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

Vegan Mofo: Lunchbox School Lesson Four

It's the last friday of Vegan Mofo and the last lesson of lunchbox school. This week we'll be talking about the somewhat less glamorous topics of planning and preparation.

Lesson 4: Plan and Prep

The two things that make all lunchbox making endeavors go smoothly. This week I've made two boxes out of the same four key ingredients while less than ten minutes cooking time each morning.

Think Before You Buy

At the moment I make lunches two days a week, thursdays and fridays but I start thinking about lunch on a monday. I'm not an incredibly organised person or anything and I don't spend long thinking about it but as I draw up my shopping list I like to have a decent idea of what type of things I'm going to put in my box. It means I can make sure I buy all the food I need. This week I bought tofu, french beans, grapes and rice.

Leftovers, Overlap, Freezing Portions

Leftovers in your lunch box is a good option. In this box I used leftover curry. Think too about side dishes. If you are making glazed carrots the night before why not make a few extra for the box.

Overlap is another very handy thing. I knew that both days this week I was going to use the same ingredients so I was able to prep all in one go. The beans all got chopped at the same time. I boiled the rice one day and stir fried the leftovers the next.

You can also freeze things in lunchtime portions. If you only want two tablespoons of something like hosin mustard tofu (like this) then why not make a full batch and freeze the rest for next week.

You want to make fabulous, attractive, diverse lunches without doing all the work of making four or five tiny dishes each morning.

The Morning After The Night Before

So to make it easy for yourself you want to wake up in the morning knowing roughly what to put in your lunch and to have some of it leftover or prepped from another meal. You also have the option of getting things ready the night before though. In both these boxes the tofu was started the night before. The teriyaki tofu was put to marinate and the red hot saucy tofu was fried. In the morning I fried the teriyaki and put sauce on the fried tofu and done.

Nothing left to do but halve the grapes. Two lunches in ten minutes with the same four key ingredients: rice, teriyaki tofu, green beans and grapes, and fried rice with red hot saucy tofu and grapes.

Hope you enjoyed lunchbox school, it's possible a bonus lesson will come before the end of Mofo...

Banana bread with no added sugar [vegan]

Some time ago I stumbled across this recipe for fruit sweetened vegan banana bread, and bookmarked it for a future date when I might have 15 overripe bananas to hand. That hasn’t happened yet, so I scaled the recipe down by two thirds instead.

The unusual recipe involves cooking the bananas down to purée in a slow cooker over sixteen hours. I was impatient, so used a saucepan for three hours instead. The banana purée is the only source of sugar in the recipe, and the resulting loaf is less sweet than common banana breads, with the spices and the caramelisation of the bananas giving it a flavour similar to black gingerbread.

When I bring banana bread into work I often joke that a third of a loaf is ‘one of your five a day’, but with the number of bananas crammed into this loaf it really does make a noticeable contribution to your daily fruit intake.

Pittsburgh Steak Sandwiches

For lunch today I grabbed my copy of Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day and a hunk of its Moo-Free Seitan and made these fab Pittsburgh Steak Sandwiches.

Marinated steak strips, avocado, garlicky mayo and salad greens made an amazingly good meal. And I took the time to flip through Vegan Sandwiches again. There is so much in there that I haven't tried yet. I'd love to know what you recommend.

Golden oat cookies [vegan]

Some of the most delicious cookies I've ever had are the oat crunch cookies made by local Devonian producer Teoni’s; my only complaint being that they’re a little too crunchy. So began an ambitious project to produce a cookie with all the flavour but none of the jaw-achingness. After many, many experimental batches (oh, how I suffer for my art!), the recipe is now perfected.

This is a recipe that’s very ‘me’: the ingredients are in exact ratios, it’s efficient (you only need one bowl), and it’s full of golden syrup. We use the original Lyle’s Golden Syrup, in its retro tin that features an illustration of bees around a lion’s carcass and the slogan “Out of the strong came forth sweetness” (references to a biblical tale). It’s also available in a plastic squeezy bottle, but the tin has the advantage of being more recyclable. Other brands are of course available, although I understand it’s uncommon in America. Maple syrup can act as a substitute, but will give a rather different flavour.

Ingredients (makes 12 cookies)

50	g	vegetable oil
100	g	golden syrup
1	tsp	vanilla extract
50	g	light brown sugar
1/4	tsp	salt
1	tsp	baking powder
150	g	plain flour
50	g	oats

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 150°C and line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Put the vegetable oil, golden syrup, and vanilla extract in a bowl and stir to combine. Stir in the light brown sugar, followed by the salt and the baking powder. Finally stir in the plain flour and oats to produce a crumbly mixture.

Take small handfuls of the mixture and roll into rough balls, about three centimetres across. Press down onto the baking parchment until about a centimetre thick.

Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Leave to cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Vegan Mofo Day 3: Ancho-Lentil Tacos

Despite last year practically being the year of the taco I don't think I've ever had one. I'll let that sink in for a bit, feel free to heckle me in the comments. Tonight though I needed a quick weeknight supper, I needed spice, I needed happiness.

So in less than 20 minutes (minus the lentil cooking time, which was another thirty minutes in the middle of the afternoon and I'm pretty sure I napped through it) I had these glorious tacos. The spicy lentil mix was just perfect and made everything super filling while the avocado and lettuce made everything full of sweetness and light. The lettuce (and the nasturtium flowers I added for extra fancy) came from the allotment which added an extra layer of wonderful.

Like most lovely meals in my life that takes very little effort to cook the recipe for this came from Isa Does It.

Vegan Mofo Day 2: Chili and Sea Salt Crispbread

Okay so I'm slightly obsessed with making my own crackers.Mostly because I'm really obsessed with eating crackers. Someone with less linguistic restraint might call me crackers for crackers. Luckily I'd never say such a thing. This recipe is a variation on the cracker, cut into strips and liberally salted and chillied this is my Chili and Sea Salt Crispbread. Taylor made for dipping into hummus. You know, when you've bought a lackluster pot from Tesco and need a little zing.

Chili and Salt Crispbread
(makes about 16)

170g flour
60ml water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of chilli

Preheat the oven to 200C and oil two trays

In a small bowl mix together the salt and chilli

Pour the olive oil into the flour and start mixing. As your little hands are mixing everything in slowly add the water until you're able to form a ball of dough.

Once you've got your dough ball all happy flour your surface and roll out the dough as thin as you can get it. go for about 3mm

When it's all rolled out sprinkle with the chilli salt mixture and run the rolling pin over one more time to make sure it all sticks.

Cut into rectangles and transfer to the baking tray. In ten minutes it will be cooked and starting to brown on the edges. take it out and in another ten minutes it should be cool enough to enjoy.

Vegan Mofo Day 1: Receiving And Giving

It's Vegan Mofo again and I'm starting with a lovely pie that I made at the end of last Mofo; the Pear Frangipane tart from Vegan Pies In The Sky.

Our friend with the pear tree came through again and offered us a bag of pears along with the heavy hint that she would love it if another one of those tarts turned up. So who was I to resist? I made some pastry, mixed up the frangipane, sliced up the pears and sent the tart back with Stephen. Like the first one it was very well received and I received some gracious thank you emails. Along with the leftover pears. Sometimes it's nice to be known as the crazy cook in your group.

I'd no idea what to do with the leftover pears. I'm not the biggest fan of eating them raw, though I don't mind cooking them. They were just taking up room in my fruit bowl until last night when I decided to embrace the insomnia and stay up knitting, bright and painfully perky, until 2am. I finished my socks watching Sweets Made Simple and as I arrived grumpily into the next morning I couldn't resist making up the Pear And Ginger Coins. 

And... well, can I just say woof? These things pack a seriously gingery punch with plenty of sweetness and a little tart zing coming out to play at the end. They would be wonderful to warm you up on an autumnal walk. On a muggy, overcast summer day here in the English Riviera they work just as well, bringing a massive smile to my face. One of ginger, pears and community.