Sunday, September 2, 2007

Evil Dead Pizzas

Okay, so pizza isn't really evil. Well, not my pizza, anyway. Last night I had a few friends over for horror movies and vegan yummies. It was rather fun to be having pizza and beer and still being all awesome and vegan.

veganPizza_002

I'm not one to use soy cheese normally. Once I went vegan, I just started to make food differently and I don't even miss cheese. Whenever I have bought some, I have to try and figure out what exactly to do with it. I've started to buy soy cheese slices whenever I want to make McVegans, but that's pretty much it. Because I wasn't really sure what kind would be best on pizza, I bought two different soy mozzarellas and put one on each pizza. I forgot to take pictures of the pizza before we started eating, unfortunately.

I made pizza crust and pizza sauce from Vegan with a Vengeance. The only thing I tweaked was to use whole wheat pastry flour instead of plain white flour in the pizza crust. The two cheeses I used were Vegan Rella and Vegan Gourmet. I think Vegan Gourmet is the Canadian version of Follow Your Heart cheese. It said so proudly on the package "It Melts!", but that little exclamation point wasn't enough to make it actually melt as you can see.

veganPizza_001

The Vegan Rella ended up melting too much. It was dripping all over our hands and plate. And I was told "I can't get it off my teeth." I didn't care for the flavor of this one as much as the other either. I didn't really mind the not melting so much. It didn't take away from the taste at all.

veganPizza_003

The first pizza had the VWAV sauce, Vegan Rella, Yves veggie pepperonis and roasted red pepper. The second pizza had VWAV sauce, VWAV pesto, a layer of Vegan Gourmet cheese, sauteed portabello mushrooms, roasted red pepper and tomatoes. Adding the layer of pesto with the sauce was such a great idea. The second pizza was the best of the two, hands down.

I've had a few people ask how to roast red peppers, so I'm adding the instructions for that. It's so easy and well worth it. Red peppers are awesome on so many things. You can put them on sandwiches, pasta, salads, pizza...

Roasted Red Peppers

First you want to cut the peppers. I usually cut them in half and then cut the halves into thirds. Make sure to knock out the seeds and cut out the white parts. It's easiest to get the white parts out after you've cut the pepper. Do it like this:

roastedRedPeppers_001

Put about 2 teaspoons olive oil into a bowl and add the pepper pieces. Toss them around until they've all been coated. Not like hot oil wrestling, just a little bit. Place the peppers on a cookie sheet skin side up. The broiler in my current apartment doesn't work, but if yours does you can turn on the broiler. Otherwise, heat your oven to 550. Make sure to place one of the oven racks as high up as you can if you're using the broiler. Once your oven has preheated, put the cookie sheet of peppers on that top rack if you're broiling, or in the middle if your oven is lame like mine. You want to cook the peppers until the skins start to char a little. I think I left mine in for about 15 minutes. You want them to look something like this:

roastedRedPeppers_001

After you take the peppers out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes and then put them in a bowl or a colander and rinse them with very cold water. This stops the cooking and helps to separate the skins so you can pull them off. Don't worry, they really do peel away quite easily.

roastedRedPeppers_001

Yum! Now you can refrigerate these until you're ready to use them.

Coming soon - Vegan Rice Crispy treats and Hot Monkey Pile.

4 comments:

  1. tomato and pesto sauce...I love it! Thanks for the idea.

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  2. What on earth is hot monkey pile???

    Oh, how I love pizza & beer. I agree with you- I don't often miss cheese on pizza, but it's good to know there are options out there when I do. I also love tofu ricotta on pizza and in calzones and manicotti and those types of things.

    First time visiting your blog- I like it!

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  3. I'll go ahead and say it. I miss and adore cheese. Especially on pizza. I agree with your guests about the Vegan Rella. It felt a little scary when I realized the super hot cheese was STUCK to my lips and gums. As I mentioned on my blog a while back, I am planning to try a mix of Vegan Rella and Follow Your Heart, to see if they balance each other out. I promise to post! Your pizzas look delicious. How is that vegan pepperoni?

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  4. The pepperoni is fantastic! I'm told by my omnivore friends that it tastes nothing like actual pepperoni, but since the years are in the double digits since I have tasted meat, I'll just take their word for it. I like it and I think they make the pizza look cute.

    I think the Vegan Rella is trying to attack us... maybe that is why it keeps sticking to our mouths and teeth.

    *shudder*

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