SEEDS has been the praxis by which so many of my food-adventures and foodie-friendships have begun. So, it was only natural that a Triangle Love post would feature folks I have met through this inspiring organization. While I am still waiting for a SEEDS youth coordinator to write a piece on “food deserts,” with some of the youth, (ahem, hint, hint), this month’s Triangle Love post features Chris and Marisa—two fellow SEEDS volunteers.

I met Chris when he arrived at SEEDS one Saturday just in time for the lunch the youth prepare each week after working in the garden and selling produce at the Durham Farmers Market. One of the youth hipped me to Chris’ ploy (that he, of course, denies wholeheartedly)—“he always brings his compost to the garden right around the time we are going to eat.”

“Convenient,” I thought. But, what I should have thought was, “Cool!” Because that’s what he, and his girlfriend Marisa are—just crazy cool. Chris was hilarious and liked my food (which always gets you cool points in my book) and the next we met up at SEEDS, he was there with Marisa, who—lucky for me—was off from the hospital that day. I instantly loved Marisa. Maybe it was because I found out she was from New England like me. Perhaps it was her incredibly positive energy. Or maybe it was because she had mentioned that she loved food blogs and would totally start one if she had the time. I offered them the chance to do a guest post on Como Water and the rest is history.

Marisa and Chris, who also have a community garden plot at SEEDS, are both vegan, which made it easy for them to contribute one of their great meals to the Como Water repertoire. Their pizza completely symbolizes cooking the way I think cooking should be done—improvisational, local, sustainable, veggie friendly, and, claro que si, delicioso! So, with that, meet Marisa and Chris (and prepare to laugh)!

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Without further adieu… the actual recipe:

Gluten Free Vegan Three Bean Sweet Potato Pizza or (GFVTBSSP)

In order to guarantee a delicious treat from this meal, you have to adhere religiously to all of the following directions

1. Do not follow the directions.

We prefer our recipes to be simple and adaptable.  Admittedly, this pizza recipe asks for quite a few ingredients some of which you may not have at home (unless you’re Tiffany), so use it as a guide.  This is our cooking style.  We make whatever we have around (often with a generous helping of olive oil) and hope it tastes wonderful.  If nothing else, it’s proof (at least it WAS proof for us for one night) that sweet potatoes and beans can test amazing together on a gluten free, vegan pizza.

All approximations:

• 1 Gallon of olive oil (okay maybe not quite, but don’t be shy with this stuff)
• 1/3 Cup of pre-soaked kidney beans
• 1/3 Cup of pre-soaked black beans
• 1/3 Cup of pre-soaked pinto beans
• 1 Delicious (settle for no less) onion, chopped
• More olive oil (I mean this thing is going to be dripping)
• Bunch of tatsoi (happened to be the greens we got from our CSA farm share)
• 1 Bag of Daiya mozzarella shreds
• 1 Package of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust
• 1/4 Cup of ground flax seed (used as an egg substitute in the crust)
• 2 Sweet Potatoes
• Maria Ryan’s homemade pasta sauce (or other sauce if your mother’s name isn’t Maria Ryan)
• 1 Summer Squash
• Mucho Garlic

The dough makes two crusts, so you might as well make two pizzas.

Timing is everything (like coincidentally showing up at SEEDS around noon on Saturdays).  It’s helpful to save time with this recipe to do some of the tasks concurrently.  To this end, a partner would be nice, but of course, not necessary.

The crust is a two step process, with waiting, so start there.

Follow the directions on the back of the package.  Once you’re done you need to let the dough rise for 20 minutes before you bake it without the ingredients to crustify it.

Next is the sweet potatoes.  Chop them up.

The smaller the better (for cooking time purposes).  LATHER them in olive oil, and garlic, put them in a big bowl, and then put it in the oven at the heat dictated by the pizza crust.  You’ll take them out later once the crust is done with its first round or if they get soft enough prior.  Remember they’ll continue to cook with the pizza a bit, so they don’t have to be super soft.

Next, cook the beans.  We use a pressure cooker, which saves a lot of time, and energy.  Hooray!

Next, if the dough has risen for 20 minutes, grease up a couple cookie sheets, or pizza stones, or whatever you can put a pizza on.  The dough can be hard to spread, so make sure to keep adding water to your hands.  It’ll be malleable like clay, and all of the water will bake out in the oven, so don’t be stingy.

While the beans, potatoes, and crust are going, sautee whatever veggies you have in enough garlic to take out one of those damn adorable tweens from twilight with a single breath (please).

Hopefully, if you’ve timed everything right, which of course you didn’t, take out the crusts, add the sauce and all the toppings, including the beans and sweet potatoes, and top with delicious and decadent, dairy-free, daiya cheese.

Bake pizzas, and a few minutes before they’re ready add, if you have them, some greens on top.

Viola!  Send praise (and money) to Chris and Marisa for this ingenious (not really) pizza concoction.  Don’t forget to follow all of the rules!

Finished product:

In reality, we made, and often do, way too many toppings for the pizza real estate we were working with.  We ended up eating the mixture of toppings on its own for days afterwards, and it was delicious.

Para el amor de la comida

P.S. Another favorite trick of mine with pizzas is to use avocado as a base instead of tomato sauce.  Try it, you’ll never go back.

P.P.S. Happy April fooling!

P.P.P.S. All the pics (those that didn’t make the cut)