VeganMofo 2013: Day 6–Pizza

I had planned to make taco pizza for dinner last night, but I just got lazy.  

So I made P Pizza – Potato and Pepperoni (using Tofurky Pepperoni and Notzarella cheese) on a barbeque base (pizza sauce and barbeque sauce mixed together).  The dough was my usual Vegan With a Vengeance recipe.

It was delicious!  And the leftovers were awesome for breakfast.

I’m about to run out and vote (yay democracy) and I’m planning on doing Saturday’s post later tonight, but in the meantime, what’s your go-to pizza topping?  I’m finding that I just use Tofurky Pepperoni by default – I tend to be exhausted by the time I’m done making the dough that opening a package is all I can handle.

Notzarella Pizza

We love pizza.  I know everyone says that, but we REALLY love pizza.  I make this pizza about once or twice a fortnight.

I've been making this style of pizza for about 4 or so years.  The dough is the VWAV recipe.  I'm super lazy and make it in my KitchenAid stand mixer.  Damn that thing saves me time!

The secret ingredient to our pizza is Notzarella.  In our opinion this is the best vegan melting cheeze on the market.  And it's an Australian product!  I normally get two pizzas out of a block (I grate it all at once and freeze the second half - the dough recipe makes two pizza bases too, so I get to be lazy the second time around).  And in the last few weeks (or so) the block size is up to 300g, so it's even more cheeze!

The other toppings are (all purchased from Green Edge) are: Redwood Cheatin' Pepperoni Style Slices (half the pack), Lamyong Vegetarian Salted Crispy Chicken, and Lamyong Vegetarian Soy Sausages.  I use pizza sauce from the supermarket and add Smoky BBQ Sauce.

I get the best results with the dough when I cook it on a pizza stone.  I preheat the pizza stone in the oven for 25 mins as high as my oven will go.  Once the pizza goes in, I turn the temperature down to about 200C.  The Notzarella usually takes about 25 mins to melt at this temperature, but it may depend on your oven.  You can always finish it under the grill (if you have one!).

Before it went into the oven

After!

If you live in the land of Oz, hunt this stuff down and eat lots of it!  (This is not a paid Notzarella advertisement - I just love the stuff)

Post 4: Weekend of tasty food

Hey guys!  Hope you had a good weekend.  We really utilized our “Iron Chef” skills on the food this weekend.  I’m drooling just thinking about it.
First – Cam’s ‘healthy’ lunch from Friday.  Just to show off the fantastic Asian snacks we can procure in BrisVegas:

Trident Hot and Spicy Soup with ‘Chicken’ nuggets (from Burlington in the valley), Cabbage dumplings (Burlington) and Dim Sims (from the supermarket near the former Magic Wok).  I shudder to think how much sodium was contained on this plate before the soy sauce was added!
I was inspired, after viewing everyone’s blogs on the VWAV cookbook challenge to find a recipe that I hadn’t made in that awesome tome.  I came up with the “Orecchiette with Cherry Tomatoes and Kalamata Tapenade”.  Why did I wait more than 2 years to try this?  It’s fantastic in the original dish (I even found the right pasta):

I added extra parsley for prettiness.
But we also tried it on bread (on Isa’s suggestion in the cookbook).  Witness the glory that is Tofutti Cream Cheese Kalamata Tapenade poppy seed bagels.  Seriously.  You HAVE to try this.  We had this for dinner on Sunday night and I had to have it again for breakfast today.  (I even exclaimed the virtues of it on Facebook).

It’s like heaven on bread WITH OLIVES!  Could I be more excited about a food?
And to finish, even though this was dinner on Friday night, we have pie filling.  ‘Beef’ and ‘bacon’ pie filling.  Cam said he fried an onion and added casserole mince and sliced Sanitarium luncheon.  Then he added ‘beef’ stock and a rather large quantity of liquid smoke (and I think a little gravy powder).  To top it off we added a slice of Toffuti American sliced cheeze and put in the pie maker.  It’s near to impossible to take a photo of a pie without destroying it, so you’ll have to imagine the awesomeness.  Here’s a rather unattractive picture of the filling:

It’s really only good when you serve it straight away so you can mix the toffuti into the rest of the filling.
I’m having fun being a MoFo.  Thanks for all of your comments.  They’re a great pickup while I’m writing assignments! 

Day 1: Asian Food – the god of all vegan cuisines

Heya!  Hyperbole is fun, isn’t it?
A few months ago, on a cookbook purchasing binge, I bought Bryanna Clark Grogan’s Authentic Chinese Cuisine.  It’s a damn fantastic book.
So I looked in the fridge’s contents and consulted the text and made: Stir Fried Tofu and Leeks, and Harvest Moon Stir Fry.

I wish I had a better picture of the carrots (the moon) mooning you.  The only issue I had with these recipes is that they had dry sherry in them.  We could only find sherry that had been fined with milk AND eggs.  Le sigh.  Anyone found a vegan sherry?
These were REALLY tasty.  The tofu was fantastic.
I really love Bryanna’s cookbooks (witness my use of them in Italian food in previous posts), but I’d love some colour photos in the cookbooks.  But as Theresa said on my facebook pictures, the special lie-flat binding almost makes up for it! ;)
Breakfast the next day was pancakes.  Cam insisted on ice-cream and Soyatoo, so I insisted on grated apple in the mix.  I just grated the apple into the standard Pancake recipe from VWAV and just added milk until it was the right consistency.  This obviously totally made up for the sugar from the ice-cream and Soyatoo!
So yeah, that’s it for the day.  Cam’s making us pasta for dinner (with moose pasta from Ikea), so that just may feature on tomorrow’s post.
But then again, we know how slack I am with posting!

I’m older, not wiser…

Hey everyone – where’s February gone?  I started back at uni today (had my first Criminal Law lecture – the law is really for the rich white folk, isn’t it?).  So here’s my boring February catchup.
It was my friend Tiffany’s birthday mid month.  I, of course, made her a handbag, but she gave me the wrong address.  Have you gotten this yet Tif?  If not, you’ll have to wait until the middle of the year for me to make you another!

Isn’t the fabric purdy?
Food.  Mmmmmm fooooooooood

Fancy tofu, beetroot and sweet potato salad.  ‘Twas yummy (I baked everything except the greens)

This is the tofu and potato dish from Vegan With A Vengeance.  It’s too hot to move to the bookcase to find it.  Seriously – I’m so sweaty my arms are getting stuck to the desk here!

I call this grotesque, but tasty lasagne.  Double recipe of my usual white sauce with a bolognaise made out of (fake) chicken nuggets, with a layer of sliced mushrooms and lasagne sheets.  Crack in a pan baby.

Cam made this for me while I watched the Oscars (I had the day off work – yay!).  There’s marinated mushrooms, fancy tomatoes, sundried tomato oil, fried fry’s burgers (ha), macadamias, greens and yummy white bread.  Mmmmmm I wonder if I can get this for dinner tonight?

And, ‘cause I’m a dork, here’s Charlie from my law group’s stand at Market Day.  Isn’t he cool?    

VeganMoFo - Tuesday 14th October 2008

Brinner!  And the return of our little friend....

As you can see I restrained him behind a specially designed metal bar to prevent him from stealing the feast of: baked beans, fried 'shrooms and spinach, ginger and apple waffles, tofu bacon and a hash brown.  I wussed out and ate the waffles separately (sorry - don't get the sweet and savoury thing).
The tofu bacon and waffles are bastardized versions of recipes from Vegan With A Vengeance.  Yum!

Potatoes

Hey everyone. I've been mega busy lately (with assignments & attempting to study for end of semester exams)! Surprise surprise.

A few links and then piccies!

HellOnHairyLegs - I wish I was like this blogger when I was in high school. She's an Aussie high school student who's an avowed feminist. Her last few postings have been nothing short of genius.

Feministing - I read this about three times a week. I wish I was brave enough to create an Aussie Feminist blog. But, alas, the legal fraternity is a fraternity and being an outspoken feminist online would severely decrease my job opportunities.

Lastly this opinion piece from the Sydney Morning Herald (alas, in Brisbane we lack a decent newspaper). I know that many of my generation, who didn't do biology at school, did not get any decent sex-ed. And people wonder why we read Dolly magazine? Yes, it was full of crap that made us feel bad about our bodies. But, it gave us information about what was happening to our bodies! I really wish that our parents generation had spoken to us more about stuff like this.

And now, potatoes!

Gnocchi with Spicy Lentil Pasta Sauce.

Gnocchi with Mushroom Olive Sauce (and nooch!)

Sunday roast with Roasted Onion, Garlic and Potatoes!

Thanks for your lovely comments last time. I'm collecting them like a squirrel collects nuts (is that right? We don't have squirrels here) for the long cold winter of assignments and exam study. Oh yeah, the gnocchi recipe is from Vegan With A Vengeance. I've made it every Saturday for the last four weeks. Yummo!

Food and a rant

Or should I say a rant and food pics? I'll get to approximately three weeks worth of food porn momentarily but first a word from our sponsor.

Feminism. Is it really a scary word? Despite the new cultural angst over the idea of feminism, I identify myself as a feminist. The problem? I'm doing a first-year law course (I would name it, but to save myself the heartache....) with basically the intent to persuade the students of their responsibilities to act morally and their duty to help others in society. This is a very "leftie" agenda. I, as one who celebrated Kevin Rudd's victory with a smashing hangover, think this is a great idea (as do many of the students, conservative or not!). However.....
This week's topic was "Gender and Race" - basically an analysis of access to justice/legal assistance from the perspective of women and non-white people. I was surprised to find that I was the only person (other than our awesome female tutor) that identified themselves as a feminist (most of my class is under the age of 20). They didn't seem to think that feminism was really required anymore. One fellow classmember actually listed the reason that they didn't identify as a feminist was that "the boys laugh at feminists. They think they're dikey lesbians". !!!!!! Notwithstanding the utter disparity in this statement, I want to say a few things....
We need feminism for everyone. Feminists don't hate men! They want equality for everyone! This means equality in pay and treatment. We're not going to get change unless we push for it.
I know I'm not the most articulate when I'm angry, so here's a video that you must watch (thanks to my favourite feminist website Feministing for the link):


And now, as advertised, food!

I think this may have come from Vegan Fire and Spice? Sorry Cam, I remember it was tasty though! I call it "Cam's chickpea dish with mashed potatoes and hummus". I do remember that I put nooch and smoked paprika in the potatoes!

Moroccan Chickpea and Lentil Soup. This did come from Vegan Fire and Spice. Yummers.

An awesome photo of my Dad slicing Veggie Roast with his fancy knife. I heart this knife. Check out the wafer thinless of the slices.

Cam's been making lots of Indian curries (as always they're awesome). So here's a small selection (there's a bit of a theme here!):

Chilli Potatoes (These burn for me, but gosh (did I just say gosh? When did I turn into a polite person?) they're tasteeeeeee!)

Chilli Potatoes with Spinach and Chickpea Curry (Also delectable)

Chilli Potatoes with Mushroom and Pea Curry (Cam said that he'll have a recipe for the Mushroom and Pea curry soon!)

Leeks are finally available in Brisbane!!!! I've been waiting for Leeks to become affordable since getting Veganomicon.

Firstly, a Leek and Potato soup from La Dolce Vegan (it has carrots in it, thus the orangey goodness):

THE Leek and Bean Cassoulet from Veganomicon. So. Damn. Good.

And onto my particular favourites, the non-savoury things!

Choc-chip Blondies with Rasperries from Vegan With a Vengeance!

Fancy Mushroom and Red Wine Scrolly Bread. It was a bit tough, but still AWESOME.

Ginger Pear Muffins (overripe pears equals incredibly smooth batter equals yummy goodness):

I attempted some apple scrolls based on Bittersweet's Pizza Scroll recipe. They just weren't sweet enough (more sugar is required in the dough!):

Finally, I'd had a crap morning at work and raced home for lunch before uni in the afternoon.... Someone was nice enough to leave me the last of the "middle" of the bread (I hate the end/crusty bits)! So I had the ultimate in convenience snacks: The (vegan) luncheon sandwich.

Thinly sliced Sanitarium Lunchon is sandwiched between two slices of High Fibre White Bread from Baker's Delight. Spread with Nuttelex, this sandwich will fill the needs of vegans on the run....

Yeasty goodness!

No, not beer - bread! After my success last weekend with the Cinnamon, Sultana & Craisin Bread, I made two savoury bready thingys.

Firstly, Calzones. The recipe is "Zucchini and Tofu Calzones" from Vegan Vittles. I added Mushrooms as well (and a bit of olive oil to the pizza dough for ease of manipulation). I served it with VWAV Pizza Sauce.




And secondly, and completely awesomely, Bittersweet's Pizza Rolls! OMG. Seriously. The. Yummiest. Thing. I've. Ever. Made. The variation is from the VEST article (V'con Cashew Ricotta and Lachesis' Seitan O' Greatness).



Up close (and yummy):




I actually made these scrolls twice today. I have to run, otherwise Cam will eat them all!

Catching up on tastiness!

So here's what we've been eating of late!
Leftover stuff from my birthday party:
Malaysian Curry and Spanakopita (I froze a lot of leftovers – I only put out a half batch – they are a really good and easy snack!)


I made a double batch of the Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse for cupcake filling. It was awesome!


I found a donut maker for $18 the week before my birthday. I used the recipe from VeganYumYum to make mini donuts!


And here they are topped with chocolate:



Money shot...


I got around to trying the Tamari Roasted Chickpeas from Eat Drink and Be Vegan. We've made them about three times in salad!

Yummy Italian Bread that we had with salad one night.



Leda makes Mintons. They're super yummo!


Money shot...


I made another batch of chilli. I put a million veggies in this one!

Finally, I made tofu BLTs. "Bacon" recipe is the Tempeh Bacon recipe from VWAV modified to use tofu. I also used the Cashew Ricotta from Veganomicon as a spread. Drool!

Happy Non-denominational Christmas everyone!

Here's what we ate today. 'Twas delish!!!



Sanitarium Roast - check out my awesome lining up skillz!
Sesame Asparagus (from VWAV). Roast pumpkin, potato and sweet potato (and the onion that sat under the roast, soaking up the delicious glaze).

Polenta salad from a random Italian cookbook I stole from my ma.

Pumpkin Ziti from Veganomicon.

I also needed more Ziti while writing this!!!!

Hope everyone is as full of food as I am!!!!