Best Thrive 'pizza' yet!

By: Matt Frazier

I’ve stayed away from fake meat products for a while now, so it’s been a long time since I’ve had any food in quotes.  The “pizzas” in  Thrive, however, are a different kind of quoted food, since they’re not masquerading as real pizzas.  “Pizza” just happens to be the most convenient way to describe a food made up of a crust, sauce, and topping.  Other than that, they’re nothing like traditional pizzas, and a hell of a lot healthier.

Yesterday, I made my favorite one yet: adzuki bean quinoa sesame pizza, using sprouted adzukis, my latest sprouting jar baby.

Granted, I bastardized it a little bit, nutritionally: During Snowmageddon II, I had made a huge batch of Mario Batali’s basic tomato sauce, so I used that for the sauce instead of one of the raw sauces from Thrive. Still, nothing bad in it.

Here’s the recipe from Thrive, printed, as usual, with permission.

Adzuki Bean Quinoa Sesame Pizza

Ingredients for the crust:

• 1 cup cooked or sprouted adzuki beans
• 1 cup cooked or sprouted quinoa
• 1/2 cup ground sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup coconut oil, hemp oil, or EFA oil blend
• 2 tbsp dulse flakes

Ingredients for the topping:

• 1 cucumber, sliced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 4 strips dulse
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1/2 cup chopped green onions

Sauce:  (See Spicy Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce recipe)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a food processor, process all the crust ingredients until mixture starts to ball up.  Lightly oil the baking tray with coconut oil.  Spread mixture on tray to about 1/4 inch thick (it can be thicker or thinner if you prefer).

Spread Spicy Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce on crust; add topping.

Bake for 45 minutes. (This will vary slightly depending on the moisture content of the vegetables and the desired crispness of the pizza.)

As you can see, it sort of had the texture of a firm meatloaf.  This might not sound terribly appetizing, but Erin and I both loved this “pizza”!  I kicked mine up a notch with some crushed red pepper and hot sauce.  Bam?

Coffee-quitting update

After two and a half weeks, my randomized plan to quit coffee is still working!  Just as outlined in the plan, I’m now drinking 1/5 the amount of caffeinated coffee I was before I started.  I didn’t really make plans for where to go from here.  I’m thinking I’ll stick with 1/5 caffeinated as the mean, still randomizing individual days, but start mixing in some intentional no-caffeine days where I drink herbal tea or something.

I did almost have a slip up: On Wednesday, I had reached the end of my portions of 2/5 caffeinated coffee (on average), and I got the idea in my head that it might be okay to have a cup of full-on high-octane java.  I pitched the idea to Erin, citing “snow day” as the special occasion to break the rules.  But she threatened to tell everyone on the blog, and made me up the randomized 1/5 caffeine portions.  I drank one, and afterward I was so glad I didn’t cheat on the plan.  I felt just enough of a coffee buzz, and under normal circumstances that’s where I’d crave more, drink it, and feel crappy and anxious the rest of the day.  But not this day, thanks to my wife.  Erin rules!

2013’s New ‘Shirts’ page

Owing again to all this extra time the blizzards have afforded me, I overhauled the “Shirts” page.  Now it has maps so you can watch the No Meat Athlete shirts take over the world!  Plus some great pictures people have sent me of them in their NMA shirts, and more are always welcome.  \