Pizza Party (on the healthiest vegan crust!)

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Hey babes,

So, I have a secret. I don’t watch many TV shows or movies but I could watch Youtube all day, or at least listen to it in the background. I love listening to people debate ethics, tell stories, dish gossip, and talk about their diets. Right now, I follow along listening to the two main camps: the high-carb vegans, and the keto/low carb crowd. Though the vegans will sometimes have some infighting or debates on the merits of different styles of eating (high-fruit, oil-free, going off the wagon, etc), I don’t have any major criticisms of the community, and like to listen to them talk about studies, and their recipes and routines.

The other side, however, seems to exist oftentimes on a wagon wheel, constantly struggling with adherence, success, failure, and frustration, both with themselves and others. Among that group, the commenters (aka, everyone, including their audience) tend to mention three things: protein, and why it is CRITICAL for weight loss (I’ll save that hill to die on for another day), carbs are what make you fat/cause diabetes and other health problems, and carbs are what make people fail, by allowing themselves to be tempted by those sultry little beauties, and then by consuming them.

Okay, okay, I’ve composed myself, I promise. But as anyone who has talked to me or read the site before knows, I’m very pro-carbohydrates, but in the way that I’m pro plant-food: it needs to be whole, or minimally processed at the very least. And frankly, carbs have been made a scapegoat for a crime they didn’t commit.

Quick, when you think of “carbs,” what do you think? If you’re somewhat reasonable, you probably think potatoes, pasta, bread straight out of the gate. Absolutely correct, though depending on the types of flours you’re using in those last two, they could be heavily refined carbs, or more wholesome, whole-grain varieties. But chances are, that you could add lots of other things to that list, especially if I tell you to think of “bad carbs”. Candy, naturally, especially chocolate (what’s with everyone’s obsession with chocolate??), chips, donuts, French fries, burgers (with their deadly, deadly buns) and PIZZA.

I’ve got a whole, gigantic rant coming that will address the “carbs” versus carbohydrate-rich foods debate, but for now let me just tease you with this: most of the foods you think of as carbs are either extremely refined carbs, or, more commonly, they are actually high-fat foods. Sure, they may have carbs, but I would bet a pretty hefty amount of money or physical labor that they are high in fat as well. Here’s a relevant example: pizza.

I’m picking on this topic because it gets a lot of heat, especially recently on the Youtube channels I follow. I have heard more than one person criticize people for eating pizza, only to villainize it for all the “carbs” and sugar. To their defense, a few people have pointed at the fat as well, but it’s always as a secondary issue, lesser to the INDEFENSIBLE CRIME of eating a crust. Well, now, let’s take a look.

Here we have the most popular pizza at the most popular pizza chain in the US. I chose 10” because it is similar in size to the pizza I’m going to teach you how to make shortly.

Hey, will you look at that, babes, Mama already did the percent calculations for you, and put it into a convenient little graph. Rest easy. I know—if you’re in that keto crowd math can be hard through the fog. I’ve got you.

So, I chose thin crust because it is comparable to the crust I’m going to teach you shortly, and frankly I thought it would be the most generous view of the macronutrient breakdown. Boy was I wrong.

Right out the gate, we’ll look at calories. Though there is debate on the efficacy of using calories as the end-all-be-all of weight loss, using them as a reference for comparison will prove illustrative to my point. The serving you see here is ¼ of the whole 10” pizza, which is considered a small. It certainly isn’t advertised as a one-person pizza, but it’s only two inches bigger than their personal size, so you infer what you want from that. For the sake of argument, let’s look at the whole shebang, which comes in at a whopping 1200 calories. Many dieters tend to aim for 1200-1500 calories for their daily total, particularly if they are female, short, and over 30 (just based on basal metabolic rates for those groups). If you happen to be one of those people, there is your entire day.

Going in deeper though, it becomes immediately obvious what point I’m trying to make. This pizza not only gets the majority of its calories from fat, it smashes through the daily recommendations for fat, saturated fat, and sodium, the leading contributors to heart disease, hypertension and stroke. It is also important to keep in mind that those recommendations are based on the USDA daily value recommendations, which say that 28% of your calories should come from fat. In the world of WFPB, that number is halved, and as little as possible of it should come from saturated fats.

What’s a pizza-lover to do? If you’re counting calories, it’s too high. If you’re counting carbs, still too high (even if it isn’t the main calorie source). If you’re concerned about fat and sodium (which you should be), it is a definite no. Don’t fret, your friendly narrator has planned for this. No cuisine is above alteration. Let me show you a better way…

The Best Damn WFPB Personal Pizza

So, this recipe is built on the shoulders of three recipes, like one of those giant robots made up of smaller robots. One I can’t take any credit for, but I highly recommend you try (who doesn’t love oil-free cashew cheese). The sauce I posted before this for ease of navigation. The last we will delve into here: the crust.

UPPER CRUST AFFAIR

The crust is compiled of three ingredients aside from seasoning: riced cauliflower, whole wheat flour, and ground flax seeds. Before you start in on me about the cauliflower (“HA, WHOLE FOOD PLANT BABE IS CARB-PHOBIC TOO, THAT’S WHY SHE MAKES A CAULIFLOWER CRUST”), let me explain, in the simplest terms. Whole grains are not bad for you, but vegetables are total rock stars. Cauliflower specifically is high in vitamin C, K, and folate (just to name the top three), as well as four classes of antioxidants, choline, and sulforaphane, the cancer-hunting beast that lends its powers to kale and helps it reach its trendy superfood status.

The whole wheat flour still has a role to play, nutritionally. Though it is denser and more refined, it’s also got that equal part fiber/protein punch you see in many grains and has a big ol’ dose of iron packed in there as well. If you’re sensitive to gluten, I would recommend swapping in oat flour. It’s similar nutritionally to wheat in terms of vitamins and minerals, and you can make it by throwing oats in the blender.

I’ve talked at length about flax seeds before, so I’ll try to spare its blushes, but remember that it is a food that is mostly fiber (both insoluble and soluble), a great plant-based source of omega-3, and touted to fight heart disease, weight gain, diabetes, and even cancer. They’re truly wonderful. I try to eat them daily, even if it means dropping them into a smoothie, sprinkling them over a salad, or mixing them into peanut butter to eat with sliced fruit.

The Recipe Proper

Okay, babe, you’ve been very patient. Time for how things really go down. First thing first, preheat that oven, and as important, preheat that pizza stone. You certainly can make pizza without one, but I use mine so often for getting things super crispy in the oven, I would highly recommend getting one. They come at every price point, but this one is nice and big and has any accessory you could want.

While that’s heating, find a small bowl and mix your flax meal with water so it can start to thicken. By the time you’ve done the other prep work for your crust, it should be about right to work as a binder.

Next step, grab your bag of frozen riced cauliflower and throw that bad boy in the microwave. Again, you can rice a whole head of cauliflower if you want, but I find I can get boatloads of riced cauliflower from the freezer section for cheap, and save my heads of cauliflower for other recipes. And it will save you a ton of time with no additives. Just make sure to check that label for other ingredients.

Once it is out and cool, you can drain it in a clean dish towel, or if you are the sort of person that makes your own nut milks, you can use a nut bag for a super easy time. I originally got mine to make oat milk, and it has been such a solid investment.

Somewhere during all that, usually between mixing the flax binder and waiting for the cauliflower to both heat and cool, I start my pizza sauce on the stove top if I don’t already have a jar in the fridge. Literally the hardest part is opening cans and chopping garlic, and not splashing your entire work surface with tomato when it inevitably heats up too quickly.

After that it’s pretty simple, though it should be warned that the crust is extremely sticky! I would say it is absolutely necessary to put it between two pieces of parchment paper when you’re rolling it out. When I went to bake it, I dusted the layer not glued to parchment paper with corn meal, and put it parchment side down for 15 minutes, then flipped it and put the cornmeal against the stone. At 25 minutes, I pull it out, gently peeled off the parchment paper, and decorate! Beyond that, it’s about ten more minutes to the final countdown, depending on how thick you make your many toppings (we like our toppings thick in the House of Babes). So, give her a try, and let me know how it turns out!