Vegan Mofo Day 29/I Bought A Book: Vegan Pizza

Day 29 of Vegan Mofo and I'm slowly coming to the realisation that being hot and cold all the time and tired and having sniffles may actually mean I've got a cold. Possibly being slow on the uptake is another symptom. Anyway in what I expect is the last review of Vegan Mofo I'm going to take on Vegan Pizza by Julie Hasson.

I bought the kindle copy because I'd heard there weren't really any pictures inside. It's true, apart from the cover all you get are a couple of stock photos. For me that's not a deal breaker but it made me decide I'd rather not pay extra to get it in paper.

The book starts with recipes for your pizza parts: base, cheesy sauces, and meaty stuff. The remaining five chapters are recipes for how to turn them into fabulous pizzas, creatively topped with everything from peperoni to broccoli. There's a lot more actually but peperoni and broccoli being my favorites I didn't really take it in.



I was slightly disappointed in some of the pizza recipes though. The meatball pizza (which I'm desperate to try) calls for '1 (16-ounce) bag frozen veggie meatballs' which is disappointing, especially because they seem to have disappeared from the shops at the moment. When cheese is called for it's mostly 'shredded vegan mozzarella-style cheese' which is discussed as being optional and you can sub in one of the cheesy sauces but it makes me sad that an entire chapter is devoted to the cheese sauces when the recipes suggest store bought. Much more helpful, I think, would have been a discussion about which cheesy sauce would have gone best on each pizza.

So then I made a pizza. I started with the base. I went for the Easy-Peasy Pizza Dough. I didn't find it as easy as advertised. Possibly I left it to rise too long (but within the 2-3 hours the recipe suggests) or perhaps I don't get on with no knead dough but it was sopping wet. I needed so much flour rolling it out. Admittedly out of the oven it was crisp as anything and really delicious.

For my creamy layer I went with the Cheadery Cashew Cheese which was delicious and added some lovely flavours and textures. Definitely more comparable to american cheese then the extra strong cheddar we favour but that's not a bad thing on a pizza. The rest of the toppings came from the recipe for Mushroom Broccoli and Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza. The overall effect was fabulous.

My overall impression was that Vegan Pizza isn't quite as comprehensive as I would like - there is no deep dish pizza for example - and for that reason I'd be hesitant to suggest shelling out for the print version. At only £5 on kindle though (on 29th October 2014 at least) it's a good deal. Pizza lovers (everyone, in other words) should treat themselves.

Vegan Pizza: 50 Cheesy, Crispy, Healthy Recipes