Eatsa Pizza
Whenever I ask Bruce what he'd like me to make for dinner he always says, "I like everything you make." Which is true: he does. He really is the easiest person in the world to cook for. He is appreciative, loves leftovers, eats everything.
So when he said, "I'd kind of like pizza," I knew I needed to come through. I won't say it was a wholly successful venture, but it was good enough that we'll try again and make some changes.
I made the dough out of 100% whole wheat flour and the crust was really good -- we both loved it and I will make it exactly the same way next time. Excellent.
I based this pizza on some of the recipes in the cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance: Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes that Rock by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. As usual, of course, I made some changes. I'll just tell you what I did (used less oil, used whole wheat flour, etc.) and you can make your own if you decide to try this.
For the dough, I took a cup of warm water, dissolved about a tablespoon-and-a-half of sugar in the water, and sprinkled in a package of yeast. I let it proof for a bit and then I added just a little bit of olive oil -- maybe a teaspoon. I put three cups of whole wheat flour and about a teaspoon of salt into a bowl and dumped in the water/yeast/sugar/oil mixture. I stirred it for just a bit, until most of the flour was incorporated and then I turned it out of the bowl to knead it. I have this great plastic sheet that I bought at a Tupperware party a million years ago that I knead on. It's designed for rolling out pastry dough -- has these circles so you know how big you have to roll a pie crust for a nine-inch pie or whatever. Anyway, I pretty much use it exclusively for kneading dough. I love to knead dough. Good thing, too, because I kneaded this stuff for a full ten minutes. That is a very long time. After the kneading was done I put the dough into a bowl that I'd sprayed with Pam and then I sprayed the dough itself with a little shot of Pam. I covered it with a damp dish towel, put it out onto my back porch and went to Publix to buy the other stuff I'd need.
After the dough had risen for about an hour I punched it down, turned it out onto my kneading surface again, kneaded it for about a minute, put it back into the bowl. It can be frozen at this point. The best thing is to let it rest for an hour or two, but you could use it in as little as ten minutes if you had to. The longer you let it rest, the stretchier it gets (and easier to handle).
I let it sit for about an hour and a half. The recipe will make two fourteen-inch pizzas (supposedly -- the dough would be really thin if you made it that big). I don't have a round pizza pan, so I just used my baking stone and stretched half of the dough out until it was as thin as I wanted it to be. It wasn't super thin or super thick.
For the sauce, I used the leftover crushed tomatoes and added a large can of tomato paste. It was pretty thick, but that's okay. I tossed in some garlic powder, basil, thyme, oregano, and pepper. I just heated it up a bit and used it. It was okay, not great. I might put more effort into the sauce next time -- one of the changes I'd make.
The most unusual thing I did was to make a vegan version of ricotta cheese. I took a block of firm tofu (the recipe called for a pound, but my block was fourteen ounces). I pressed it for about fifteen minutes (I took a plate and placed a double-layer of paper towels on it, placed the block of tofu on the paper towel, put another plate on top and set a can of tomato sauce on top of that. After pressing out some of the liquid I crumbled the tofu with my hands into a bowl and added a couple teaspoons of lemon juice, a minced clove of garlic, a little salt, some black pepper, and some basil. I crumbled this all together with my hands until it was kind of the texture of ricotta. Then I added about a teaspoon of olive oil and just under a quarter cup of nutritional yeast and stirred it all up with a fork.
The jury is out on the fake ricotta -- I just don't think it added that much, but it wasn't BAD. There is some left over, so I am going to use it to make a tofu scramble.
Anyway, I told Bruce that he had to make his own pizza (after I stretched the dough out for him). He added the sauce (he didn't think he used enough and would add more next time). For toppings he used fresh mushrooms, a little sweet onion, some red bell pepper, some green olives, and some sundried tomatoes. And the fake ricotta.
I baked it at 500 degrees for about nine minutes. He cut it into four big pieces and took two before I thought to take a picture, so here's half his pizza:
He gave it two-and-a-half stars. Or maybe three-and-a-half. Hmmm. I forget. Personally, I think the problem was all in the sauce. Don't get me wrong -- he ate the entire thing in one sitting. It was good, just not great. And I can do better.
I stretched my dough onto a Silpat mat (I only have one stone). The problem with that, of course, is that you can't use a pizza cutter on it, but I figured I could slide the pizza partially onto my plate and cut it there (which is what I did). I only used the fake cheese, onion, red bell pepper, and mushrooms, so mine does not look as interesting as Bruce's (the sundried tomatoes that we currently have are packed in oil, and I didn't want the fat):
I'd give it three stars. I ate about 2/3 of it (pizza for breakfast!). Great crust, though. I'll experiment with this later and figure out how to make it better. :)
Now -- I made dessert. We both gave this a solid five stars -- it was VERY yummy. I took a picture, but it was blurry so I'm not posting it. It's a chocolate pudding cake, though, and doesn't really look pretty anyway. I got the recipe from the same cookbook. It's called "Chocolate-Rum Pudding Cake."
In a bowl combine 1 cup of white flour (I didn't use whole wheat -- I went with the bad stuff), two teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 3/4 cup of sugar, and 1/4 cup of cocoa. Add 1/2 cup of milk (the recipe calls for soy milk, but I used almond milk), 1/4 cup of canola oil, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon of rum extract (I used two teaspoons of vanilla extract because I made the recipe with whisky, not rum). Stir this all up; it will be a thick batter. Spread it into a greased, 9-inch springform pan (more on that later). Sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of cocoa over the batter. Take half a cup of boiling water and add to it 1/2 cup of maple syrup (the real stuff) and 1/4 cup of light rum. I found out too late that we don't have rum, so I used whisky and it worked dandy. If you don't have any alcohol, you could just use extra water. Pour this over the batter. Put the springform pan onto a cookie sheet and bake it at 350 for 30-35 minutes.
When the timer went off and I looked in the oven, the springform pan had leaked and there is chocolate stuff all over my cookie sheet. She tells you to let the cake cool for a bit and then release the sides -- but she also warns that the cake will kind of ooze out a bit. Well -- the bottom of my springform pan has a big groove in it (that the sides fit down into) and I didn't want the cake to ooze into that groove, so I never loosened the sides. I will definitely make this again -- but I will make it in a bowl. It's not beautiful -- it's a pudding cake -- so you don't need to display it on a plate.
Anyway, we ate it warm and it was WONDERFUL. Really rich and gooey and just fabulous. Obviously this is not something to eat often -- it's not low calorie, it's not healthy, and it's too rich to eat all the time. But it is something that I would make for guests.
Tomorrow I am going to make pad Thai again, but a different recipe.
More later...
So when he said, "I'd kind of like pizza," I knew I needed to come through. I won't say it was a wholly successful venture, but it was good enough that we'll try again and make some changes.
I made the dough out of 100% whole wheat flour and the crust was really good -- we both loved it and I will make it exactly the same way next time. Excellent.
I based this pizza on some of the recipes in the cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance: Over 150 Delicious, Cheap, Animal-Free Recipes that Rock by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. As usual, of course, I made some changes. I'll just tell you what I did (used less oil, used whole wheat flour, etc.) and you can make your own if you decide to try this.
For the dough, I took a cup of warm water, dissolved about a tablespoon-and-a-half of sugar in the water, and sprinkled in a package of yeast. I let it proof for a bit and then I added just a little bit of olive oil -- maybe a teaspoon. I put three cups of whole wheat flour and about a teaspoon of salt into a bowl and dumped in the water/yeast/sugar/oil mixture. I stirred it for just a bit, until most of the flour was incorporated and then I turned it out of the bowl to knead it. I have this great plastic sheet that I bought at a Tupperware party a million years ago that I knead on. It's designed for rolling out pastry dough -- has these circles so you know how big you have to roll a pie crust for a nine-inch pie or whatever. Anyway, I pretty much use it exclusively for kneading dough. I love to knead dough. Good thing, too, because I kneaded this stuff for a full ten minutes. That is a very long time. After the kneading was done I put the dough into a bowl that I'd sprayed with Pam and then I sprayed the dough itself with a little shot of Pam. I covered it with a damp dish towel, put it out onto my back porch and went to Publix to buy the other stuff I'd need.
After the dough had risen for about an hour I punched it down, turned it out onto my kneading surface again, kneaded it for about a minute, put it back into the bowl. It can be frozen at this point. The best thing is to let it rest for an hour or two, but you could use it in as little as ten minutes if you had to. The longer you let it rest, the stretchier it gets (and easier to handle).
I let it sit for about an hour and a half. The recipe will make two fourteen-inch pizzas (supposedly -- the dough would be really thin if you made it that big). I don't have a round pizza pan, so I just used my baking stone and stretched half of the dough out until it was as thin as I wanted it to be. It wasn't super thin or super thick.
For the sauce, I used the leftover crushed tomatoes and added a large can of tomato paste. It was pretty thick, but that's okay. I tossed in some garlic powder, basil, thyme, oregano, and pepper. I just heated it up a bit and used it. It was okay, not great. I might put more effort into the sauce next time -- one of the changes I'd make.
The most unusual thing I did was to make a vegan version of ricotta cheese. I took a block of firm tofu (the recipe called for a pound, but my block was fourteen ounces). I pressed it for about fifteen minutes (I took a plate and placed a double-layer of paper towels on it, placed the block of tofu on the paper towel, put another plate on top and set a can of tomato sauce on top of that. After pressing out some of the liquid I crumbled the tofu with my hands into a bowl and added a couple teaspoons of lemon juice, a minced clove of garlic, a little salt, some black pepper, and some basil. I crumbled this all together with my hands until it was kind of the texture of ricotta. Then I added about a teaspoon of olive oil and just under a quarter cup of nutritional yeast and stirred it all up with a fork.
The jury is out on the fake ricotta -- I just don't think it added that much, but it wasn't BAD. There is some left over, so I am going to use it to make a tofu scramble.
Anyway, I told Bruce that he had to make his own pizza (after I stretched the dough out for him). He added the sauce (he didn't think he used enough and would add more next time). For toppings he used fresh mushrooms, a little sweet onion, some red bell pepper, some green olives, and some sundried tomatoes. And the fake ricotta.
I baked it at 500 degrees for about nine minutes. He cut it into four big pieces and took two before I thought to take a picture, so here's half his pizza:
He gave it two-and-a-half stars. Or maybe three-and-a-half. Hmmm. I forget. Personally, I think the problem was all in the sauce. Don't get me wrong -- he ate the entire thing in one sitting. It was good, just not great. And I can do better.
I stretched my dough onto a Silpat mat (I only have one stone). The problem with that, of course, is that you can't use a pizza cutter on it, but I figured I could slide the pizza partially onto my plate and cut it there (which is what I did). I only used the fake cheese, onion, red bell pepper, and mushrooms, so mine does not look as interesting as Bruce's (the sundried tomatoes that we currently have are packed in oil, and I didn't want the fat):
I'd give it three stars. I ate about 2/3 of it (pizza for breakfast!). Great crust, though. I'll experiment with this later and figure out how to make it better. :)
Now -- I made dessert. We both gave this a solid five stars -- it was VERY yummy. I took a picture, but it was blurry so I'm not posting it. It's a chocolate pudding cake, though, and doesn't really look pretty anyway. I got the recipe from the same cookbook. It's called "Chocolate-Rum Pudding Cake."
In a bowl combine 1 cup of white flour (I didn't use whole wheat -- I went with the bad stuff), two teaspoons of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 3/4 cup of sugar, and 1/4 cup of cocoa. Add 1/2 cup of milk (the recipe calls for soy milk, but I used almond milk), 1/4 cup of canola oil, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon of rum extract (I used two teaspoons of vanilla extract because I made the recipe with whisky, not rum). Stir this all up; it will be a thick batter. Spread it into a greased, 9-inch springform pan (more on that later). Sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of cocoa over the batter. Take half a cup of boiling water and add to it 1/2 cup of maple syrup (the real stuff) and 1/4 cup of light rum. I found out too late that we don't have rum, so I used whisky and it worked dandy. If you don't have any alcohol, you could just use extra water. Pour this over the batter. Put the springform pan onto a cookie sheet and bake it at 350 for 30-35 minutes.
When the timer went off and I looked in the oven, the springform pan had leaked and there is chocolate stuff all over my cookie sheet. She tells you to let the cake cool for a bit and then release the sides -- but she also warns that the cake will kind of ooze out a bit. Well -- the bottom of my springform pan has a big groove in it (that the sides fit down into) and I didn't want the cake to ooze into that groove, so I never loosened the sides. I will definitely make this again -- but I will make it in a bowl. It's not beautiful -- it's a pudding cake -- so you don't need to display it on a plate.
Anyway, we ate it warm and it was WONDERFUL. Really rich and gooey and just fabulous. Obviously this is not something to eat often -- it's not low calorie, it's not healthy, and it's too rich to eat all the time. But it is something that I would make for guests.
Tomorrow I am going to make pad Thai again, but a different recipe.
More later...