It all started with a quick email exchange with my best gal from high school. After the usual chitchat, there was a brief mention, almost a post script really, of a meal she'd been eating a lot of: "a spelt pizza dough crust, grilling it on the BBQ, then adding pesto, carmelized onions, and sliced figs. It's pretty darn good."
This was cooked on no ordinary suburban weber. Her barbecue is on a little brick terrace just off the dining room of their 1920's Spanish-style ranch surrounded by orange groves, nestled against the base of the rugged Topatopa Mountains in the Ojai Valley.
This is that edenic vision of California popularized by images on orange crates. The one that probably lured my great-great grandparents from the snowy plains of North Dakota. The figs would, of course, have come from the tree just behind you. And the scent of orange blossoms now mingles with the primal comfort of yeast and flour and water becoming bread over a charcoal fire. The evening has turned an impossible golden pink, a color that only exists right here at this moment of this day in late August.
This is the setting for that first smoky, sweet, luscious bite of imaginary pizza (Isn't the imaginary kind always the most nectar-like?)
Do you see it? Can you taste it?
Clearly, I had to have this pizza.
I have sampled a number of variations now in the very real world of my own house. There was the draft with the blue cheese which wasn't quite right, but now after a few more near misses, I am happy to report that I have realized the dream - my fantasy pizza.
First off, I decided to cook it inside, in a hot oven on a pizza stone, because I knew that the booming base from the alley and the neighbors yelling at each other would disrupt my California idyll. Out of spelt flour, I layered a whole wheat crust with a generous smear of spinach walnut pesto, thinly sliced red onions, a smattering of sliced figs, and dollops of cashew ricotta. It seems to me that you will need two recipes to make this yourself. These two saucy numbers will make enough for two large pizzas, or one large pizza and then dainty little open faced sandwiches all week.
Spinach Walnut Pesto
1 heaping handful of baby spinach (about 3 oz.)
a generous pinch of fresh rosemary
1 small handful toasted walnuts (a scant 1/4 cup)
a scant 1/4 c. nutritional yeast
1 clove garlic
generous pinch of salt
juice of half a lemon
generous swirl of olive oil (about 3 T.)
Whir all that in the food processor until smooth and creamy. Taste for salt and pepper.
Cashew Ricotta
1 box firm silken tofu
1/3 cup whole raw cashews
1 T. lemon juice
1/4 t. salt
Grind the cashews in the food processor until very fine. Add most of the tofu, the lemon juice, and salt, and process until smooth. Add the rest of the tofu and pulse quickly, leaving it a tiny bit chunky.
(The cashew ricotta recipe is adapted from Nonna's Italian Kitchen by Bryanna Clark Grogan. This is my favorite vegan cookbook. Go buy it. You can also find the ricotta recipe and a soy free alternative on Vegan.com where Bryanna's recipe for Italian Stuffed Crepes was included in their top ten recipe feature.)
