Meatless Monday: Pizza Sausage

We love pizza. Who doesn't right? Now that our local Whole Foods is finally selling Daiya Cheese (pronounced "day-a" according to the company) pizza has been making a rather frequent appearance on our weekly menu.

I start with a homemade, whole-wheat crust, Muir Glen organic pizza sauce, and various toppings depending on our mood. Sometimes we do a more "gourmet" style pizza with fancy veggies like artichoke hearts, arugula, and others. Other times we like to do a Hawaiian pizza, with home-made vegan pepperoni, pineapple, basil and red onion. Then there's the Cuban Black Bean Pizza I've blogged about before. Still other times we are in the mood for a good old sausage pizza. Typically I use Gimme Lean Sausage Style to top my pizzas, and we've always enjoyed it very much. Last week, however, I decided at the last minute to throw a pizza together, and had nothing to top it with except sauce, olives, and cheese. I was really in the mood for a sausage pizza, so I decided to have a look around the kitchen and see what I could come up with. What resulted was the most incredible pizza sausage I think I've ever had. I for one will never use Gimme Lean again!!

Pizza Sausage

1 cup TVP
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp garlic granules
1 tsp onion granules
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
1 3/4 cup water
2 Tbs Soy sauce

In a small saucepan combine all ingredients, stir together, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once boiling, reduce heat to low, and simmer until all liquid is absorbed, and TVP is tender. Add more water by the Tbs if necessary to fully reconstitute TVP.

Vegan MoFo Day 1: Pizza

Ok, so here's the deal, I'm one busy MoFo'er and I'm just now getting around to my first MoFo post. Almost 24 hours into day one, and I'm just now posting. And yes, for my first post, that is a pizza you are seeing. So, now you're thinking to yourself "damn, she's one lazy MoFo'er too" aren't ya? Call it what you will, lazy, ordinary, yada, yada, yada.....no matter what you say about it all I know is it was damn good!!

So, VeganMoFo, write about veganism every week day for one month. Quite a challenge. Made even more of a challenge by my fellow MoFo'ers who will go out of their way to create some of the most incredible food you've ever put in your mouth. Now not only do I have to remember to blog daily, but I have to get creative in the kitchen again too, sheesh.

I promise, I will create, I will post exotic, or at least not ordinary dishes, yes, I'll do all of that stuff.......but, I have a theme for MoFo this year and it's "Go Vegan: You won't miss a thing". Let's be honest, it's not hard to get a veggie lover to try out vegan, but what about those people that are just so attached to their meat and dairy. You know the one's......"I could never give up cheese", or "I could never stop eating hamburgers", or "but, I need my protein". Yes, we all know those people. So, this year for MoFo, I've set out to show them that they can eat EVERYTHING they used to eat, only minus the icky animal ingredients. Ok, so maybe not everything, steak lovers will have to say good-bye to that addiction. I mean, I can fake a lot of meals, but there's really no way to fake a still bloody piece of flesh on your plate, know what I mean?

I'm kicking MoFo off with pizza, because almost everyone loves pizza, and when you tell someone you are vegan they almost always ask, "but don't you miss eating pizza". Um, no I don't miss eating pizza, because, well, I still eat it. And I still eat it with "sausage" and "pepperoni" and "cheese".........and you know what else? It's good, it's very good, it's damn good.

Cuban Black Bean Pizza

This delicious pizza is a veganized throwback to my college days. Avers's Pizza in Bloomington serves up an array of gourmet pizzas, and Cuban Black Bean happens to be one of those. This pizza uses cilantro pesto to replace the tomato sauce, then black beans spiced with cumin are layered on the pesto. From here the topping choices are endless, but we pretty consistently use, sliced roma tomatoes, sliced red onion, pepperoncini, and Follow Your Heart Mozzarella.

For this pizza you'll need one pizza shell. Store bought is fine, but I prefer to make my own, and make it whole wheat. I use my bread machine and it makes it very quick and easy. You'll also need one can or 2 cups of cooked black beans, seasoned with about 1/2 Tbs. ground cumin.

Cilantro Pesto

1 bunch organic cilantro, washed and well dried
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
olive oil

In a food processor combine first 3 ingredients, pulsing to chop and combine well. Then, with machine running drizzle in olive oil until pesto is at your desired consistency. I probably use about 1/8 cup.

Assembling Pizza:

Preheat oven and pizza stone to 450 degrees. If using home made crust, roll or toss into a circle measuring about 12 inches. Poke with a fork, and place on heated pizza stone. Bake for about 3-4 minutes. Remove crust from oven (or if using store bought crust begin here). Spread pesto to within 1-2 inches of edge of crust. Spread beans on top of pest. Layer on chosen ingredients and sprinkle with FYH. Bake in preheated oven on pizza stone for 7-10 minutes, or until edges of crust are golden brown and FYH is beginning to melt.

Catching Up

I've been terribly remiss in blogging lately. This week was our last full week before school starts, so we were rather busy. Not to mention, we had a major heatwave for most of the week and I just didn't feel like cooking. We ate lots of cold dishes, and I fried up some Fakin' Bacon and made BLT's with some of our CSA tomatoes.

I do have just a few highlights from the past week to share with you though. Because of the heat I was trying very hard not to turn on my oven or make anything that would heat up the kitchen too much. Therefore, the grill became the perfect place to cook a pizza. The photo below is just a typical veggie pizza with FYH mozzarella, and some fresh corn from the CSA. Other toppings included onions, bell pepper, and banana pepper (all from the CSA)

Last Sunday I made up a batch of the Ultimate Barbecued Seitan Sandwich to take over to my mother's house for lunch and swimming. With the left over barbecue we decided to throw together a Barbecued Chicken Pizza and cook it on the grill. This one again included corn and banana pepper from the CSA and red onion. No cheese on this pizza. This one was out of this world. I'll be using my left over barbecue for this one many times.

I also managed to throw together this pasta dish using local heirloom tomatoes and again, the apparently ubiquitous, CSA corn. There are also some cooked chickpeas thrown in there. This one was a recipe from a current Vegetarian Times. The sauce is raw, you just boil the pasta, combine it with the tomatoes and corn and dress it with a cumin lime dressing. Very good!!

And finally, I did turn on the oven one morning to make these delicious Cinnamon-Oat Scones. They are becoming a new favorite here. They aren't as heavy as traditional scones, and are actually a bit more like a giant muffin.

Cinnamon-Oat Scones

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated shortening

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup quick cooking oats

1/3 cup soy milk (plain)

2 Tbs. turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 375. Combine dry ingredients. Cut in shortening until crumbly. Add oats and stir. Add soy milk and mix until a dough forms. Turn out onto a floured surface and form into a 7 inch circle. Cut into 8 triangles (don't cut all the way through). Place on ungreased baking sheet and sprinkle with a turbinado sugar. Bake for about 30 minutes, until golden.