Thursday, December 4, 2008

Gourmet vegetarian pizza

Some things are too good not to share, like the recipe for this gourmet vegetarian pizza. I'd share the actual pizza but it hardly lasted long enough for me to take this photo. What you'll need to serve two people:
~ 2 pieces of pita bread
~ 3-4 tablespoons tomato paste
~ 1/2 eggplant (or a small one)
~ 1/2 red capsicum
~ 1/2 red onion
~ 6 button mushrooms
~ small block of goats cheese (or soy cheese, to make it vegan)
~ small handful of baby spinach leaves
~ one teaspoon golden syrup
~ olive oil

Then do what I did...
1. I had to defrost the pita bread (it lives in the freezer), so I set the oven to about 200 celcius and left the pita in there to thaw while it was heating up.
2. Meanwhile, I cut the half capsicum in half (or, err, quarters) then put it under a hot grill.
3. Slice the eggplant into thin rounds, cover with a small amount of olive oil (spray is even better) then put in the oven to cook. This is a good time to take out your pita bread and spread it with tomato paste, and leave to the side.
4. Next, slice the red onion in strips as thin as you can, mix up with a spoonful of olive oil and the golden syrup (that's all I had instead of brown sugar and it worked wonders for that slightly caramelised effect). Fry on a medium heat until soft, then set aside.
5. Slice up the mushrooms and fry in the leftover onion oil, then set aside.
6. The capsicum is probably black by now - which is good! - so turn off the grill and peel the skin off, then set aside.
7. Now you've done all the setting up, putting it together is easy. To your pita bread bases (which should be covered in tomato paste), add the cooked eggplant slices, then capsicum strips, then mushrooms, then red onion, then spinach leaves (uncooked) and finally crumble the goats cheese (or soy cheese) on top.
8. These only need 5 minutes in the oven, pretty much just to warm it all up. I turn off the oven a few minutes after putting them in, since the residual heat will finish the job quite nicely.
9. Take them out of the oven and eat.

I feel like I just wrote an essay, but I hope it brings someone joy - it really was so delicious!

6 comments:

CurlyPops said...

I've never thought of using golden syrup to caramelize onions. I'm gonna try that...thanks!

Unknown said...

It was a very happy accident - the syrup spreads so much easier than brown sugar anyway!

Miss Muggins said...

yum! We had gourmet pizza too- Tandoori Chicken with red onions, baby spinach and cherry tomatoes on pita bread. Must be pizza night!!!!!

Unknown said...

Cherry tomatoes are a good idea! I might try that next time.

Beth said...

YUMMO! Actually, we had similar veggie pizzas for dinner just last night, using leftover roast veggies. We had beetroot leaves (similar to spinach), roasted beets, pumpkin, onion and goats cheese. My favourite on veggie pizzas is always pumpkin (crazy but true!!)

Unknown said...

Pumpkin isn't crazy at all - or sweet potato! Even regular potato can be good, although I've never tried making it at home that way.