Roast Squash & Goats Cheese Quinoa Pizza - A Pizza Not Just for Weekends

Big big fan of pizza,who isn't?, well except my daughter (THE fussiest toddler on the planet) But it's usually keep for weekends as I'm thinking of the fat, calories and carbs!!! But then the other day I was reading my new Donna Hay book, Fresh and Light, where a quinoa crust tart was featured, so I got to googling quinoa pizza. I was thinking, if a tart base can be made from quinoa, then surely a pizza base can be fashioned in relatively the same manner.

I stumbled across a website called Simply Quinoa, and I was blown away by the variety of recipes on the website, all of which contain quinoa. If you are a fan of quinoa or looking for some ideas to replace your carbs with quinoa, then I suggest you check out the website. I'm highly impressed!!!

It's from Simply Quinoa that I got the recipe for my pizza base. I did use red quinoa (though apparently white quinoa is better), as this was all I had in the house at the time, but it worked out brillantly. I've used gluten free pizza bases in the past, and most are disgusting. I was very skeptical of the result in using quinoa would have on the finished product, but I needn't have worried. I kept saying to my husband 'wow,wow, I can't believe it' as I was eating the pizza. What's more,Alan (fearer of all that is alternative and healthy) agreed it was pretty tasty.

So here is the recipe as taken from Simply Quinoa for the basic base Simply Quinoa's Ultimate-quinoa-pizza-crust/

Serves 2 (or Serena)

Ingredients

For the Pizza crust

• 3/4 cup of quinoa, soaked for 6-8 hours
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

For the pizza topping

• 1 tbsp of passata
• Roasted cubes of butternut squash
• 50g soft goats cheese
• 1 tbsp grated mozzarella
•  1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp  black pepper
• Pinch of dried chilli flakes
• 1 tsp chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees and lay oiled baking paper on a baking tray.
2. Rinse the quinoa and put in a blender along with the other ingredients. I used my Nutri Ninja, making it the work of mere moments. The mixture is like a pancake batter.
3. Pour the batter out onto the baking paper trying to keep a circle shape.
4. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn it over and bake for a further 15 minutes.
5. Spread the tomato sauce over the base and scatter the toppings over the sauce. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes, until the pizza is ready. Then enjoy.

You can use any ingredients once your pizza base is made, everyone has their one favorite pizza toppings. 

I'm even thinking that this crust would also work as well sweet as it does savory, so watch out for my quinoa apple tart or a nutella smore pizza!!!!