The Vegan answer for meaty, cheesy pizza people!

So what's the Vegan answer to a meaty, cheesy pizza?  Tonight I made my hubba-bubba something he's been craving; A meaty, cheesy pizza - animal product free, that is.  How?  The key is a Bechamel sauce made from brown rice flour & veggie stock atop sauteed mushrooms with a steamed spinach & basil pesto. See my version of a Bechamel recipe below for more detail.  

Tonight's dinner Pizza with sauteed mushrooms, a spinach/basil pesto topped with home made vegan Bechamel sauce.

Bechamel sauce (like that made for an Alfredo dish) can be made animal product free and still have great flavor and cheesy/sauce consistency.  For the pizza - use your own standard vegan crust (mine was store bought - I'm busy, ya know?) and then make ingredients that you love.  I sauteed mushrooms with shallots and a tad of hing. I also had some home made pesto on hand (sauteed and drained spinach with basil, hing, lemon juice and pepper - with some chile pepper for spice all pureed with drizzled oil in a processor).  

For the Bechamel you need: 

• 1 TBSP oil
  
• 2 TBSP brown rice flower (or any flour you choose - whole wheat, Garbanzo, Barley or whatever)
  
• 1 cup of heated water, broth or almond milk (I used a low salt vegetable stock)
  
• Seasonings: can be a large pinch/dash of sea salt, miso or soy
  
• Dash of nutmeg
  

Heat oil in pan
Stir in flour and whisk around with fork for 1-2 minutes over low heat. 
Remove from heat. Add heated liquid and stir briskly until smooth
Return pan to heat, add seasonings. Bring almost to a boil and then turn to low and simmer until thickened. 

IT's THAT EASY... I then added some remaining sauteed mushrooms and pesto and a tad of lemon juice.  
Bake pizza as you normally would, remove from oven, top with bechamel sauce & chopped arugula for a nice peppery finish.  AWESOME.... 

You can find the basic bechamel recipe in Paul Pitchford's Healing with Whole Foods.