INSTANT DEEP DISH PIZZA

Here's the thing I missed most when I became a semi-fundamentalist vegan -- Pizza!

I now live in Chicago and voluptuous, orgasmic, deep-dish pizza is ingrained in our DNA. I especially missed it on those nights when I’d had one-or-a-half-dozen too many and it would’ve be oh!-so easy to click on my Grubhub account to have an ooey-gooey deep-dish, Chicago-style vegetarian-with-pineapple insouciantly appear within the hour. . . 

. . . sigh . . . We’ve all been there. Don’t you dare say you haven’t.

Yes, we have vegan options. There’s the ever-present cheese-less roasted vegetable pizza perched among the others at Trader Joe’s. Or, you could buy a ready-made crust and forge out with your own. . . .

But wait! That vegan pizza at TJ’s turned out to be my savior. (Yes, it tasted like unsalted spackle when I tried it on its own), but let’s bring it home to dress up. With a few alterations, our inexpensive little spackle-puppy can become our convenient, satisfying, juicy vegan pig-out, go-to deep dish pizza that would thwart any Grubhub temptation. 

Our little secret to Chicagoans: Let our veggies become the "deep" part of the pizza.

Here’s what you always need to have on hand:
(Seriously. Always have this on hand.)

• A pound of frozen chopped spinach.
• A 10-oz. container of fresh crimini mushrooms (or any brown mushrooms) in your freezer.
• 1 28-oz. can of marinara sauce. You’ll need half.
• “Parmegan cheese” in your fridge. As much as you like. (Blend 1 cup roasted, salted cashews in a food processor with ¼ cup nutritional yeast, and ¼ tsp onion powder until crumbly. If using raw cashews, toast them in a dry pan. If using unsalted cashews, salt the mixture to taste. You get the idea. Keep this on hand in your fridge as you would the nasty ready-made Parmesan cheese we used to eat from the green container.)

1. Remove the frozen spackle pizza from the container, line a baking tray with foil and spray it with vegetable spray, and place the pizza on it.

2. Thaw the spinach under running warm water in a colander, toss in the mushrooms, and squeeze the hell out of it with your hands, grinding up the mushrooms. Squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Give it a good sprinkle of salt and mix it in. Don’t forget that.

3. Pour half the 28-oz can of marinara on the pizza, spread with the back of a spoon to cover; mound with the spinach-mushroom mixture and coax it to the edges. Cover the pizza. Pile it on.

4.  Sprinkle liberally with the “parmegan cheese” – as much as you like. Douse with olive oil and bake twice as long as the directions say.

Thick, juicy, indulgent, vegan pizza results.

Let's review: Keep a cheap spackle-pizza in the freezer along with frozen, chopped spinach, frozen cartons of crimini mushrooms, and marinara sauce in the pantry. (How hard can that be?) Finally, keep “parmegan” cheese on hand in the fridge. 

Trust me. You’ll never be unsatisfied; never without a decadent pizza again. 

Deep Dish Vegan Goodness!