OK it's gluten-free, and nearly vegan. Aaaaaand, most importantly.......it tastes great. It's Anna Jones' cauliflower pizza crust, plus a very quick and gazpacho-y tomato sauce, plus some roasted fennel and onion, plus Kristy! Turner's sunflower sausage and cashew cheese. Yes I know that all sounds shitty as hell, just think of it as a pizza with lots of nutzzzzzzzz.
I have no idea what the solution for this lack of appetizing taxonomy is. You could try calling things a fennel/sunflower seed salsa and a cashew pesto if that helps, even though what they taste like is Italian sausage and some kind of umami cheese food product. I think that's my official first and last use of the word umami, I didn't like it at all.
By far the least shitty thing about all of this is that there's zero of that industrial fake meat/cheese taste anywhere and the whole thing is light as a feather and very much gives you the feeling of "I'm eating pizza!", minus one thing: the stretchiness of mozzarella. But these nut/seed pastes are just delicious and texturally pleasing and and and oh yeah easy to make. The sunflower seed business especially is a little miracle of alchemy, it doesn't taste like any one of the ingredients except fennel seed, it just feels right.
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cauliflower crust.
olive oil
100g finely ground almonds
100g oats
1 medium head of cauliflower
1 tsp dried oregano
2 large eggs, beaten
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a large baking tray with baking paper and drizzle some oil over it. Process the oats in the food processor briefly and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Chop the cauliflower into small florets and process in the food processor until you have a rice-like texture. Tip the cauliflower into the bowl with the oats and add the ground almonds and dried oregano. Give everything a good stir and season with salt and pepper.
Make a well in the middle of the cauliflower mixture and pour in the eggs. Mix until everything comes together. The dough will feel wet and won't be stretchy like regular pizza dough.
Place the dough onto the oiled baking tray and flatten it out until it's about 1/2 cm thick and slightly thicker around the edges. Place into the oven and bake for 20 minutes until it just starts to color. Remove and top.
sunflower-fennel seed salsa.
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups raw shelled sunflower seeds
1/4 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (dried/reconstituted rather than jarred in oil if you can)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
Saute onion for 3 minutes, add garlic, saute for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add all other items to a food processor and process until some of the sunflower seeds are broken down and the liquid ingredients are combined. Add the onion and garlic and pulse everything until it's the texture of ground beef, or slightly finer or coarser depending on your preference. Salt to taste.
cashew pesto blanco.
1/2 cup raw cashews, soaked in warm water for at least 1 hour and drained, water reserved
5–6 tbsp. reserved soaking water
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp white miso
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Combine and process to a cheese-like consistency. Refrigerate.
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