Being Vegan and cooking at home does not mean giving up delicious foods like pizza. (No way!)One of our favorite recent cooking tools is a pizza stone and pizza peel. We have used a variety of pizza doughs- our favorite tends to be Trader Joe's variety (Whole Wheat & Garlic Herb are our current favorites), although for ease you can also use whole wheat pitas, and Alicia Silverstone often uses Ezekiel Bread's tortillas in her recipes. One day soon, we'll take on making our own dough from scratch- but for right now, we are loving all of the above options.
So, let's get started! If you do use dough (such as Trader Joes, your own, or another), first be sure to cover the surface of the dough with cornmeal and roll it out directly onto the pizza peel until it is stretched out as much as you would like. Sometimes this can be a bit of a process, so be prepared to put some muscle behind it! Stretching pizza dough to the right size and shape, we've learned, can be quite an art form, which takes practice, laughing, more corn meal than you would expect and a good deal of starting over. But it's also, just so fun!
So, let's get started! If you do use dough (such as Trader Joes, your own, or another), first be sure to cover the surface of the dough with cornmeal and roll it out directly onto the pizza peel until it is stretched out as much as you would like. Sometimes this can be a bit of a process, so be prepared to put some muscle behind it! Stretching pizza dough to the right size and shape, we've learned, can be quite an art form, which takes practice, laughing, more corn meal than you would expect and a good deal of starting over. But it's also, just so fun!
Once the pizza dough is completely rolled out, it is then just a matter of mixing in a delicious sauce and adding any amazing topping to your liking!
For this particular pizza, I used about 12-14 oz of marinara sauce and mixed in 1/2 a diced jalapeño pepper. I then added (vegan) cheese (Daiya is what we strongly perfer and it is available at Wholefoods, Yes Organic, and a growing number of other supermarkets), yellow pepper and avocado before putting it in the oven. (Although you'll want to add avocado post-oven.)
Here is an essential trick to making pizza at home- you need to make sure that you cover the pizza peel in lots of cornmeal so that the pizza is able to slide off easily and onto the pizza stone also covered in cornmeal. I often find myself overzealous with pizza decoration (who can resist?) and the pizza becomes far too heavy to slide off the peel and onto the stone. The pizza then will get mushed together and the toppings fall everywhere. (Sad!)
Additionally, the pizza does not cook nearly as well. (Double sad)
However, once the peel and stone have a nice coat of corn meal, it is then easy to shift many pizzas through in a short amount of time to make many, many pizzas at once. We were recently having a pizza party at a friend's house (the best), were able to produce 7-10 pizzas in quick secession using delicious accouterments from mushrooms and peppers to caramelized onions, green apples, asparagus, tempeh, and seitan.
For this particular pizza, I used about 12-14 oz of marinara sauce and mixed in 1/2 a diced jalapeño pepper. I then added (vegan) cheese (Daiya is what we strongly perfer and it is available at Wholefoods, Yes Organic, and a growing number of other supermarkets), yellow pepper and avocado before putting it in the oven. (Although you'll want to add avocado post-oven.)
Here is an essential trick to making pizza at home- you need to make sure that you cover the pizza peel in lots of cornmeal so that the pizza is able to slide off easily and onto the pizza stone also covered in cornmeal. I often find myself overzealous with pizza decoration (who can resist?) and the pizza becomes far too heavy to slide off the peel and onto the stone. The pizza then will get mushed together and the toppings fall everywhere. (Sad!)
Additionally, the pizza does not cook nearly as well. (Double sad)
However, once the peel and stone have a nice coat of corn meal, it is then easy to shift many pizzas through in a short amount of time to make many, many pizzas at once. We were recently having a pizza party at a friend's house (the best), were able to produce 7-10 pizzas in quick secession using delicious accouterments from mushrooms and peppers to caramelized onions, green apples, asparagus, tempeh, and seitan.
One of our favorite ways to do pot lucks has actually been "make your own pizza parties," where friends come with a topping or two, we roll out all of the dough and, using the combined toppings, everyone decorates an individual half or full pizza. Very fun and VERY delicious!
Pizza is certainly one of the easiest foods to make once you have the right tools, and if not, try using a cookie sheet, it is not far off!
Pizza:
1 ball of pizza dough
covered liberally in corn meal
12-14oz of sauce
1/2 jalapeno pepper
1 yellow pepper (sliced)
1 avocado (sliiced)
liberal application of corn meal on peel and stone
Cook at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until crust begins to harden
Enjoy!
*Nerd Alert* One of my architecture friends told me that the corn meal acts as the "ball bearings" to transfer the pizza into and out of the oven. It's a metaphor that totally works for me, hahaha.
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