More CSA Yumminess

Two CSA's in a row now (I only get them every other weekend) I have gotten eggplants. I had never really eaten eggplants so I was a little shy on what to do with them. The first time I tried my hand at baba ghanoush but the eggplants were so tiny that I didn't really get much flesh. What I did get was pretty decent but I did not fall in love with it.

Baba ghanoush, the aforementioned red pepper hummus (not Sabra), my attempt at meatless meatballs (kind of a flop), carrots, broccoli and the best freakin pita bread on the face of the planet. Seriously, when I first became contious of what I was eating and started liking pita bread, I had to drive really far to get good pita bread with the right texture but without a list of ingredients 10 miles long. I'm going to have to do a whole post dedicated to this pita bread one day. It has, I think, no more than 5 ingredients and is the most fluffy, pocketed yummy pita bread ever. I'm gushing. Over pita bread. You know you're a foodie when....

Meanwhile, back to the point. So the next time I got eggplants I wanted to go a different route. They ended up sitting in my fridge for days and days until they were some of the last vegetables in there. Then I ended up making pizza using dough I had bought at Trader Joe's (I love this dough!). I was going to make bbq seitan pizza for my boyfriend and was debating what type of pizza to do for myself. I was down to limited options in the veggie department so here is what I went with. I sliced and roasted with a little oil and salt, the two eggplants, a yellow bell pepper and some red onion. This got done roasting well before I was ready to make my pizza and so I decided to just try a bit of the eggplant and it was love! It was the most flavorful, delicious thing ever! Ok, so I say that a lot. But it was good. I snacked on it while my boyfriend's pizza cooked and my dough came to room temperature.

I then topped my dough with some jarred spaghetti sauce (it was a really thick one too, but that made it kind of extra yummy) and piled on the vegetables. When searching for vegan eggplant pizza online I had seen someone make a pine nut cheeze so I decided to add that as well. I blended together some soaked pine nuts, nutritional yeast, lime juice (didn't have any lemons...this is a recurring theme) and I think just some salt...now I can't remember. I should really try to find that recipe again... Let me tell you, I was a little worried. It was really chunky and didn't taste like very much raw, but it was so good on the pizza.

Yum! And even though it's not vegan, here is my boyfriend's pizza. Vegetarian at least with seitan strips from Trader Joe's.

I am so excited that my CSA will have eggplant again this week!

Daiya Cheeze

Recently, the topic of vegan cheeze was brought up and I mentioned Daiya was the craze of the interwebs but that it couldn't be found in stores yet.  My boyfriend then informed me that the grocery store he works at does indeed carry it now.  He brought me home a package of the mozzarella style and I made quick work of it.  I enjoyed it well enough but it is not something I couldn't live without.  My omni boyfriend on the other hand, said it was horrible and nothing like cheese.  Oh well.  You can't please everyone.  The first thing I made with it was a meatless ball sandwich.

Then of course I attempted pizza.  I use premade dough from Trader Joe's and veggeroni from Fat Free Vegan.

The taste was decent enough and it definitely melted but it did have a weird sort of stick to the roof of your mouth quality.  Enjoyable enough, but I am just fine with cheeseless pizza 99% of the time.

The next weekend when I was at the Co-Op I shop at I found that they had the cheddar version so I bought some of that as well.  This was used to make burritos and quesadillas.

The above burrito is using a gluten free tortilla from Trader Joe's made of brown rice. I do not recommend.  They did not roll, did not soften in a pan and didn't taste all that great.  Below is using a traditional burrito tortilla.  Much better.

I have been having lots of foods topped by avocado and pico de gallo lately. 

Barley chili inspired by Vegan Eats & Treats and from 500 Recipes.

Roasted potatoes.  I have become a little bit obsessed with potatoes the last week.  I have always loved them but I have been making them a lot this last week.

Be back with some more yummy pictures hopefully tomorrow.  I did a whole lot of baking between the last two weekends. 

Pizza!

Having made my very own home made vegeroni the only logical next step was to make pizza.  I have had some debacles with making my own dough in the past and ever since I saw Shelby use dough from Trader Joe's, it has been my go to pizza dough.  Someday I may perfect the art of making my own dough, but for now TJ's does an excellent job.

I bought two different doughs so I could make a non vegan pizza for my boyfriend and a vegan one for myself.  I decided to try out the garlic and herb dough for myself and compare the gluten stretchability to the whole wheat dough I would use for the BFs.

 

I have to say, I definitely like the gluten in the non whole wheat dough better.  I have a bit of an internal struggle when it comes to whole wheat in things like pizza dough.  Ideally I would eat everything "whole wheat" but when it comes to whole grains being healthier I really think that more applies to eating rice and barley and bulger and not so much flour.  I just don't really think flour is all that nutritious no matter which way you slice it unless you personally take a whole grain (rice, wheat, etc) and grind it up yourself.  And since I don't make pizza all that often, I don't feel so guilty using non whole wheat dough.  There, I said it.  

Flour type aside, this attempt at pizza making almost made me never want to make pizza again!  I have a sort of pizza stone and I try to use a cutting board as a pizza peel.  I sprinkled my cutting board with cornmeal and then assembled my boyfriend's pizza and tried to slide it onto the preheated stone.  This resulted in the pizza dough not wanting to budge but the toppings wanting to slide right off.  After trying every which way I could think of to get the pizza off the peel and onto the stone, I finally managed to get it to somewhat lift and slide resulting in some lost toppings and some flipped over crust.  Seriously, I considered not even making my pizza and never making pizza again.

It came out relatively well considering and I did decide to have a go at my own.  To save myself the trouble of trying to slide the pizza I decided to make it directly on the stone and not to preheat it.  This worked relatively well and restored my faith in my pizza making abilities.

In the end we had two not so aesthetically great but delicious pizzas.  Seriously, this vegeroni is incredible!

 

Sauce, mozzarella and vegeroni.

 
 

Spinach, sauce, vegeroni, kalamata olives and half topped with a sprout, bell pepper, tomato, carrot and radish salad I had.

After that I still had some vegeroni left so I decided to make pizza one more time last night to use it all up.  This time there were less disasters but still not pizza perfection.  I think I used too much sauce because my crust was a little soggy and not so crisp in the middle.  Still delicious and I had leftovers for lunch today and have more for tomorrow.

Where to start?

 Ah yes, veggeroni!  While checking out a recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen for some red cabbage and peas, something in the sidebar caught my eye.  Veggeroni!  I have not been the biggest fan of fake meats since becoming a vegan.  I try to incorporate more whole foods, especially vegetables into my diet instead of replacing meat and cheeses with wheat substitutes.  But there are some things that downright require substitutes (especially if your boyfriend is not a vegetable eater and likes the comfort of old favorites).  In my opinion pizza does not always require pepperoni, or cheese for that matter.  See Amy in regard to this:

 

  

This pizza was amazingly good FYI and I will probably be posting about that salad later!

But onto the veggeroni.  I had everything to make this except fennel seeds.  After my trip to the People's Co-Op I was all set to begin.

The recipe is amazingly easy.  Whisk dry.  Whisk wet.  Mix together.  Knead for a minute or two.  Roll into log, wrap in foil and bake.

I upped the red pepper just a little bit because I thought it would be better for it to come out a little spicy rather than a little bland.  It could have done without it but this stuff is amazing either way.  Ok, so it's not  really that close to real pepperoni but it is quite a bit better than this stuff:

And plus, I made it!  I know exactly what's in it.  I know how fresh it is.  And I don't feel so bad eating a slice of it with a little mustard all by itself.

Try this recipe!

Pizza and Pancakes

The other day I bought some canned pumpkin to make some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  When I opened the can and then looked at the label I noticed that it said it was pumpkin pie filling not pure pumpkin.  This would not have been a problem if I hadn't already added sugar and spices to my mixture!  Luckily I had another can of pure pumpkin in my pantry and I was able to finish the muffins.  But this left me with an open can of pumpkin pie mix.  What was I to do?  It sat in my fridge for a week while I debated between Pumpkin Scones and Pumpkin Brownies and various other pumpkin goodies.  Then this morning I went on a walk and I thought, Pumpkin Pancakes!  When I returned home I made this recipe and let me tell you, this is the pancake recipe I have been searching for since turning vegan.  Since I had a can that had 1.5 cups pumpkin and the recipe only called for .5 cups I tripled the recipe and I am so glad I did!

It seems that most pancake recipes I try turn out not so structured.  They are flimsy and more like crepes, but not in a good way.  These were so thick and full of structure!  I don't know if it was the pumpkin that did this, but if it was I will never make pancakes without pumpkin again!  To top the pancakes I thought something with cranberries would be delicious.  I took a couple of handfulls of frozen cranberries and put them in a small sauce pan with a little bit of agave nectar and let it cook until the cranberries popped.  I also added just a bit of arrowroot powder because in the beginning it looked way to watery but I don't think this step was necessary.

When the first batch was cooked I cut one in half to check how the inside looked.  It looked beautiful and when I dipped it in the cranberry jelly I almost died.  Okay that's a little over the top.  But damn these were good.

Then when I went to transfer the pictures to my computer I noticed that I had completely forgotten about the beautiful pictures I took of the pizza I made last weekend.

 I have had my fair share of failed crusts, but this one turned out mostly decent.  For toppings, there are red bell peppers, red onions, kalamata olives, chard, vegan pepperoni and some vegan cheese.  This pizza was soooo good and I am ashamed to say I ate the whole thing in one sitting.

I am currently working on another pizza but the crust is not showing much potential.  I don't know why I just can't get the hang of kneading....