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.

VeganMoFo 2011 #21: 'Now Vegan' and the Liebster Award

Now Vegan!
Lynda Stoner, New Holland Publishers, 2008



I snapped up this book when I saw it in the book store, as it is an Australian vegan cookbook - something that you don't see too often. This book is hardcover and yes, another square book! There are colour photos of many of the recipes. Chapters include Introduction, Where To Get Your Vitals, Soups, Entrees, Side Dishes, Mains, Salads and Dressings, Baking and Desserts, Condiments and Drinks, Conversion Guide and Contributors. American friends, Entrees is used here in the Australian sense, so what you would call appetisers. I would rate this book as OK. One of my major criticisms is that a lot of recipes just call for 'one packet' or such of something. I really don't like it when recipes don't include specific quantities. I can get tofu in 250g, 375g, 500g and 750g blocks here... that is a lot of variation for a 'packet'. The Side Dish section is also fairly basic, but I like how it has some fun suggestions for making different types of vegetables into sides.

I haven't explored this book that much, so I will share with you here all that I have made and their ratings!

Greek Pasta Casserole and Greek Salad


The casserole is a fantastic dish. It uses a can of Sanitarium casserole mince as well as a tin of their Savoury Lentils, with kidney beans and tomatoes and a lovely, creamy white sauce. This also reheats superbly. 5 stars.
The salad is also great, with homemade marinated tofu (though not as good as the recipe for Tofu Feta from How It All Vegan), lettuce (or spinach here), red onions, tomatoes and cucumber. 4 stars.

Lentil Cottage Pie


A crappy photo - clearly before I started thinking about what was in the background and the quality of utensils that would appear in my photos! But this is a satisfying, warming dish. The recipe only calls for 1/2 cup for crushed tomatoes, but I just went ahead and used the whole tin anyway and it was fine. A bit of cayenne to the lentil mix lifts it. 4 stars.

Mum's Curried Sausages


Simple comfort food, made even better by serving over creamy mashed potatoes. 4 stars.

Coconut Korma


A tasty curry including lentils, tofu, your choice of vegetables and lots of spices. 4 stars.

Berry and Apple Crumble


This was strange, because the topping ended up all gloopy and not crumbly at all. It still tasted nice, but a crumble it wasn't. The picture in the book has a crumble topping, though. 3 stars.

Pear Upside Down Cake


Super awesome stuff, this tastes like a gingersnap in pudding form! The topping goes all glorious and sticky and toffee-like. 5 stars.

Strawberry Shortcake


I made this for my friend Lisa's birthday. It is quite easy and super cute. The recipe just has you put strawberry jam and strawberries in the centre, however I think strawberry shortcakes should have some sort of cream! I added a layer of the Macadamia Creme from Vegan With A Vengeance. 4 stars.

Black Forest Cherry Cake


Of course I had to try a black forest cake. The instructions for this include reference to adding soy milk, but none is listed in the ingredients. I just ignored it. The cake did need to cook for a bit extra, and I found it to still be very moist and crumbly and hard to transfer. This has no cream layer, so to me is really more a chocolate cherry cake. You make a mock chocolate cream to cover it, which ended up looking completely ratty. This is because I put it into the freezer to chill quicker as I was in a rush and accidentally froze it, then tried to gently warm it in the microwave but made it too runny again, and repeat cycle. 4 stars.

Jelly Tart


This is easy to make and is a cute way to use up vegan jelly. The instructions for the base make no sense to me - a packet of plain biscuits (again, how big is a packet?) and a huge amount of margarine, so I used a doubled recipe of the cookie base from the Joy of Vegan Baking. 4 stars.

Things I have made but don't have pictures for:
Baba Ganoush: A bit bland, needs more garlic and lemon. 3 stars.
Chocolate Orange Cake: 4 stars.
Vegan Vanilla Slice: OMG so awesomesauce for reals! 5 stars!

I talk about my love of chocolate and cherry a lot. What is your favourite flavour combination?

... and an Award



The wonderful Savannah over at In Her Grace, the lovely Kate at The Spade And Spoon, the amazing Jojo over at Vegan In Brighton have given this blog an award!

The Liebster Award
“Liebster” is German and means ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’ but it can also mean ‘favorite’. The idea behind this award is to bring attention to bloggers who have less than 200 followers and show your support during Vegan Mofo! ('lieb' is actually part of my last name, so this award makes me smile).

The rules of winning this award are as follows:
1. Show your thanks to those who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal 5 of your top picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Enjoy the love and support of some wonderful people on the www!

I am not sure about follower numbers, but here is who I have chosen to share with!

*Angst Loves Spinach
*Joyfulgirl's Cupcakes and Crafts
*Tales of a Vegan Food Fetishist
*Tea and Sympatico
*Vegan Food for the Hungry Student

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


Dim Sim has recently taken to sleeping in the cat turret again of late.

Sahara turns NINE!

It's so hard when your babies grow up. Saturday the 28th of August is my little Sahara's birthday, and this year she turned NINE! And she's my youngest! I can't believe how quickly time goes by. It seems like just yesterday that an 18 month old Sahara came into my life, and my brain always considers her to be that age, forever. Unfortunately I had a plane to catch the morning of her birthday (more on that later) so I only had a few hours with her, but my parents made the rest of her birthday super special and took lots of photos for me.


We started her birthday with some Greenie's in bed! I keep a packet in my bedside draw, and every time I think about opening it she materialises like magic! So on this particular morning I risked spoiling her appetite for breakfast with a pre-breakfast crunch and snorgle.


Sahara enjoying a birthday sunbake.


With her birthday present - this cat has a lot of toys!


Look how very cute she is!


If there is one thing that makes her very excited, it is steamed broccoli! Here is a picture of her nomming into a special birthday bowl!


Again, looking cute. She is very good at that!


Go away and stop taking photos of me! It's sleepy time!

Happy birthday beautiful red girl. I will love you for eternity.

Food Picture of the Post


It's a flipped around post today, so here is a single food photo to end it on! My friend had her birthday a few weeks ago, and when I asked her what sort of cake she would like she said strawberry shortcake. I made this recipe, from Now Vegan by Lynda Stoner. I had to bake the cake about ten or fifteen minutes longer than she said in the book. Once you bake the shortcake, you cut it in half. The recipe then calls for strawberry jam and fresh strawberries to be layered in the middle. I also added a thick layer of Macadamia Creme from Vegan With A Vengeance, because I always thought strawberry shortcake was meant to have a creamy layer. Anyway, it was an awesome addition. The cake was very cute, and really nice. I wisely chose to take to work in bits and assemble it there, because after sitting for too long it goes a bit smooshy.

Coming up next, my Sydney adventures and my vegan bake sale experience!

Brotherly birthday 2009

My brother had a birthday. It was in June. I know, it has taken me a long time to get this up! Bad Susan! Anyway, my brother turned 26 this year (how do baby brothers grow up so fast?) and he of course got to choose the menu. Unfortunately he chose three very involved and fiddly things, which would have been fine if I had not come down with a case of the ookeys the day before. So I had to modify and change, but it was all still OK!

The first course, and the only remaining aspect of his original menu request, was Potato-Edamame Samosas with Coconut-Mint Chutney from Vegan With A Vengeance. I was sososososo happy with how these turned out, they were so cute!


First, take your adorable samosas! I like these because they are baked and not fried. I don't like fried things, too much oil makes me feel ill. So baking is fabulous!


Then make your chutney.


Then put them on a serving plate together.


Then NOM!

They were fantastic! I found that I had some filling left over that didn't fit in the dough, but it is so tasty that it really isn't too much of a hardship to finish it up as left overs. I think I had some on toast for lunch the next day. The chutney is lovely, though is quite runny and I think next time I would add some more mint.


The main course was African Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew from Vegan Planet. It is a really fantastic flavour combination, all yummy and thich and creamy!


And is even better served with a side of sauteed broccolini!


The final part of the meal was Pear Upside Down Pudding from Now Vegan. This is an amazing pudding with a fabulous taste. It has a lot of ginger in it, and the topping turns into a glorious sticky and toffee like substance. I highly recommend!

People for dinner.

I live at home with my parents at the moment. While I love them, and enjoy cooking for them on a regular basis, it does make having friends over for dinner when they are home a bit awkward. It feels wrong to banish them away from the table when we are eating up a vegan storm of nom, but who wants to have their parents at every dinner party? Every now and then, however, they will go away or go out and I will not be on call. When this happens, it is dinner party time!

The last time this happened was a couple of months ago, and I had the lovely Jen and Freddy (soon to be a Mr and Mrs on the 6th of June!) over for dinner. I've cooked dinner for them a few times before, and it is always a lot of fun!

This is what was for dinner this most recent time:


Artichoke and Root Vegetable Gratin from Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson. Pretty nice, but not particularly filling on its own - even after I added some extra potatoes and parsnips. But makes a great side!


Which it did! I served it with Garlicky-Herb Marinated Tofu (also from Vegan Planet), a green salad and fresh bread rolls.


Dessert was Apple and Berry Crumble from Now Vegan by Lynda Stoner. Which didn't really crumble! The topping mixture is WAY to runny to ever be considered a crumble. So I hoped maybe it would turn out sort of like a cobbler instead. But it didn't quite, it never truly seemed to bake and was still a bit gloopy even after baking for a bit longer than required. It was still nice and yummy, but it just didn't have the texture one wants.


Served with So Good Vanilla Chai soy ice-cream, which is a perfect complement to every dessert! Hee.

Just a short post today because it is late and I have to work in the morning (an on-call weekend, boo), but lots more still to come!

VeganMoFo: Cooking for Cancer

No posts for a week! What a poor showing for VeganMoFo. Hopefully I can make up for it today with a bounty of exciting photos! Today I hosted a Girls Night In (though it was more of an Afternoon In) as a fundraised for the Cancer Council, and invited a bunch of the girls from work around to partake. So naturally I have spent the preceeding 36 hours more or less cooking non-stop, except for some much needed sleep last night! I wish I had a picture of the entire spread on the table, but I did get separate pictures of each dish.

Holy Moly Hummus from How It All Vegan



I *love* this hummus, it is one of the best recipes I've made. With sauteed garlic and bucketloads of tahini, it has an amazing flavour. Best the day after making, the flavours grow together overnight.

Black Forest Cake from Now Vegan



A bit of a potential disaster, but it all turned out OK, if not very pretty looking. Firstly, ignore the instruction that says to add soy milk, which is not in the list of ingredients. Secondly, I needed to cook this about half an hour longer than it said. Alas, when I took it out after the initial 40 minutes the centre was all wobbly and so promptly sank down. This made the cutting in half after cooling interesting, as I ended up with a donut for the top half. Also, the cake did not want to stay together when moving from the cooling rack to the serving plate. I salvaged it by pressing it back together with my hands, as it was very moist. I then used the marinated cherries to fill the hole in the centre. The chocolate cream icing I ended up accidentally freezing trying to speed chill it, then had to zap it, then accidentally froze it again, but I finally got it fairly sorted. Had to finger paint it on around the sides of the cake though. Despite the drama and the fact it looks no where near as neat as the one in the picture, it was a big success taste wise. This particular one has a very strong coffee taste. Also doesn't have a creamy layer in the middle, just chocolate and the cherries.

Gorgeous Guacamole from How It All Vegan



Truly gorgeous, tasty and super quick and easy to make. Very strong on the lime juice. Perfect for corn chips.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes from The Joy Of Vegan Baking



With Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting, of course. These are great! The frosting stays quite runny though. But winning combination.

Sesame Asparagus Sushi from Vegan Planet



Hurrah for home made sushi! It is so much fun to make. I was a bit pressed for time so I cheated and used my mum's rice maker, which made the rice a bit gluggy. But otherwise it was great. The recipe says to use one thin asparagus spear per roll, but definitely increase it to two or even three for extra flavour.

Wild Mushroom Pate from Vegan Planet



Made in honour of my mushroom-freak friend who attended. Who doesn't love mushrooms anyway? Shiitake, porcini, cremini and button mushrooms. Very yummy and quite easy to make. And it has a very nice texture as well.

Strawberry Shortcakes from Vegan With A Vengeance



These are magnificent! The scones are spot on, light and delicious tasting. The macadamia cream is outstanding. And the strawberry sauce is ridiculously easy to make. These were the first things to go, people loved them! I served them disassembled for people to make up themselves so they didn't go soggy. Cut a scone in half, then put some cream and sauce on each one. Delightful! I wish I had a photo of a made up one, because they were super cute.

Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade from Veganomicon



I had some walnut oil I needed to use, so this blend of basil, walnuts and maple syrup seemed the thing to make. It is quite sweet, as the name would suggest, but it is really nice. Quite different.

OK, this isn't something I made. But it is a chocolate raspberry slice from The Forest that one of my friends brought me. I haven't actually had it yet because my belly is too full from the other stuff!

VeganMoFo: Weekly Dinner Wrap.

Sunday, glorious Sunday. The end of the week, the day of rest. Or, if me, the day of going to the farmers markets in the morning and then buying a waffle iron (hurrah!) in the afternoon. Oh yes, finally a waffle maker is mine! So look forward to a post dedicated to waffles in the not too distant future. Tee hee.

Anyway, end of the week means time to reflect on the nomms that made up my dinners for the week!

Monday and Tuesday



This little ensemble consists of (1) Potato and Kale Enchiladas, (2) Sour Cilantro Cream and (3) Shredded Parsnip And Beet Salad, all three of which can be found within the pages of the mighty Veganomicon. This was an exciting dinner for me because (1) I used kale for the first time. I like it! Different texture to the usual silverbeet, which is my stand in green thing. (2) Usually I hate, hate, hate coriander/cilantro. I am trying to like it because it is used in a lot of recipes and you cannot always sub in mint or parsley. I actually liked it in this recipe! And (3) it was only my second time cooking with beetroot. Which is astounding, really. I don't know why. Plus it is always fun shredding things in the food processor. This was a great meal. The sour cilatro cream goes especially well with the enchiladas.

Tuesday night I was on call at the clinic, so I took leftovers as the sour cream obviously wouldn't be great for freezing and using at a later date so I just went for two nights in a row! Yummo!

Wednesday

No pics for tonight. I headed out to The Forest again. Alas, tonight was my first disenchanting Forest experience. Our drinks took 40 minutes to arrive - we had actually finished our dinners before they came. And my strawberry soy milkshake morphed into a berry smoothie, but by that point I had waited so long I certainly wasn't going to send it back. I had the Forest Plate again. Tonight I had citrus tofu (nice), tofu kumera (nice), cauliflower potato filo pie (awesome - they make good filo pies) and roasted spuds (which are the most awesome things ever, but sadly were luke warm on my plate). Dessert was strawberry vanilla cake and raspberry tea cake with vanilla and chocolate ice cream. And a choc berry cherry muffin to take home!

Thursday



Dipping into one of my newer tomes, the Australian book Now Vegan. This is Greek Pasta Casserole served with Greek Salad. The pasta casserole was great. Macaroni sandwiches a 'meaty' layer (savoury lentils, vegan casserole mince, tinned tomatoes and seasonings) and is topped with a thick white sauce and vegan Cheddar cheeze. The greek salad used tofu marinated in a simple miso/olive oil combination for the feta. It was quite nice, though the best tofu feta recipe remains the one from How It All Vegan.

Friday

Another night on call, another lucky dip into the Freezer of Leftovers. Tonight I enjoyed Lemongrass and Asparagus Risotto from Vcon. The amazing creaminess of the risotto was lost to glugginess with the freezing and reheating, but it was still mighty tasty!

Saturday



This what I made with my so cute you could die baby Japanese pumpkins I bought at the Rocklea markets last week. It is Kabocha Stuffed With Butternut Vindaloo Stew from Vegan With A Vengeance. It was so fun to make the pumpkin bowls, and even more fun to eat!

Sunday

No pictures from tonight. But tonight my mum cooked vegan for us! Hurrah! She made a really nummy pasta and beans recipe she cut out of a magazine. It was gooooood. Especially with liberal sprinklings of nooch!

So ends another week. What will the next week bring? Well, for one thing I plan to trying out a new cookbook for the first time. Also will be getting takeaway from my favourite Brisbane chinese vegan place! Stay tuned...