We connected with Beatrice from https://www.instagram.com/thenourishedbowl/ recently on Instagram and were delighted when she agreed to collaborate with us. Beatrice cooks plant based recipes for her family and her Instagram page is full of wonderful recipes so check her out!

Beatrice says “Being vegan doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to pizza, green pesto gives you all the flavour here”

Here’s her recipe for a delicious vegan pesto pizza…

Method :

1. Heat your oven to 250C.
2. Bring a small pot of water to the boil.
3. Cut the stems off the broccoli. (Keep to use in stir fries, tofu scramble, green smoothies etc)
4. When the water is boiling, add the broccoli and leave for exactly 2.5 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water. Pat dry.
5. Spread the pesto all over the pizza base. (Note: If you are using the basil pesto from @thehappypear, this represents 1/2 pot). 6. With a vegetable peeler, cut about 8-10 ribbons off the courgette.
7. Distribute the broccoli, courgette ribbons, tomatoes and olives evenly over the pizza base.
8. Add a sprinkle of olive oil (or chilli oil if you like).
9. Place the pizza in the oven for 5 minutes.
10. Remove, add rocket leaves and fresh pepper and serve

Ingredients :

1 @pizza_da_piero pizza base.
90g green pesto (such as Basil Pesto from @thehappypear)
100g tenderstem broccoli.
1 small courgette
8-10 pitted black olives
4-5 small baby plum tomatoes, sliced
Handful of rocket leaves
Olive oil or chilli oil
Pepper

We’re foraging nettles to make a ‘super food’ pesto for our feature in www.irishcountrymagazine.ie July/August issue. Nettles grow abundantly in Ireland, but are more often looked at as weeds than the nutrient dense plants they really are. With high levels of Vitamins A and C, iron, and protein, they make a very tasty and free ingredient for your summer pizza.

Ingredients - Pesto

50g of young wild nettle leaves
50g of fresh basil leaves
50g parmesan cheese
1 garlic clove
50g pine nuts, toasted
50ml extra virgin olive oil

Method

1 - Bring a pot of water to the boil, then drop in the nettles and cook for 2 minutes.

2 - Drain and run the nettles under cold water. Squeeze out as much water as possible and chop. (if you don’t want to use nettles, you can use 100g of fresh basil)

3 - Put the nettles, fresh basil and the rest of the ingredients in a food processor and blitz to a rough paste.

4 - Transfer to a clean jar or bowl.