zucchini pizza with homemade lemon herb tofu goat cheese and gluten-free crust

By gocatgo

underneath it all is a gluten-free crust made of brown rice flour. it’s much easier to make than wheat ones because you can’t over work the dough, and there’s no kneading required. plus it’s easy to cook it up nice and crispy if that’s what you’re into.

Ingredients

• gluten-free brown rice flour crust:
• 1 c warm water
• 1 1/2 tsp dry active yeast
• 1/4 c turbinado sugar
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 c brown rice or sweet rice flour
• some corn meal
• lemon herb tofu goat cheese:
• 10 ounces firm tofu
• 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp agar agar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp dry dill
• 1/2 tsp dry oregano
• 1/2 tsp dry basil
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• toppings:
• 1 large yellow zucchini
• 1 large green zucchini
• a drizzle of olive oil
• a squeeze of lemon juice
• salt
• fresh ground black pepper

Details

Servings 2
Adapted from sweetbeetandgreenbean.net

Preparation

Step 1

begin with the crust. activate the yeast in the warm water with sugar. let sit for about 15-20 minutes until it’s foamy. then add in the oil, salt and rice flour. stir until there are no lumps, and stir all you want – since there’s no gluten there’s not worry of over working the dough! but you don’t have to knead it or anything, just cover it and leave it in a warm place for about an hour to let rise a bit.

then start in on the goat cheese. the key to this recipe is the agar agar – you could change most other ingredients but the agar is what gels everything and softens when it’s cooked. it’s a gelatin substitute that is derived from seaweed, available at most health food stores or online.

blend all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. this may take a while if you don’t have a powerful blender but just be patient. when blended the consistency should be slightly thick like a dip.

put the contents of the blender into a medium-sized pot on the stove over medium heat. cook for about 3 minutes while stirring. this does two things – cooks off some of the water to create a thicker consistency, and activates the agar so it will actually gel.

when you’re done put it all into a clean jar or other container at least about 8-10 ounces big. stick it in the fridge to let it cool down and thicken.

then you can chop up your zucchini. i like to use yellow and green zucchini fresh from the farmers market, but you can just use one kind if that’s all you have. it would probably also be good with thinly sliced eggplant! but my experience with tomatoes slices is that they are too juicy so the whole thing is too mushy.

once your crust has had time to rise and your goat cheese has had time to cool, you can preheat your oven to 425F and start to assemble everything.

you’ll notice the dough won’t get much bigger like a crust made with wheat flour, but you should notice a bit of inflating marked by slight cracks. using yeast and letting it rise will a make some bubbles in the crust and give it a little softness like a normal pizza crust. but if you want a really crispy crust turn the oven up to 500F and cook a few minutes less.

scoop out half of the dough to make 2 smaller but easier to handle pizzas. i haven’t tried to make all the dough into one large pizza but it would probably work if you had big enough a pan. for this i just used cookie sheets dusted with corn meal.

grease your hands with a bit of olive oil and pick up that half of the dough. it has a strange crumbly texture but just gently hand it back and forth between your hands until it’s a smooth ball. then gently set it on the baking sheet and begin to gently press it out in an even flat circle. you an add more oil to your hands it it begins to stick.

once it’s the size you’d like, get out the goat cheese – which will have thickened to a solid mass. crumble it with a spoon or fork and sprinkle the crumbles generously across the crust.

top with the zucchinis in any pattern you’d like, then a drizzle of olive oil, a squirt of lemon, and a little salt and pepper. that’s all! pop it in the oven for 10-15 minutes, but watch closely as the crust will easily burn at those temperatures.