Pizza night!

It's been a while since our last pizza night, so we felt the need to make it. This time I decided to add on a bit of fake meat for shits and giggles. I made the 'Big Stick Pepperoni' recipe from Vegan on the Cheap. Man, this stuff is great. The secret ingredient is definately fennel seed, and the flavour is very strong in it. Next time I might cut it down just a tad, it's a little overpowering. Now, I never liked salami, it always grossed me out (always knew what it was , especially after working in a deli and slicing it every day ugh), but since I know this stuff isn't wrapped in fat netting, and is actually cooked and NOT moldy, then it tastes delicious. The texture is odd, as disgusting as this sounds, but it's kind of like a (real) salami that hasn't dried to a hard lump quite yet. So it kind of grossed me out, so before I put it on the pizza I fried it up a tad and it's much better. 

Unfried big stick pepperoni



So on the pizza in order was: tomato paste, caramelised onion, potato, olives, jalapeno pepper, pepperoni and a sprinkling of nutritional yeast. It was just greasy enough from the onions, without having the atery clogging greasiness of cheese on it. We had it with a much needed salad of baby spinach leaves, red capsicum, red onion, capers, radish and apricot kernels with a lemon juice-olive oil and black pepper dressing.

I got apricot kernels at the farmer's market this morning, and they taste like almonds (same species I think) except sweeter and they are about half the size. An excellent addition to a salad. I love adding crunch like nuts and seeds to my salad. I usually go for sunflower seeds but I had these :)

Yum. I look forward to lunch at work tomorrow.

Look what you missed out on!

*dribble*

I love making my own pizza. Why don't I do it more often? I think it's because I get it in my head that the dough takes forever, but really it's ready in an hour and a half. That's not that bad. =D

I based it on a recipe from Vegan on the Cheap, and just went a bit nuts with the toppings. I really wanted mushrooms on it, but Brisbane has gone nuts and all the groceries were gone! So I had to make do with what I had. My dad and my sister were supposed to come to tea, but because of all this water dad got evacuated from work near the city and my sister was stuck further south. And damn they missed out.

The dough ingredients are: 2 3/4 cups wholemeal flour, 2 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast, 1 tsp salt and 1 cup warm water. It was a nice thick soft crust when cooked, the way I like it.

The toppings I chose in order from bottom to top:

Tomato paste

Caremelised onions (with maple syrup and balsamic vinegar)

Cooked kidney beans pureed with parsnip and garlic

Sliced tomato

Homemade basil pesto

Before cooking

When I worked at a continental delicatessen, we sold tiny little containers of caremelised onions for about $8.50. Dude. People actually BOUGHT it. It was one of our most popular condiment things. Jeez. I've never made them before but they are so easy.



So pretty

I thinly sliced a huge onion, poured a liberal amount of rice bran oil in my frying pan and cooked them for about 20 minutes on med-low. About half way through I put in a blob of maple syrup and a dash of balsamic. They are so delicious. I might make some tonight to have on a sandwich for work tomorrow.

Anyway, pizza = mmmm. Maybe we should have pizza night more often. 

I got my juicer out of hiding

Want a drink so potent it'll make your eyes water?

The last few days I've been feeling a little lethargic and gacky in the throat. Uhh, nuh uh. No way am I getting sick - haven't been sick for years and don't intend on starting now.

Potent Juice of Doom

Juice together, in order:

2 cm chunk of ginger

1 large garlic clove

1/2 a small onion

1 red sweet chilli or a chunk of capsicum (red or yellow)

2 med-large carrots

1 lemon or 1 small orange

Drink up! It's pretty spicy from the ginger, I liked the version with the orange better, it took the edge off a bit, but both were delicious. I'm going to keep this up for a couple more days and I'm pretty sure I'll never ever get sick again.

Don't want Allium spp. breath?

Chew a fresh sprig of parsley! I got no complaints from my girlfriend ;)



Creten stew (red wine, seitan, onion and orange stew)

This screamed at me to cook it the other night. I love red wine, I love tofu how could I say no? (From what the hell does a vegan eat anyway? blog)

I was going to make it in my tagine...but I exploded it. Stupid me decided to pour some cold water on it when the oil ran out for frying tofu in. Big crack, thought I was going to die. But it's okay, no shrapnel actually flew at me. Heh. I was extremely pissed off though, I shall have to buy a replacement. It was a gift that I only got to use once! SO I made it in a large stock pot with a tight fitting lid on the stove top.

I couldn't find small white pearl onions so I used brown pickling onions instead, and cut them in half because they were quite big. Ideally I'd have liked to leave them whole, but oh well. I also used tofu, because I've never seen seitan here, or vital wheat gluten to make it. Yet. I'm getting there.

As you can see from the top picture I used Yalumba Y Series Merlot to cook this with. It's a medium bodied wine which I love - but it was probabaly too strong for this dish. However, as I said - I love red wine! So to me, it was perfect. If I was to cook this for family I might use half wine/half stock.

While this was cooking, the whole house smelled of...sangria! The orange/wine combination was definately dominating. Deliciously dominating. I can't wait until spring, or just a warm day when I can make up some sangria! We bought a nice glass jug (which accidentally turned out to be made in Spain, har har) months ago specifically to make said sangria, but it got cold. :( I make a gooooood sangria. When I do make it, I'll be sure to post a recipe.

We served the stew on top of penne pasta, because that's what I have. It would be good on any shape of pasta, or some other grain. I think pasta would be best though.