Monday 14 January 2019

2018 Pizza Challenge Part One

For 2018, I set myself the challenge of making pizza once a month. This is the first six months of that challenge. Please excuse my inability to take pretty photos of pizzas! They all kind of look the same.

Spinach, Onion, Mushroom, and Sausage Pizza from Vegan Pizza by Julie Hasson: This is in the book listed as Pepperoni in the title, rather than sausage, but I took the option to use the sausage crumbles. I made the pizza base, tomato-garlic sauce, and sausage crumbles all from the book. The result was excellent! It also has spinach, mushrooms, red onion, and mozzarella (I used FYH). It all combined perfectly, the cheese melted into the sauce deliciously, this was a fabulous pizza!
Rating: :D

Spinach, Onion, Mushroom, and Sausage Pizza


Garlic, Sausage, and Onion Pizza from Vegan Pizza by Julie Hasson: Another solid pizza, this uses tomato-garlic pizza sauce and the dough from the book. I took the option of using sliced vegan sausages (Vegie Delights BBQ sausages) rather than the sausage crumbles for this one. It also has onion and garlic on it, as the name would suggest, and more FYH mozzarella. I left off the optional jalapeno.
Rating: :)

Garlic, Sausage, and Onion Pizza


Meaty Cheese Pizza from Veganize It by Robin Robertson: This pizza was super! The dough is not as easy as the one from Vegan Pizza, and I found it ended up a bit sticky, but it was still great. This book has options for DIY or store-bought, and I used a mix. I made the pepperoni from the book, and used the Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce as well. But I used some tofurky beef crumbles and FYH mozzarella in place of from scratch recipes. This pizza, as you can imagine, is very filling!
Rating: :D

Meaty-Cheesy Pizza


Pizza with Zucchini, Artichokes, and Soy Mozzarella from The Complete Vegan Cookbook by Susann Geiskopf-Hadler and Mindy Toomay: The pizza dough recipe in this book is a little fiddly, so I made it on the dough setting in my bread maker and it worked great. A very puffy dough! This pizza was topped with artichoke hearts, zucchini (which I sliced into rounds rather than into strips), FYH mozzarella (I love it), garlic, and onion. The recipe gives instructions for grill or oven, I used a pizza stone in my hot oven. It was a bit gooey in the middle, it could have baked for a little longer, but was a nice combination.
Rating: :)

Pizza with Zucchini, Artichokes, and Soy Mozarella


Pizza with Baked Garlic and Grilled Eggplant from The Complete Vegan Cookbook by Susann Geiskopf-Hadler and Mindy Toomay: This pizza was a bit on the bland side, it definitely needed more seasoning. Roasted garlic mashed into a paste forms the 'sauce' for the pizza, and I thing this would have benefited from something added to it. I roasted the eggplant, then finished it off with a quick grill on the George Foreman for the pretty marks. The recipe calls for grilled red and green capsicum, but I ditched that in favour of tomatoes and corn. The recipe encourages experimenting with different vegetables. No cheese on this one, and while I have no problem with cheeseless pizza, I feel that would have helped a bit with the flavour. Or just season things better!
Rating: :|

Pizza with Baked Garlic and Grilled Eggplant


The Meat Hater's Pizza from Now Vegan by Lynda Stoner: Another meaty and cheesy style pizza. The dough for this ended up being very bready and thick, I prefer a thinner crust. I only made a half recipe of the tomato sauce (using onion powder instead of chopped onion), and it was the right amount of the pizza. The toppings include BBQ sauce, vegan cheese (you know by now what I used!), and a selection of different mock meaty, tofu, tempeh, and mushroom suggestions. I used some sliced Vegie Delight BBQ sausages, chopped Tofurky Smoked slices, diced Japanese Flavoured Tofu, a chopped Fry's schnitzel, and sliced mushrooms. Topped with some sliced tomato. The filling toppings along with the thick crust made for a very filling, heavy, pizza.
Rating: :)

The Meat Hater's Pizza


Stay tuned for part two!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

The beautiful face of Gizmo


Today is seven years since I had to say goodbye to Gizmo. It still hurts, as it should. I miss her so much.

8 comments:

  1. Wow too bad the baked eggplant and garlic pizza was bland, because it looks so incredibly fresh and flavorful! It's gorgeous! I miss gluten so much, especially for pizza. I eat a lot less pizza now let me tell you!
    I know what you mean about Gizmo. Jan. 31 was three years since Dylan and it really never doesn't hurt. Hugs.

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    1. **hugs**

      I have had some reasonable GF pizza bases at some places, but I can imagine it would be hard to make. Eventually I will try making some myself, for science. If they work out I will let you know!

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  2. Yum, we have homemade pizza with a pizza stone a couple of times a month. I have the Julie Hassan book and I always use her easy no knead dough recipe. I love that I can make it in minutes in the morning and then when I get back form work it's ready to roll out.
    That's a lovely picture of Gizmo xxx

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    1. That is my favourite dough, because it is so quick and simple. I tried a few different recipes for cookbook research purposes, but that one is my go to.

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  3. I love a cheeseless pizza but I agree, you have to step up the other flavors of the toppings.

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    1. It's a shame, because cheeseless pizza is a change to really let other flavours shine through. They can be so good! No excuse for blandness.

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  4. Your pizzas all look great; what a fun challenge! I got Veganize It for Christmas, so I'll have to try the meaty cheese pizza sometime!
    Sweet Gizmo <3

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    1. It is a fabulous book, so I hope you will enjoy making all of the things!

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