Aubergine pizza with cashew cheese

INGREDIENT:

Pizza ingredients:

• Plain pizza base (I bought a ready-made one that was chilled, not frozen - for frozen pizza bases you might have to adjust your baking time)
• 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp tomato paste
• Some extra virgin olive oil
• Oregano
• 6 slices of aubergine (roughly 5mm thick)
• BBQ seasoning
• Garlic powder
• Salt
• 1/2 a red onion, sliced
• 2 closed cup mushrooms, sliced
• 1 large ripe tomato, sliced
  
  Cashew cheese ingredients:
• 80g cashews
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F).

Evenly spread 1 1/2 – 2 tbsp on your pizza base. Also drizzle some olive, a little bit of salt, garlic powder and oregano on it.

Take the aubergine and cut off 6 slices roughly 5mm thick. Season them on both sides with BBQ seasoning, salt and garlic powder. Add some olive oil to a pan and fry them well on both sides. When done place them on a plate covered with a kitchen towel so it can soak up the excess oil.

Then continue making the cashew cheese. Put all ingredients into a powerful smoothie blender (if yours isn't very powerful you might have to soak the cashews for a few hours beforehand). Blend until you get a smooth paste.

Spoon the cashew cheese paste on your pizza base on top of the tomato sauce layer. Then slice up half a red onion, 2 closed cup mushrooms and 1 large ripe tomato and also put them on your pizza; drizzle some salt it too. Top it with the fried aubergine slices and sprinkle some more oregano on top.

Put in the oven for 10 minutes. Enjoy with a nice healthy salad (it's all about the balance :-)

And if you liked this pizza why not try my other vegan pizza with cashew cheese and artichokes. Find the recipe here.