As some of you may already know I have a (healthy) obsession with pink food. Pink food simply makes me happy. I make pink food regularly in the form of smoothies, porridges, nice creams or even cake frosting, but I must admit I’m especially thrilled when I find ways to color savory food pink. Today it was time to color one of my all time favorite foods – I created a beetroot pizza with vegan almond feta.
Actually the only pink part of the pizza is covered with colors of the rainbow, but it’s there – a thin beetroot infused crust. The color is achieved by my trusted coloring agent beetroot powder, which is mixed in with all other dry ingredients of the crust. The pizza crust is thin and crumbly on the edges, and resembles a pie crust in both taste and texture. It goes amazingly well together with creamy tomato sauce, marinated beetroot and almond feta.
Almond feta, VEGAN feta will become another obsession of mine, I’m sure. I really can’t comprehend why I haven’t made this genius vegan cheese before. It is irresistible, mouth watering, perhaps even slightly addictive. On top of that it’s very easy to make! The recipe I used isn’t my own – I’ve combined two recipes, which both are based on this old recipe from the Vegetarian times. For my version of vegan feta I used almond meal instead of blanched almonds, and can really recommend this – it only took me a few seconds to blend all the ingredients. I let it sit overnight in a cheese cloth in the fridge, and today I baked my first vegan feta:) Voilà!
The creamy tomato sauce on top of the pizza is no ordinary tomato sauce. I was yearning for a softer sauce to go with marinated beetroot and feta so I simply blended cashew cream with tomato purée and some spices. As for the beetroot – I marinated thin slices overnight in the same vegetable marinade I used in my healthy orange vegetable burger. A rich umami taste is well secured with this trick!
I love pizza as PIZZA, but I also really love pizza salad, or salad pizza:) Today I re-created one of my Instagram pics, only this time with some wintery tones, and of course matching pizza and salad colors again. So this is how we eat pizza at the Berry house!
ps. I made this pizza into a more kid-friendly meal by removing some of the beetroot toppings and adding bell peppers (red and yellow) on top.
Recipe featured on Freefromheaven.com
- Vegan almond feta
- 1,5 cups almond meal
- 2,5 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp garlic flakes (or ⅛ tsp garlic powder or 1 small garlic clove)
- ¼ tsp quality salt (I use pink Himalayan)
- ½ cup water
- Beetroot marinade
- 2 tbsp tamari sauce
- 1 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp maple syrup
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- ¼ tsp paprika (mild)
- ¼ tsp garlic flakes or ⅛ tsp garlic powder
- 1 thinly sliced small beetroot
- Tomato cashew-sauce
- ½ cup cashew cream (1 cup cashews blended with ~1/3 cup water)
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- ½ tsp maple syrup
- ½ tsp paprika (mild)
- ½ tsp garlic flakes (or ⅛ tsp garlic powder)
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- ¼ tsp quality salt
- Beetroot pizza crust
- ½ cup white rice flour
- ½ cup buckwheat flour
- 2 tbsp potato starch
- 1 tbsp beetroot powder
- 4 g active dry yeast
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup lukewarm water
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp coconut oil (room temperature)
- Pizza toppings
- 1 small thinly sliced marinated
- ~1/3 cup cubed vegan almond feta
- ⅓ small red onion, thinly sliced
- fresh arugula
- Preparations, vegan almond feta: blend all feta ingredients well together in a high-speed blender or food processor until smooth.
- Line a colander or sieve with a double (or triple) cheesecloth and spoon the almond mixture into the cheesecloth. Bring the sides and corners of the cloth up tightly around the mixture. Squeeze out extra liquid and tie the cloth firmly with an elastic band. Place the colander or sieve onto a bowl and put into the fridge to drain overnight (or ~12 hours).
- Preparations, beetroot marinade: mix all marinade ingredients well together. Place thin beetroot slices in a glass jar and pour marinade on top. Put the lid on and shake well until all slices are covered in marinade. Leave to marinate in the fridge overnight or at least 1 hour.
- Preparations, tomato cashew sauce: soak ~1 cup of cashews in a jar filled with water (and pinch of salt) for 3-4 hours.
- After soaking, drain and rinse well. Blend together with ⅓ cup water to form a silky smooth cream. Add more water if needed to get the blender rolling (and for desired creamy consistency).
- Pour ½ cup of cashew cream into a bowl and combine well with all tomato sauce ingredients.
- Vegan almond feta: Preheat oven to 200C/390F.
- Unwrap the almond feta and place it gently into a small baking pan lined with parchment paper. The feta will be very soft at this point.
- Mold the feta into a small round thick “pizza” and bake for ~40 minutes or until feta turns golden brown and is firm. The feta becomes harder the longer you bake it.
- Beetroot pizza crust: mix dry ingredients (flours, starch, beetroot powder, salt and dry yeast).
- Add warm water, maple syrup and Extra virgin olive oil and mix well.
- Mix in coconut oil (with hands if needed) to form an easily moldable dough ball (pink!).
- Keep the dough ball ~30 min in a bowl (covered with a cloth or plastic wrap).
- Preheat oven to 200C/390F.
- Knead the dough for a few times and start flattening it (with hands) to form a round pizza shape.
- Use a rolling pin to get it evenly spread and thin.
- Bake in the oven on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for ~5 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and spread tomato cashew sauce on top.
- Toppings: remove beetroot slices from the marinade and place on top of the pizza. NOTE: The leftover marinade liquid can be used later to marinate more vegetables/tofu or you can even add it into a pasta sauce in place of other condiments.
- Cut almond feta into cubes and place on top of the beetroot.
- Add thinly sliced red onions.
- Bake in the oven for another 15 minutes.
- Enjoy pizza with a colorful salad of greens, bell peppers, red cabbage and cauliflower or your choice of rainbow vegetables.
See recipefor instructions.
I was wondering when something pink would make an appearance around here, I love your beet obsession 🙂 The almond feta is a fantastic idea! As soon as I read that you used almond meal I could totally imagine that working, it has the right texture. Lovely recipe Tiina, the photos of each step are fun to see and I love the half lettuce-y half not look 🙂
Hey Tiina, so nice to see you here! Thanks for visiting my blog too! This looks like a great recipe 🙂
Thank you<3 I love your blog, so many great tips and recipes:) Will visit it more often now that I'm also blogging. Have a great day:)