchinis and cucumbers of all shapes and sizes, and tomatoes galore. One of my go-to foods in the summer is roasted (or grilled) vegetables. With my mind still reeling about what to make for my family that didn't contain gluten, wheat, meat, etc., I was thinking about these vegetables. I wanted to incorporate them into a pizza, and roasting them and serving them with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar is delicious. I just needed to work on the "crust". Last week's crusts were okay, but the texture was all wrong.
Over the weekend, Jeff had made a giant platter of hashbrowns for us for breakfast. He used the dehydrated hash browns purchased at Costco. They come in a milk carton sort of thing that you open up an pour hot water into to rehydrate the potatoes. It sounds weird, and I laughed when my mom had given us a package of these. I thought that these sounded like something you would eat only out of desparation or when camping, because potatoes are too heavy to lug around. But, I have to admit, with a little seasoning, these make delicious, crunchy hash browns. Since one of lasts week's crusts was made with potatoes, it got me thinking that maybe I could incorporate hash browns as a "crust", so I gave it a shot.
Crust:
1 4.9oz box of shredded, dehydrated hash browns
1 teaspoon of seasoning salt (I used Lawry's)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Hummus:
1 15oz can chickpeas, drained with some liquid reserved
2 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 clove of raw garlic
3 cloves of roasted garlic
½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Veggies:
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into large pieces
½ of a large red onion, cut into large wedges
3-4 mini cucumbers, chunked up
8oz mini portabella mushrooms
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup balsamic vinegar
Crust: Preheat the oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside. Rehydrate the potatoes as instructed on the side of the box (open carton and pour boiling or near-boiling water in up to the fill line; close carton and let sit for 12 minutes or so or until most of the water has been absorbed by the potatoes). Drain the potatoes and pat dry with a paper towel. Toss the potatoes with the olive oil and pat onto preheated pizza stone in a flat, even layer. Bake at 500º until they brown.
Hummus: Meanwhile, make the hummus. Load all of the hummus ingredients into a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Add some of the reserved chickpea liquid, if needed, to achieve a smooth, fluffy texture.
Veggies: Toss the vegetables with the soy sauce, cumin, and a tablespoon of olive oil. Spread in a single layer on a jelly roll pan. Broil the vegetables on high until some charring occurs. Remove from oven.
While the vegetables are roasting, pour the balsamic vinegar into a small sauce pan. Cook over medium heat until reduced by half.
Assembly: Once potatoes are browned, remove stone with the potatoes on it from the oven. Spread the hummus mixture over the potatoes. Top with the grilled vegetables. Return the pizza and stone to the oven for a few minutes to heat the hummus and the rested vegetables. Drizzle balsamic reduction over the vegetables. Serve immediately.
I started with the vegetables, since they would take the longest, and they were the star of the show. I used what I had on hand. I originally wanted to have zucchini in the dish, but our zucchini failed this year. There was some strange bug that promoted a sort of rot on all of its fruits, so I went with the cucumber option. I had never roasted cucumbers before, but how different could they be from zucchini once roasted? And, the ones that I had were cute little ones, that could easily be cut into roastable pieces.
I took a giant yellow bell pepper and hacked it into large, squarish pieces. The onion, I cut into rough chunks as well. I left the mini portabellas whole for the most part. I halved the larger ones just to try and get their size to match the rest. I placed them all into a large bowl and tossed them with soy sauce, cumin, and olive oil, so they were all coated nicely. I spread them into an even layer on a sheet pan and broiled them until some of the pieces started to char and bubble.
To differenciate this from just a hash of sorts, I thought it needed a sauce. The usual combination for pizza is crust, sauce, toppings, and cheese, right? And, since we were forgoing the cheese, I didn't want to forgo any of the other elements. My sisters and I all love hummus, and it goes very well with vegetables, so I thought this would make a good "sauce" for my pizza. I chose a double garlic recipe that I had made before and really enjoyed. The creamy nuttiness of roasted garlic is accented by a small amount of raw garlic, making it zingy and delicious.
When my hash browns were done, I pulled the stone out of the oven. I started to attempt to remove the hash browns in one cohesive unit onto a serving dish, but there really wasn't any cohesion. If I had added an egg, there might have been, but eggs were not allowed on the Daniel Fast. Had I been thinking, I would have remembered that last week, I substituted flax and water to mimick an egg. That may have worked here. I left the hash browns on the stone and built my pizza there.
It was a little tricky spreading the hummus over the non-cohesive potatoes, but I just plopped spoonfuls over the hash browns and spread them gently with the back of a spoon until the "crust" was mostly covered. Next came the vegetables and the reduced balsamic vinegar. It was really pretty with the yellow pepper, red onions, and green cucumbers.
Jennifer apparently had the same frame of mind as I did, because she brought with her a pizza topped with roasted vegetables!
Back to the top
Back to the Hummus and Veggie Pizza recipe
No comments:
Post a Comment