Suck On This Fukkers : Fruits and Veggies Monday

Hola mi amigos y amigas!

I couldn’t let another Monday come and go without throwing down some Fruits and Veggies stuff. I know I missed the last few weeks and can see lots has happened since I last danced in @lenasveganliving ‘s Fruitsandveggiesmonday .

First of all, you got the almighty @plantstoplanks hosting, did y’all catch that she published her own cookbook? Yeah, she’s pretty big time. Then, you have a gang of new contenders like @paleotwist, making noise with her chronic tacos and her newbie rep. She puts out a bunch of actifit posts too, letting us all know that she’s a bad mama-jama!

I also see @fitinfun has joined the crew and is this weeks honorable judge. “Way to go my friend. It’s about time you got in on this Monday funday”.

And I’m just sitting over here cooking up a storm but not actually documenting anything… what’s my problem? Well, I did document this one thing and hopefully it’ll suffice for my big debut back into the coolest contest for any Monday.

Quinoa Crusted Veggie Pizza

Mrs. @cicisaja, this is for you…

As some of you may know, I’m on a pretty restrictive diet lately due to some digestive issues, which has really cramped my cooking/creating style. That is until we settled a bit in Costa Rica and I got all inspired again. Yeah, I have to get more creative than usual but I say “game on britches”.

Back to the pizza… First, you want to soak about a cup of quinoa in 2-3 cups of water. Just pour those little suckers into a bowl the night before you want the pizza. Yea, yea, yea, I know, this pizza takes a little foresight.

Cover with plastic wrap, set in the fridge and enjoy your sweet dreams of gluten free pizza crust 😉.

Ingredients

Crust:

1 Cup Quinoa (soaked and rinsed well)
1/2 Tsp. Baking powder
1/2 Tsp. Pink Himalayan sea salt
1/2 Tsp. Garlic powder
1/4 Cup water
1 tbsp. Olive oil

Hold up, wait a minute… Once the Quinoa has soaked over night the crust comes together pretty quickly so let’s take a minute to consider our sauce. Of course it has to be from scratch and since @dandays and I just bought a 10lb. bag of tomatoes from a dude on the side of the road, I’d guess it’s going to be a tomato sauce.

Look at these juicy little bites of red perfection. I must say, Costa Rica knows how to tomato. The flavor is just right.

Now, I’ve shared my tomato sauce in a previous post so if you’re interested you can follow that recipe here. Otherwise, use whatever sauce you fancy…

Remember that thing I said about foresight? So far you need to soak the quinoa the night before, and I like to start my sauce in the morning so it can simmer most of the day. We’ve all watched the sopranos right? Sauce isn’t sauce unless it’s simmered for 48 hrs. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I don’t make the rules. It’s the only way to make real gravy.

Shoot… and did I mention that pizza night also so happened to be granjero del agricultur night? That definitely means what you think it means… farmers market night. Check it out…

With little in the name of toppings in our refrigerator, I took another break to hit the local farmers market and tantalize my appetite. Of course @dandays joined me, both of us are mesmerized by the local markets here.

I knew I wasn’t going to put a carrot on our pizza but I definitely wanted to get a picture of these gorgeous looking orange roots. I mean, don’t they look perfect?

Okay, strawberries aren’t going on the pizza either but what can I say? I get side tracked when it comes to fresh food.

The lettuce is a necessity for the amount of salads I’ve been eating lately, but that’s not going on our pizza either.

Now, this dude is the man right there. He’s known as Chico Especia a.k.a Spice Guy. I had no idea how spoiled I was in the U.S. with my plethora of spices. The stores here don’t carry my usual roundup so meeting Chico really boosted my cooking game here. By the way, should you ever come across Spice Guy yourself, refrain from calling him Chico Especia. I just made that up and am not sure how cool he’d think that name was. Haha…

… poco de esto y poco de eso… this guy is like magic.

Nope! We aren’t having an avocado pizza either. Would you get a load of that price tag? Hopefully, one day soon the money will stop looking like play money and 3500 colones will have more meaning to me. 🤦🏼‍♀️

I mean, it’s the same colors as Monopoly money… moving along…

This is our haul… and also this…

Surely I can find something to top our pizza with now :).

Upon getting home I quickly poured some sauce into my ninja to blend smooth because now I’m pretty hungry. Preheat your oven to 400 F while you’re at it.

Set that aside and grab your soaked quinoa…

Rinse those little guys and use a mesh strainer rather than the colander that I have. I lost some to the oversized holes at the bottom but don’t worry, I McGyver’d a contraption using a dinner plate 🤓.

Add the quinoa and all of the crust ingredients to your food processor and then quickly switch to your blender. My blender worked much better in this situation than my processor. If you like learning the hard way like me, go ahead and start out with your processor. Screw it, dishes shmishes :)

Now pour the pancake like batter on a greased cookie sheet and try to make a heart out of it. C’mon, y’all can see that right? Sprinkle with a little garlic powder and put in the oven for 8 minutes.

Flip it over like a crepe (not a creep, a crepe. Pronounced like grape but with a C) and get to work on prepping your toppings.

There you go, look at all of that goodness!

When the crust is ready, sauce that beast. Don’t be stingy either, give her some love.

My first layer of topping was a carefully chosen sliced zucchini. Yeah, I know, you can see that heart shape I was telling you about now…

Oh yeah, garlic and basil are my 2nd layer topping. This basil is so good too. I told ya, Chico Especia doesn’t mess around.

Hey, the more onions and peppers the better in my book. Did I tell you that we also got a 8lb bag of peppers from the same dude we got the tomatoes from? Yep, so every meal this week has an abundance of peppers and tomatoes in it 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Alright, so layer 4 is getting serious. Without any cheese to hold these veggies in place I carefully and systematically spooned more sauce over layer 3 to give something for layer 4 to adhere to. That broccoli and tomato is going nowhere…

Last but not least, I added some spinach and whatever else was left on my prep plate. The only reason I didn’t shake some red pepper flakes on top is because I use that to make my pizza sauce. The kick was there trust me.

Once in the oven I bake for 8-10 minutes or until the veggies are cooked on top, and assemble two cucumber tomato salads as quickly as I can. I must say, the chopped basil, lime squeeze, shake of pink salt and fresh tomato really make these salads killer.

Would you look at that? A gorgeous pie for two. I cut this masterpiece in quarters and plated us up. We both sat down to gobble it up with a fork and knife and although I’m a huge “you eat pizza with your hands” advocate, this crust is more of a fork and knife situation. Just sayin…

Thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope this short and sweet #fruitsandveggiesmonday post has given you a taste of what’s been happening with us during our move so far. I’m looking forward to checking out all of your Monday creations…

Pura Vida ✌️