Quinoa Pizza Crust with Raw Mango 'Marinara'

The inspiration for this came as my brothers arrived home from the gym with a Papa John's pizza in hand that was simply oozing with glorious melted cheese. 

Wait... I can't eat wheat... OR CHEESE. Twas an absolute tragedy.

Naturally, my heart sank... pizza is one of God's greatest gifts to humanity. Many nights I spent with my Canadian roommate, The L Word and pizza for company. Pizza also evokes blissful memories of wonderfully intoxicated events and midnight shenanigans. Le sigh...

As I buried my wounded ego in a mug of liquorice root tea and pondered the 'ignorance is bliss' phrase, I happened across this Cooking Light video which piqued my interest just a little.

I will not lie. I was initially a HUGE skeptic. A pizza crust with just quinoa, salt and baking powder?? This must be too good to be true.

Behold!!

Quinoa Pizza Crust with Raw Mango 'Marinara'

As you can see, it doesn't look half bad for a 'not-really-a-pizza'.


The video used the white quinoa but all I had on hand was red. Hence the burnt look. Which i liked. Made it look authentic hahaha. 

Topped the finished crust with my go-to raw marinara (cuz I did a raw vegan stint for a bit and am quite proud of my raw arsenal), a slew of veggies and voila!

A serving size is supposed to be half of this pizza. According to Cooking Light, 2 wedges of crust alone is supposed to give you 236 calories and 3.87 g of fat.

I inhaled the whole thing... Yes I'm a nutrition major, but I'm also a very hungry athlete!! :P

QUINOA PIZZA CRUST WITH RAW MANGO MARINARA

Quinoa Pizza Crust 

(adapted from Cooking Light)
makes one personal pan pizza crust


Ingredients
3/4 cup quinoa
1/2 cup filtered water
1 tsp baking powder (I use Dr. Oetker Baking Powder for it's gluten free awesomeness)
1/2 tsp salt

Preparation
Place the quinoa in a small bowl and cover it with filtered water. About 2 cups does the trick.
Soak the quinoa overnight or for at least 8 hours.
Drain and rinse throughly. Don't skip this step! It prevents any bitterness in the crust.
Add the quinoa, water, baking powder and salt to a blender and process for about 2 minutes or until a smooth batter forms. Keep scraping the sides of the blender to catch any stray quinoa bits.
Preheat an oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Line an 8 inch cake pan with parchment paper and grease lightly with coconut oil.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out with a rubber spatula.
Bake the crust for 15 minutes.
Remove the parchment, flip the crust, and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until crispy edges form.


Raw Mango Marinara

(adapted from my brain - hehe)
makes enough sauce for 2 pizzas

Ingredients
1 ripe Julie mango
1 pimento pepper
3 Roma tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
pinch of salt
a generous sprinkle of Italian herbs - dried basil, oregano, marjoram etc.

Preparation
Toss in a blender and pulse until smooth.
Alternatively, use a food processor for a more chunky sauce.

Notes
Top the finished crust with sauce, veggies and fresh garden basil and nom away my friends. You can even stick it back in the oven to warm it up for 10 more minutes, but when the pizza craving is real, it isn't even necessary. Here I used tomato slices, black olives, halved grapes, Italian large leaf basil and sprinkled with homemade vegan cashew cheese.

If you're going the lazier route and using bottled marinara that's been laced with high fructose corn syrup, you're on your own :P

As the Arabs would put it, 'Sa7ten!'