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



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: :)



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



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 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: :|



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: :)



Stay tuned for part two!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



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

Recipe Round-Up: The Complete Vegan Cookbook

The Complete Vegan Cookbook was one of my earliest vegan cookbooks. I don't use it quite as much anymore, but I still dip in and out of it from time to time.

Zucchini Stuffed with Mushroom Quinoa in Tomato Coulis and Baked Tofu: Zucchini is stuffed with sherry-laced shiitake mushrooms, garlic, onions, button mushrooms and herbs. I left out the capsicum. The coulis was really nice and refreshing, but I really wanted to have more of it to cover the zucchini with! The baked tofu recipe in this book was one of the first baked tofu recipes I ever made, and remains one of my favourites to this day!
Rating: Zucchini :), Coulis :), Tofu :D



Potato and Cucumber Salad with Chive Dressing: This is meant to have Red Pepper in the title as well, but we all know how I feel about that. This is a soy mayo based dressing, which is darn tasty. This is great for summer!
Rating: :)



Macaroni Salad with Cucumbers and Dill Dressing: Another creamy salad, this is yummy and hits the spot. Though it says it makes 12 side dish servings, I got two lunch-sized servings out of it, so they must be super stingy with their side dish servings!
Rating: :)



Wasabi Mashed Potatoes: These are a great, comforting side dish, especially with strong asian flavours. The recipe calls for 3/4 teaspoon of wasabi powder, which doesn't really give it much flavour, so you may want to add a bit more.
Rating: :)



Roasted Pumpkin and Brussels with Garlic and Herbs: This is great for autumn, but really is great anytime. I only roasted for about an hour, not longer, or the vegetables started to dry out.
Rating: :)



Cannellini Beans with Tomatoes and Fennel Seeds of Soft Polenta: So this is meant to have red capscium, not tomatoes, but no times infinity. The tomatoes worked great. The soft polenta is lovely, I love polenta! Served over roasted zucchini.
Rating: :)



Tofu and Vegetables with Ginger and Coconut Milk: This isn't exactly packed with flavour, but it has that comforting kind of not really blandness to it. Green beans, yellow squash and tofu are cooked in a coconut milk sauce and served over brown rice.
Rating: :)



Spicy Chinese Eggplant with Tempeh and Baby Corn: This comes together super fast.I upscaled all the ingredients - doubled the eggplant, tempeh and baby corn - so that I didn't have leftover bits of open packets and tins left over.
Rating: :)



Hummus Sandwich with Cucumber and Tomato Relish: I really enjoy this sandwich, it is so fresh and tasty. The relish is particularly refreshing. It said it makes 8 sandwiches, but I made a half batch which was enough for six sandwiches, though you may want to make extra relish as you will end up with more hummus. Leftovers would be great layered and served with veggie dippers.
Rating: :)



Tofu and Potato Hash: This is a fine scramble, though a little basic compared to some of the other recipes out there. But it has potatoes in it, so that is a total bonus!
Rating: :)



Chasing Away The Chill: Split Pea Soup with Sweet Potato and Mexican Seasonings, Mushroom and Soy Cheese Salad, leafy salad with vinaigrette: This is one of the spring menus. The first time I made this soup I didn't know about the differences between US and Australian chili powders (Australian is like a million times hotter) and I pretty much killed myself and couldn't eat it! I made it again with an appropriately adjusted amount and it was much better. This is served with some amazing quesadillas that I just LOVE! The book also has guidelines for mixing up pretty much any vinaigrette you could wish.
Rating: Soup :), Quesadillas :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This morning Sahara was lying on the floor, and even though it was a hot day, my toes felt cold. So I just tucked my feet in either side of her, and she gave me this curious look. But she purred so it was all good.

Vegan MoFo 2011 #2: 'The Complete Vegan Cookbook'

The Complete Vegan Cookbook
Susann Geiskopf-Hadler and Mindy Toomay, Prima Publishing, 2001



Still hanging around in the cookbooks of my early young vegan years, I was very excited to add The Complete Vegan Cookbook to my collection. It may have been the second vegan book I bought, but I can't be sure, there are a couple from around that time. However, my little fledgling cookbook collection mainly spent its time sitting on the shelf, where I would occasionally flick through it. By this time I was a vet school in Sydney, and had been vegan for a few years, but my cooking was boring. Think pre-purchased pasta and stir-fry sauces as my base for dinner. Ho hum. However, one day it occurred to me that maybe I should make something out of these books that I kept on buying. And thus started me down the path of cookbook obsession.

The book itself is nice to use. Again, it is a paperback with no pictures. Chapters include Cooking Fundamental, Stocking the Vegan Pantry, Menus, Appetizers, Salads, Soups and Stews, Vegetable Side Dishes, Pasta Dishes, Grain and Bean Dishes, Sautes and Stir-Fries, Baked and Grilled Entrees, Sandwiches and Wraps, Morning Meals, Desserts and Frequently Used Ingredients. There is also the ubiquitous nutrition appendix and glossary of ingredients. The book is very nice to read. Because of the size, the pages easily sit open when on a bench. There is one recipe per page, and I like the way they are presented. Each recipe also includes serving sizes and nutritional information. In addition, there are some fun little facts sprinkled throughout the book about different ingredients. Recipes that are quick to make are marked Almost Instant.

This book was the first book I started cooking out of regularly, and it all started with one recipe that became almost a weekly dinner in the early days.

Classic Lentil, Tomato, and Potato Stew


This stew is simple and delicious, and wonderful on a cool or chilly night. I made it again just recently (for the first time in ages), which is why you get a picture!

As I started branching out and discovering the joy of making all these new and wonderful dishes, this book went into fairly heavy rotation. Thankfully, for the purposes of making this blog post prettier, I have photos of several of the dishes I have made. Below are some more of my favourites from here!

Pasta Puttanesca with Artichokes


This pasta dish is simple, yet amazing. The addition of artichokes makes for a delicious puttanesca, and I added some kidney beans as well for protein. This is on the table fairly quickly, and makes four big servings. Yum!

Stir-Fry of Cauliflower, Tomatoes, Orange, and Fresh Basil


Another dish I remade recently (because I don't have photos of a lot of them that I made early on, I am remaking my favourites to get their pictures). This is has quite a unique flavour, and is wonderfully fresh tasting. The first time I made this, many years ago, I didn't have access to tomatillos (I had never even heard of tomatillos), but when I made this recently I did have some to add. They make a great extra dimension! I serve this over rice.

Mushroom-Tempeh Saute with Sage


The earthy flavours of tempeh and mushrooms get a lift with sweet onion, sherry and sage. This was one of my first experiences with tempeh - yum! I serve over brown rice. It says this makes 4 main-dish servings, I would disagree with that unless you have a teeny tiny appetite. However, it is a very rich dish. Balance out with some steamed broccoli for your greens!

Polenta and Onion Casserole with Fennel Seed and Soy Mozzarella


OMG. This is amazing, just perfect for a cold winter night. Think creamy polenta base with a tangy tomato sauce and sweet red onions, topped with vegan cheese and then baked. Hello! The first time I made this I only had access to Kinglands Soy Cheese, us Australians know the one. The second time I made this I used Cheezly - much better! I served it with some marinated, baked tofu and a salad. The whole recipe says it makes eight servings, I make this as a half recipe and get three decent-sized servings.

Avocado and Watercress Sandwich with Dried Tomato Mayo


When I first spied Tofutti Cheese Slices, I knew that I could finally make this delicious sounding sandwich. The combination is just so amazing. It was my first time trying watercress as well. If you can't find watercress, sliced cucumber also makes a nice addition. I found the mayo (made by mixing sun dried tomatoes into soy mayo) didn't make quite enough for my tastes, so I make a double batch of that. Combined with creamy avocado and crunchy watercress. This actually makes an excellent sandwich to take to work or study, as it won't go soggy.

Cumin-Seared Tofu Wrap


Another great lunch option. I find you only need to make about 2/3 of the tofu mixture to fill the six wraps it makes, but make the whole lot anyway so you can make yet more wraps, throw the extra into a salad or just eat it with a fork. This gets a bit soggy once wrapped if you are taking it for work, but it is still very yummy.

Mushroom and Soy Cheese Quesadillas


This recipe is pretty simple, but often the simple things are the best. It will take all your strength not to devour the whole batch. Go ahead, just do it!

Dried Apricot and Coconut Pudding


A fairly bad photo of a pretty amazing dessert!

Baked Tofu


This stuff is pretty amazing, unlike many other marinated and baked tofu recipes, this is baked in a small pan in the marinade. The result is a beautiful crust of depth of flavour to the tofu. It is delicious served hot as part of the meal, but just as amazing served cold on a sandwich, in sushi, cut into chunks for dipping or just nomming on straight out of the fridge.

So, this book has given me some pretty great food memories! All the recipes above gained five-star ratings (yes, I have a rating system!). Here are the names of the other five-star rated recipes I've made from this book, but have yet to remake again for photos.

Caramelised Onion and Tempeh Spread
Spiced Garbanzo and Carrot Spread with Mint
Black Olive Tapenade with Capers (let mellow overnight to blow your ind)
Chinese Hot-and-Sour Soup
Savoury Mushroom, Oat, and Almond Burgers
Sushi (my first ever home-made sushi, made with brown rice and lots of filling suggestions)
Chocolate-Cinnamon-Walnut Cake

So, would I recommend this book? Yes. I still do see it around. It is fun, lots of fresh and yummy recipes, using lots of wholefood ingredients. I think aside from the occasional soy cheese, there are no processed foods involved. All these years later, I am still getting joy from it, be it remaking old favourites or discovering new recipes.

What was the first vegan recipe you put into regular rotation? Where did it come from?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post!


My beautiful Gizmo. She's been having troubles with her kidneys lately, my poor baby.

VeganMoFo #14: Recipe Round-Up - Vegan Planet

Back to the round up of Vegan Planet recipes... I still have so many more photos to post as well! Let's see what I have been cooking up...


Layered Polenta-Chili Casserole is a delicious way to use up some leftover chili. I had leftovers from one of the VP chili recipes - but I don't remember which one! The recipe called for a 9x13 inch baking dish but I found that this was too big for the ingredients called for so I used a smaller pan. It is delicious layer of polenta with a layer of chili and topped off with melted Cheezly - yummy!


Tempeh adds delicious protein to this Pappardelle Cacciatore - nom nom nom! I couldn't find any pappardelle pasta that didn't contain eggs, so I used my favourite spinach fettuccine.


This is ridiculously good! It is Grilled Portobellos with Rosemary-Roasted Vegetables. A simple combination of red onion, zucchini and tomato (I left out the capsicum) roasted and piled on top of a grilled portobello (which I grilled in our George Foreman grill). I served it with Wild Rice Pilaf from The Complete Vegan Cookbook and a green salad. VP suggests a variation where you add a grilled veggie burger on top of the mushrooms and under the vegetables for a more substantial entree. To be honest, I think this would really take away from the glorious fresh flavours, and I love it just as it is!


Red Bean Cakes with Creamy Coconut Sauce are a pretty dinner. The red bean cakes are so amazingly tasty and would be great as burgers made in their own right! The coconut sauce is nice but a bit bland. I served it with some brown rice and some sauteed broccolini - I think a nice salty vegetable side definitely picks up the whole experience.


Tempeh Goulash is full of fermented goodness - tempeh and sauerkraut... delicious! It has a very interesting flavour, but it is damn tasty!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Blog

Sahara loves a really intense head rub, here she is with my mother's hands encircled around her face giving her a nice scratch/rub/pat. Her little face is all squinched up in happiness. She was purring super loudly with her rattle purr!

Menu: Early Autumn Supper from The Complete Vegan Cookbook

Another day, another menu, as I do. To celebrate the start of Autumn I decided to make this Early Autumn Supper menu from The Complete Vegan Cookbook (my second ever vegan cookbook and the first one I started using regularly).

Here's what it has to offer.



Grilled Butternut Squash Soup with Shiitake Mushrooms. Sadness, I'm afraid. The recipe called for such a teeny amount of pumpkin, by the time you add the stock and the soy milk it is very pale and the flavour is so very faint. I didn't have the facilities to grill the pumpkin, so I roasted it. Maybe that had some great influence on the intensity of flavour? It also had cute little soup pasta in it, which added some bulk. Alas, the mushrooms ended up being flavourless and squidgy. *sigh* I served it with fresh wholemeal bread rolls, which were tasty!



Green Bean Salad with Asian Seasonings is much more tasty. I've made this before and it is very tasty. The only problem is that it only makes quite a small amount. Unfortunately, but the time the soup and rolls and salad were done, people were asking if there was a main course. Alas, the answer is no. But there was...



Dried Apricot and Coconut Pudding! The undoubted winner of this menu. It is SO yummy and creamy and sweet. A blog of soy ice cream would go really nice with it.

So, we had a wishy washy pumpkin soup, a lovely but too small salad and an amazing dessert. Not the biggest success, but the dessert is certainly worth repeating and the salad is a great little side.

Family Night Funsies

I live at home with my brother and my parents - I know, how very Gen Y of us - and Monday night is family night in our house. We all get together and eat and talk and do whatever.

Tonight I made Eggplant And Chickpea Kibbeh from Vegan Planet. It's a layer of sauteed eggplant and pine nuts sanwiched between a spiced bulgur and chickpea mix. It was really rather good!



I served it as suggested, with hommus thinned with a bit of soymilk to make it a bit saucier. I made the hommus from a recipe in The Complete Vegan Cookbook (the hommus component of the sandwiches with hommus and tomato culcumber salsa - I made the entire thing last year and it is amazing!) and thinned it out. It was still quite thick though, I didn't want to make it too runny or dilute that marvellous taste too much. I also served it with some steamed broccoli, because you can never have too many greens.

After dinner we put up our Christmas tree. Yes, that is right happy people! It is now December, so I can now officially acknowledge that Christmas is coming upon us. Hurrah! It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, Gizmo became entranced with the tree and started rubbing her little nose all over the lower branches. Then she started trying to jump up the trunk! Naughty kitty cat. Cute kitty cat. As it is we don't put any ornaments dangling from the bottom brances. It is just too tempting for a certain little red cat named Sahara.

In any event, here is our angel:



She's a bit lopsided, but she always is. When she's not swan diving off the top of the tree that is. Something she does with surprising frequency!

After dinner we had the most ridiculous dessert. It was one of those things that you cobble together to make something decent out of a cookery malfunction. However, I am going to leave that to the next post, as there is quite a fun story behind it!