my annual VeganMofo pizza post!

Each VeganMofo, I've done a pizza post showing pictures of pizza I've taken and then accidentally stockpiled over the course of the year. This year I actually did a pretty good job of not stockpiling picture after picture of pizza... in fact, while I think I make pizza at least once a month, I only have one pizza photo for the whole year!

I have recently rediscovered Nomato "Tomato" Sauce. It's a nightshade free tomato sauce that I've been using in everything from BBQ sauces to... you guessed it, pizza sauce! So this pizza, between the Daiya cheese and the Nomato sauce, was basically like a real person's pizza, not one of my crunchy hippy pizzas. (Which I love, but sometimes you just want to be able to eat as close to the real thing as you can.)

It's topped with artichoke hearts, onions, and fresh basil from my garden.

SO just one picture of pizza. BUT I am including something else in this post because it goes hand-in-hand with pizza: BREADSTICKS.

 And not just any breadsticks. Sometimes I get a craving for the delicious, junky Pizza Hut breadsticks I used to love as a kid. I found a recipe online that I use as my base. I just use water, not dried milk and water like they do, and for the topping I substitute nutritional yeast for the parmesan. I still haven't been able to bring myself to use all the oil they call for, since it seems like a lot... though some of my find memories of Pizza Hut breadsticks involve having greasy fingers at the end, so maybe someday I will.

Taste-wise, it's just like the real thing (though a little lighter without all the oil).

my annual vegan mofo pizza post!

Most Sunday mornings when I was a kid, my mother would take pizza dough out of the freezer to rise for that evening, when my dad would make a dozen or so mini pizzas (there are 6 people in my family; we'd always have leftover pizzas for the next day, which is good planning because leftover pizza is THE BEST). My mother would grate and chop a bunch of toppings and put them in bowls, then we would all have a chance to customize our own mini pizzas. We would also go to Pizza Hut about once a month, and later in life, when we'd grown out of pizza Sundays and both of my parents were working, Friday nights became takeout nights, which 90% of the time meant pizza nights. This all on top of the fact that for all of K-12 at school, Friday lunch was always pizza.

What I'm saying is, I have a deep-rooted love for pizza that becoming vegan and nightshade-intolerant (no tomatoes or peppers) can never squash. So while I don't have pizza as frequently as I did as a kid, and I usually can't have pizza when I go out, I still make it pretty often. And each year, I show you several of my creations in a big Vegan Mofo pizza post! Here are the ones from 2010 and 2011, in case you want to see even more homemade, nightshade-free, vegan pizzas.

I think I've talked enough about pizza for now; time to show you! I'm going to go with minimal captions just letting you know what the toppings are. Feel free to comment if you want to know more about any given pizza!

My basic white pizza: pesto topped with spinach, caramelized shallots, and daiya.

This pizza features carrot marinara, a tofu-based cheesy spread, and minced Tofurky sausage on top.

 A fancy pizza because I used fillo dough for the crust. I also used the fig-almond spread I had made for this potluck, because there was a lot left. AND I topped it with "goat cheese" made from leftover nut-milk solids mixed with miso, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and a few herbs and spices. Also onions, because onions are my favorite topping on pizza.

It was so good I did it again, only for a whole-grain, deep-dish pizza.

After using the fig-almond spread for the above fancy pizza, I've discovered I like a bit of fruit as a sauce base. This sauce is made of raisins, carrots, and some seasonings. Topped with grated daiya, spinach, and homemade bean-based sausage crumbles.

Another white pizza, topped with daiya, chickpeas, my zucchini pepperoni, and shallots.

French bread pizzas! This was my best nightshade free marinara sauce to date; one beet, 4 carrots, boiled till tender and food-processed with vinegar, fresh basil, and a couple pinches of oregano and rosemary. Topped with grated daiya and onions.

A white pizza with a homemade tofu "cheese," minced seitan, and onions.

Finally, these calzones (which totally belong in this post, as calzones are basically just folded-up pizza) are from Peace O'Pie, Boston's vegan pizza parlor:

 Kevin's had a lot of nightshades in it and I was afraid to touch it.

 MINE had daiya cheese, artichoke hearts, and caramelized onions.

I hope you enjoyed this epic pizza post, a favorite tradition I have to celebrate one of my favorite foods.

Vegan MoFo's coming! and a (brief) Colorado recap

I have officially signed up for the Vegan Month of Food (also known as VeganMoFo), a month celebrating vegan food blogging! I'll be writing an entry every day for the whole month of October. In the meantime, pardon my sparse posting.

Coming soon! Image from veganmofo.com

The summer went by incredibly quickly, with all the moving and settling in and traveling we did this year. One of the highlights from the summer, other than buying a house, was traveling to Colorado for the husband's cousin's wedding. The wedding itself was great, but we also loved being in Colorado! I'd  been once before, for another of the husband's cousins' wedding, but this time we took an extra couple days to explore the area more. We went to a bunch of craft breweries (the husband's area of interest) and vegan restaurants (mine). Unfortunately I was more about eating than about taking pictures, BUT I would love to tell you my favorite stops along the way:

I'd discovered Root Down in Denver through the PPK forums, where they said it was a great restaurant for vegans and omnivores alike. My in-laws liked it a lot that time, so we all went back for a fantastic dinner.

 

I had a delicious Chilled Pea Soup with coconut milk sorbet as my appetizer, and an equally awesome Rhubarb Risotto (not pictured because I ate it so quickly). Root Down has a small menu, but it already has gluten-free and vegan options in it, and they can adapt things to your needs easily. They were fantastic about my allergy list.

The husband and I went to Watercourse Foods in Denver twice, once on our own, and once with my in-laws. It's a vegetarian restaurant with the BEST vegan comfort food. Ever. I didn't take pictures, but the servings are enormous and filling.

We spent time in Boulder next, and had a fancy dinner at Leaf Vegetarian Restaurant. It reminded us of a ritzier version of Garden Grille in Rhode Island, which is the husband's favorite restaurant. A great meal! The desserts were fantastic, too.

But for me, the REAL winner in Boulder was Native Foods. Those of you with Native Foods in your cities have NO IDEA how lucky you are. They are a vegan fast-er food chain, with healthy, hearty meals. They have full ingredients lists of all their offerings on hand, which made ordering allergy-friendly meals a breeze.

Our first meal was lunch, which neither of us finished because there was so much food! I got a personal pizza heaped with greens, and some of the tastiest sweet potato fries of my life. The husband got tofu buffalo fingers, I think, and a big salad.

We liked it so much we went back for dinner that very night:

The husband got a burger of some sort, we split a cucumber seaweed salad, and I had a buddha bowl. I really want Native Foods to come to Boston; I would eat there alllll the time.

I found all the places we went in Colorado to be very food-allergy-friendly, and all the meals we ate we delicious. Vegan selections were pretty easy to come by even at the most non-vegan-seeming locations. Those of you who live there, count your blessings! Those of you planning to go there, make sure you arrive hungry.

One last thing: on a walk to visit a brewery on the outskirts of Boulder, we saw PRAIRIE DOGS!

I had never seen one before! They were so cute. Between the wonderful people, the beautiful weather, the awesome food, and the scenery (complete with prairie dogs), Colorado is quickly becoming one of my favorite states.

another VeganMofo pizza post (with calzones!)

During last year's Vegan MoFo, I wrote a big pizza post, which included my standard pizza dough recipe, as well as a recipe for my zucchini pepperoni. Ever since then I've been amassing pictures of pizzas, waiting for this year's Vegan MoFo, because I'd like to make my big pizza post a yearly tradition.

I love pizza. I have standard favorite toppings (onion, fennel, olives), but I've also made curry pizzas and fig-jam pizzas. I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to pizzas. Being allergic to tomatoes means I almost always have white pizzas. I could make my nightshade-free marinara sauce to go on it, but pesto or oil and garlic/herbs are almost always enough for me!

You'll notice below that I experiment with cheeses. Cashew ricotta, crumbled tofu mixed with herbs and nutritional yeast if I'm lazy, daiya cheese when we make a whole foods run (they don't sell it at our co-op), and my new favorite: nut cheese made from the part of the nut you strain away when you make nut milk (I use bonzai aphrodite's recipe for nutmilk). I mix these blended nutty bits with miso, nutritional yeast, and Italian herbs and spices. Depending on the nut, the color can be kind of funny (note the brownish/purple cheese immediately below; cashews can be so weird!), but it's one of my favorite homemade "cheeses."

On with the pizzas!

Afore-mentioned nut cheese pizza topped with artichoke hearts, olives, and onions. A side of sauteed carrots. This is probably going to be the only pizza in this entry whose side dish wasn't a salad. I always associate pizza with a side salad.

Someone on the PPK forum recommended cooking pizza in a cast iron pan to make it a deep-dish pizza. Really bready crusts are my favorite, so this was a big hit! Topped with daiya, garlic, and onions. I think I baked seeds into the crust? I forget.

This is the quintessential vegetalion pizza. Fennel, onions, olives.

Sometimes I get lazy with my approximation of cheese. This is the crumbled tofu concoction I mentioned above. With fennel stems and onions.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I am only now realizing I never make pizza without onions. I knew it was one of my standards, but I didn't realize it was a constant...

Cashew ricotta (from Veganomicon) pizza topped with crumbled chick'n nuggets from Trader Joe's (bought back before they discontinued the vegan ones. Boo, Trader Joe's!). Surprise, there are onions, too!

You wouldn't know it from this post, since there's plenty of daiya here, but we eat almost entirely whole foods. So I'm sort of embarrassed about this pizza, where nothing is from scratch: store-bought crust, daiya cheese, and Yves veggie ham. (And onions, of course.) I think I made the pesto, at least. We had this on a really busy night, I swear!

I use my pizza dough recipe to make calzones, too. The amounts I give in that recipe is enough for 3 huge or 4 medium calzones. I opted for the huge ones.

After the first rising, I shape the calzones into rounds, fill them (here with daiya, basil from my container garden, olives, and--this is getting silly. Onions.), fold them up, and bake them!

I bake them at 425 or so for about 20 minutes. They're done when they're golden brown and they sound hollow when you knock them on the top.

The only thing missing was a good sauce to dip it in. I should have made that tomato-free marinara before I began them!

belated vegan pizza day pizza

Vegan Pizza Day was on the 29th! I missed blogging about it because I was in New York City visiting some friends, so here is a picture of some pizza in belated honor of vegan pizza day!

Toppings are onions (I love onions on pizzas); a cheese sauce made from tofu, miso, and nutritional yeast; and pepperoni-flavored carrots, a variation on my zucchini pepperoni. Guys, let me tell you, zucchini works a lot better than carrots for this recipe! Carrots are way less absorptive. They tasted good, though not much like pepperoni. Anyway the whole vegetable pepperoni thing is just to put some extra veggies on my pizza without compromising on salty-smoky flavors.

a big pizza post!

The boyfriend and I are finally back from spending Thanksgiving with my family in upstate NY, but since I haven't had time to upload photos of our delicious almost all-vegan meal, you get the next best thing: a pizza post!

Bread, oil, something cheesy: what is there not to love about pizza? The sad thing for me is that because I can't have tomatoes, it's only white pizza for me--so even ordering from vegan pizza places can be tough or boring. Fortunately, pizza is delicious and easy to make at home; including the dough rising, homemade-from-scratch pizza only takes 2 hours, and an hour or more of that is just waiting for the dough to rise! It's incredibly satisfying to make your own pizza, and a lot cheaper than buying pre-made.

This looks like a lot of steps, but it's very easy. I'm just writing everything out in case you've never made any type of dough before.

Pizza Dough
Makes one large pizza dough. Servings depend on what you serve on the side. This serves 2-3 if you're not eating much else, but can serve 4 if you have side dishes)
1 C warm water
2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast (this is 1 packet if you use those)
2 tsp sugar (or maple syrup or agave) (optional but recommended!)*
2 Tbsp plus 1 tsp olive oil
1 scant tsp salt
2 1/2 C flour (You can sub up to half with whole wheat flour [not ww pastry flour!], but it won't rise as well. I only sub about 1/2 a cup with Whole Wheat flour.)
additional flour for dusting (I'd say a scant 1/4 C for the whole process)

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the yeast with the sugar and about half of the water, stir to dissolve as much as possible. (The water should be warm but nowhere near hot--err on the side of cooler water. Yeast comes to life best in warm environments, but temperatures over 110 F can kill the yeast.) Let this sit for about five minutes.

Meanwhile, use 1 tsp of the olive oil to lightly grease the inside of a medium-large bowl. It's good if the excess oil sinks to the bottom.

Back to the yeast! It should be mostly dissolved. There may be foamy clumps on the surface; that is good! (If there aren't, don't worry.) Add the rest of the water, the salt, and the remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil. Stir, then add the flour, about half a cup at a time if you have the patience. Stir to combine; it will be shaggy and messy. Take your dusting flour and sprinkle a little bit on a clean counter or cutting board. Also dust your hands. Now dump your dough mixture onto the surface, and use your hands to work in all the shaggy bits.

Now you're going to start kneading. Kneading isn't scary or intimidating; as long as you're always doing something to the dough, you really can't go wrong. This dough is a little wet, which means you may need to dust your surface and hands fairly frequently to keep it from sticking to everything. Push the dough around, fold it, twist it, whatever you want--basically you want to be punching it down and handling it until it becomes only a little tacky (not full-on sticky), and is consistent and kinda rubbery in texture. Smooth and shape it into a nice, smooth ball. Put the ball in your pre-oiled bowl, rotating it so that the whole surface has an oily glaze. Keep the bowl in a warm place (near a heater is good, or if you're cooking, near the stove), cover it with plastic or a dishcloth, and let it rise at least an hour.

You can use that hour to prepare your toppings, if you want.

Ideally, your dough will double in size. If you're in a hurry, an hour to an hour and 15 minutes is fine, even if it hasn't completely doubled. If you're not in a hurry, letting the dough rise for a couple hours is nice. Anyway, when it's done rising, preheat the oven to 425. Get out a baking sheet (or if you're fancy, one of those pizza stones; I have no idea how those work, though). Lightly grease that with a touch of olive oil. It's best if you do this with your hands, so your hands are a bit oily still when you go on to the next step. This is the best part: Remove the cover from your dough, and punch it down! It usually makes a satisfying sighing noise. Take the dough out, mash it and stretch it and mash it again a few times with your hands, then put it down on the backing sheet. Spread the dough out into the shape you want (ie, circle, rectangle, triangle, whatever), working it with your fingers to try to ensure that it doesn't get too thin or too thick in some places. (The bigger you make the pizza, the thinner the crust will be.)

Put on your toppings. If you like thin-crust pizza, put it right in the oven. It'll rise a little as it cooks. If you have time and like a breadier pizza crust, you can let the dough sit and rise for another 30-45 minutes, preferably near the oven, before baking. It'll rise more in the oven, too. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the sides of the crust begin to brown, checking occasionally.

*-Note: Adding sugar to a yeast-water mixture is called "proofing" the yeast. Yeast feeds off on the sugars in flour, which is how it rises. Giving the yeast a little extra sugar earlier on in the process helps it rise more quickly, but some chefs suggest it is only marginally so, which is why I say it's optional.

The pizza pictured above is made with daiya cheese, onions, and my signature zucchini pepperoni. But I don't get daiya very often, so usually I make my own cheesy sauce out of nutritional yeast, herbs, cashews and/or tofu. Here is the same kind of pizza but with a homemade cheesy topping:

You may be wondering, what is with this "signature zucchini pepperoni?" WELL. Let me tell you. As much as I love pizza, I also try really hard to eat my 5-9 veggie servings a day. Zucchini pepperoni is my way to work in more vegetables and still have something salty and smoky on top of my pizza. Just to let you know, though, zucchini pepperoni is NOT pepperoni. It gives a salty, smoky, flavorful kick similar to pepperoni, but it's not meaty, nor is it going to trick you or anyone you know into the fact that it's not meat or fake meat. It's delicious, though, and worth making at least once.

Zucchini Pepperoni
Enough for 1 large pizza

1 zucchini, sliced very thinly
1-2 Tbsp olive oil (depending on how big your pan is)
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp OR 1 tsp pepper (I like a whole tsp; it makes it spicier)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
dash ground cloves or allspice (optional)

Put the oil in a large pan (I use 9x13). Swish it around so that the entire bottom of the pan is coated with oil. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, and liquid smoke; swish around the pan so that they mix. Sprinkle over the pepper, garlic powder, oregano and (optional) spice.

Now, place all the zucchini slices in the pan in one layer. Flip them all over so that both sides have touched the liquid mixture before you lay them flat. Once all the zucchini slices you can fit are in the pan, gently swish the pan around so that the excess liquid washes over some of the zucchini. (If there isn't excess liquid, add a little more soy sauce and/or liquid smoke.)

Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then check. Most of the liquid should be gone, and the zucchinis on the edge should be crispy. The middle ones will never quite get crispy, but they shouldn't look soggy--if things are soggy, let it cook for another 5-10 minutes. (Cooking time varies so much because it all depends how thinly sliced the pieces are.) Remove from oven, allow to cool at least a little before putting on pizza so you don't burn yourself.

Here is a homemade pizza with zucchini pepperoni, sauteed garlic and artichoke hearts. If you couldn't tell from these pictures, I'm pretty simple when it comes to my toppings: after something cheesy (homemade or store-bought), I like 2 or 3 at the most.