Punchy spinach pesto pizza

‘My love affair with pesto has been going on for as long as I can remember – I’ll put it on anything and everything. When I realised that you can actually make it with any green vegetable you have lying around, it changed my life – and that helps save food waste, too. My mission for this pizza recipe was to get delicious green vegetables into each element, and I think the spinach works really well in the base. The mixture of lemon and crème fraîche is light and zingy, brilliantly offsetting the heat of chilli flakes and savoury depth of the pesto.’

SERVES 6 PREP 40 mins plus 2 hrs proving COOK 1 hr MORE EFFORT V

400g spinach

7g sachet fast-action dried yeast 500g strong white bread flour,

plus extra for dusting

For the spinach pesto large bunch of basil

50g pine nuts, toasted

50g parmesan or vegetarian

alternative, grated 100ml olive oil

1 lemon, zested and juiced 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped For the toppings

200g crème fraîche

300g long-stemmed broccoli,

halved if thick

200g cherry tomatoes, halved 200g ball mozzarella, torn

½ tsp chilli flakes, plus extra to

serve (optional) extra virgin olive oil, for

drizzling (optional)

1 Cook the spinach in a pan of boiling water for 30 seconds until wilted, then drain and rinse under cold running water to cool. Squeeze out the excess water. Put half the wilted spinach in a blender with 150ml hot water and blitz to a smooth green purée.

2 Dissolve the yeast in 2 tbsp tepid water. Put the flour in a large bowl with the spinach purée, 2 tsp salt and the yeast mixture. Bring together into a dough, adding up to 50ml more water if it’s too dry.

Knead for 5 mins, then leave in a covered bowl at room temperature for 1 hr until doubled in size. After an hour, divide the dough into four pieces, then cover again and leave to prove for another hour.

3 For the pesto, put the remaining 200g spinach, half the basil, the pine nuts, parmesan, oil, lemon juice and garlic in a food processor and blitz until smooth. Season to taste and loosen with up to 3 tbsp water, if needed. Mix the lemon zest with the crème fraîche and some seasoning and 2-3 tbsp water to loosen. Set aside along with the pesto.

4 Heat the oven to 240C/220C fan/ gas 9 with a large baking sheet inside. Flatten the proved dough balls into rounds on a floured work surface, then roll each one out until about 25cm wide and 5mm thick. Put each pizza base on its own sheet of baking parchment.

5 Spoon the lemony crème fraîche over the pizza bases and spread

almost to the edges, leaving a small border. Drizzle over half the pesto, then top with the broccoli. Dot over the tomatoes and mozzarella, then sprinkle with the chilli flakes. 6 Cook one pizza at a time by sliding the pizza on its baking parchment onto the hot baking sheet in the oven and baking for 12-15 mins until the crust is golden and crisp. Repeat with the remaining pizzas, then drizzle over the remaining pesto. Scatter over the leaves from the remaining basil, then drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with extra chilli flakes, if you like.

GOOD TO KNOW calcium • folate • fibre • vit c • iron •

2 of 5-a-day

PER SERVING 783 kcals • fat 44g • saturates 17g

• carbs 68g • sugars 4g • fibre 6g • protein 25g •

salt 2.1g