Pesto Pizza with Gardein "Chicken" and Tomatoes

This is my second time making pizza at home and I can see that I've improved a lot from the last time I attempted. My problem last time was that I did not knead the dough for as long as I should. The result was the dough wasn't as smooth and was left feeling really sticky.
Another thing that I changed was I rolled my pizza dough straight on the pizza pan. It's a lot faster and easier, since you don't have to transfer the dough from the rolling board to the pan.

If you haven't tried Gardein's chicken strips yet, I recommend you do. This was my first time and I was so surprised at how much it smelt and tasted like real chicken. I try not to buy a lot of pre-made, processed "meats" but it was so good that I think it might just become one of my guilty pleasures of eating with some sweet and sour sauce mmmm! : ]

Okay, okay back to the pizza. I left it simple and just added the "chicken" and tomato slices but feel free to load on the different toppings. I used a 13" pizza pan and that gave out 6 decent sized slices. It baked for a little under 20 minutes, so keep an eye on it after 20 minutes to make sure the cheese doesn't burn.

Enjoy!

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Ingredients
Pizza Dough

* 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
* 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
* 2 cups whole wheat bread flour
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 teaspoons brown sugar

Basil Cilantro Pesto ( Recipe from Veganomicon )

* 2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
* 1 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro
* 1/3 cup slivered or sliced almonds
* 2 cloves garlic, crushed
* 2 Tb fresh lemon juice ( about 1/2 a lemon )
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/4 cup olive oil

Toppings

* 1 package of faux chicken strips ( such as Gardein or Morningstar )
* 1 beefsteak tomato, sliced
* 3/4 to 1 cup thinly shredded vegan cheese ( such as Daiya 'Italian' cheese )

Directions
Dough
1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.


2. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups bread flour, olive oil, salt, sugar and the yeast mixture; stir well to combine.

3. Knead for about 5 minutes, until a smooth dough is formed. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes.


Meanwhile start making your pesto...

4. Place the basil, cilantro, almonds, garlic, lemon juice and salt in a food processor and blend until pasty, scraping down the sides occasionally. With the food processor still running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Blend until relatively smooth and no large chunks of almonds are left. Set aside.


5. Cook the "chicken" according to directions on package and set aside to cool. Once cooled, use a sharp knife to roughly chop each chicken strip, until it starts to resemble shredded chicken.


Preheat oven to 400 F

To assemble the pizza

6. By now the dough should have risen to double its size. If not, wait a couple minutes longer. When ready, turn dough out onto a well floured surface. Form dough into a round and roll out into a pizza crust shape.


7. Pour pesto over the crust and spread.


8. Sprinkle half a cup of shredded cheese over the sauce. Place the shredded "chicken" and tomato slices over the cheese. Finally sprinkle another 1/4 cup cheese over the toppings.


9. Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 18 to 25 minutes or until your cheese is melted and the crust has hardened.

Giambotta

Giambotta is an Italian stew and is traditionally made with sausages. But there are so many yummy vegetables in this version of Giambotta, that no one can say this version is missing something. And with the added chopped basil and the soy parmesan cheese, this stew is comfort to the max.

This is one of those recipes that the only work needed is the chopping of a few veggies. The majority of the cooking time is spent letting the stew simmer. The recipe makes a whole lotta stew, so if you're not feeding a big family, you might want to divide all the vegetables in half. Oh and if you cannot find fire roasted tomatoes, a can of regular diced tomatoes will work just as well.

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Serves 6
Ingredients

* 2 Tb extra virgin olive oil
* 1 bay leaf
* 6 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 yellow onions, sliced thinly
* 2 small russet potatoes, peeled and chopped
* 1 eggplant, chopped
* 2 zucchini, chopped
* 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
* 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
* salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 1 (28 ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes ( such as Muir Glen Organic )
* 1 cup vegetable stock or Better than Bouillon Faux Chicken Stock
* 1/2 cup chopped basil (10 to 12 leaves)
* Vegan Parmesan Cheese for garnish ( optional )

Directions
1. Heat a large sized stockpot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic and bay leaf and cook until tender, about 10 minutes.


2. Add the remaining vegetables, except for the tomatoes and basil. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer, cover, lower heat and let cook for 20 minutes, stirring often.


3. Uncover and add the diced tomatoes and stock and cook for 20 more minutes, or until vegetables are tender.


4. Turn off heat, remove bay leaf, and stir in the chopped basil.

Blog Action Day & Walk For Farm Animals

Hey Guys! Hope your weekend is going great. I just wanted to share something with all my fellow bloggers out there. I recently learned about Blog Action Day through Chic Vegan and thought it was a great way for all us bloggers to come together on one day and help spread the word on a very important issue. This year's topic is water, so basically on October 15th, everyone does one post informing people of the scarcity of water and the effects it plays on our planet.
Here is the official link with all the instructions.



One last thing is Farm Sanctuary's Walk for Farm Animals. The walk is to help inform people about the treatment of animals on factory farms and to help raise money on abused animals. It's $15 to register and is going on right now across the country. They'll be coming my way next Sunday and I am planning to walk. So I'll have lots of pictures for you guys on how that went.

For those who aren't aware of Farm Sanctuary, I encourage you to check out their site. They help to rescue hundreds of abused animals each year and I am very thankful that we have someone like them around. They take donations if you want to help with their recent rescues and currently they're allowing you to adopt a turkey ( virtually that is ) for as little as $30. There's no better way of celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday but to help save a life!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

I've always loved pumpkin and now that its the right time of year, I've been baking a lot of pumpkin desserts. I saw this recipe for pumpkin cheesecake from a Williams Sonoma cookbook and figured it was pretty simple to transform the originally recipe to vegan.

I baked mine for 40 minutes, which left the top hard but still jiggly. When I inserted a knife, it did not come out clean. I didn't know what to do because the top was already beginning to burn, so I figured I should allow it to cool in the refrigerator and see what happens. I let it cool for a little over and hour and then went back to check on it. The filling did harden and it wasn't as watery as it was straight from the oven.

This was my first time baking a cheesecake and I don't know if it was the Tofutti brand cream cheese or if something was missing but the cheesecake had a slight sour taste. Nothing drastic, just a hint of sour. I know it won't taste exactly like how I remember dairy cheesecakes to taste but I think next time I might add only 1 package of Tofutti and replace the other with a medium firm tofu. ( Update : After allowing it to sit in the refrigerator a few more hours, the sourness I originally tasted went away..phew! ) But either way, this was really fun to make and I did learn a couple things in the process.

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Serves 10 to 12

Ingredients

Crust
* 1 3/4 cups graham crackers crumbs
* 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
* 4 Tb melted vegan butter

Filling
* 3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 1/4 tsp ground allspice
* 1/4 tsp ground ginger
* 1/4 tsp ground cloves
* 1 pound vegan cream cheese, at room temperature
* egg replacer, equivalent of 3 eggs
* 1 cup pumpkin puree ( not pumpkin pie mix )

Toppings
* 1/2 cup pecan halves
* 1 Tb vegan butter
* 2 Tb sugar

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly butter a 9 inch springform pan.

2. To make the crust - In medium bowl, combine crumbs and sugar. Add melted butter.


3. Press down flat into a 9-inch springform pan. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.


4. To make the filling - In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, ginger and cloves. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Using a rubber spatula, occasionally scrape down the sides of the bowl.


5. Gradually add the brown sugar mixture, beating until smooth.


6. Add the pumpkin puree, beating until smooth. Using the rubber spatula, scrape the batter into the chilled crust and smooth on top.


7. Bake the cheesecake until set or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

8. To make the toppings, set aside 10 pecan halves and coarsely chop the rest. In a small frying pan over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Add all the pecans, sprinkle with the granulated sugar, and cook, stirring, until the sugar melts and the nuts are toasted and caramel coated.


9. Transfer the nut mixture to a plate and let cool completely. Store in an airtight container. Just before serving, sprinkle the chopped pecans over the cheesecake and arrange the halves evenly around the cheesecake.


The weather has been cooling down and Taffy has found his way back to his little bed. Took these shots this morning of him and his matching bed.

BBQ Pulled Jackfruit Sandwich

So anyways, what exactly is Jackfruit? Well, its a fruit that is normally found in Asia, Latin America, Africa and India. It is loaded in minerals, vitamins, anti-oxidants, isoflavones and phytonutrients. It is said to help fight cancer and even help with indigestion. But sadly, contains little to no protein, so the protein must be made up in the rest of the meal, such as in the bread and side dishes. You can buy the fruit fresh but I heard its a real pain to peel, so your best bet is to buy it either canned or frozen. I found mine at a local Asian market, if you do not have one near you, I've found several websites that also sells it as well.

I've been wanting to try Jackfruit in place of faux meat for a long time. One of the first vegan restaurants I've ever tried, Pureluck, offers jackfruit in place of tofu in many of their dishes. But every time I'd go there, I'd always order the tofu, in fear that the jackfruit wouldn't be as good. Finally last week I worked up enough courage to try their pulled jackfruit BBQ burrito. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad at all and the flavor the jackfruit was so mild that you barely tasted it.

If you have ever tried Trader Joe's "Chicken-less BBQ Pulled Chicken," I would say this tasted just like that but homemade and soy free. I sadly do not own a slow cooker or Dutch oven, so I had to cook mine over the stove, covered on low heat. It took about an hour and a half until the jackfruit was ready. So if anyone is like me, cooking it over the stove works as well.

I got the recipe from ChowVegan.

( P.S. If anyone has a Twitter account, can you please follow my friend @krumcakes08. He runs a really funny radio/webcam show and if he doesn't get enough followers he will have to wear booty shorts to the next taping. Although that would be so funny, I feel bad for him. So please follow him if you are on Twitter. Thank you! )

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Serves 4

Ingredients

* 2 ( 15 ounce ) cans young jackfruit in brine
* 4 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 Tb extra virgin olive oil
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 2 cups + extra BBQ sauce, bottled or homemade ( I like to use Veganomicon's Backyard BBQ, Recipe Below )
* 4 whole wheat hamburger buns

Directions
1. Drain and rinse the jackfruit several times, trying to remove the brine as much as possible. The smell is really strong, so the more you rinse, the less it will taste like jackfruit. After rinsing, squeeze out as much water as you can.

2. Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and saute the garlic.


3. Add the jackfruit and season with salt. Cook for a 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.


4. Transfer the jackfruit to a slow cooker with the 1 cup of BBQ sauce and mix well. If you do not have a slow cooker, a dutch oven will work just as well under low heat. Allow to cook for 1 hour, occasionally stirring and adding more sauce if needed. To check if its ready, pierce the jackfruit with a fork or spoon and see if it breaks apart easily.


5. When cooked fully, remove the jackfruit from the cooker and shred with a fork. Or allow to cool and shred with your hands.


To Serve - Toast your hamburger buns and add one heaping spoonful or more of jackfruit with BBQ sauce.


Backyard BBQ Sauce
Makes about 4 cups
Time : 40 minutes

Ingredients
* 1 Tb vegetable oil
* 1 medium size yellow onion, chopped as finely as your can
* 4 cloves garlic, minced
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 tsp red pepper flakes ( use less or don't include if you don't like spicy )
* 1 ( 28 ounce ) can crushed tomatoes
* 1/3 cup molasses
* 1/3 cup white vinegar
* 2 Tb sugar
* 1 Tb yellow mustard ( Dijon is fine too )
* 1 tsp liquid smoke

Directions
1. Preheat a saucepan over medium heat. Place the onions in the pan and saute in oil until browned, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another minute.

2. Add all the other ingredients except the mustard and liquid smoke, and cook for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour, uncovered, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat if the sauce begins to splatter everywhere.

3. Add the mustard and liquid smoke, and taste for sweetness/sourness. Adjust the flavors if you think it's necessary, and cook for 5 minutes more. If you like a smooth BBQ sauce then puree it, but that's not entirely necessary.

Vegan "Beef" Stroganoff

Beef Stroganoff or Beef-Stroganov as it is said in Russian, consists of egg noodle served with sauteed beef strips and a sour cream sauce with onions and mushrooms.

Nothing about it says vegan and I am sure many thought this is something they could never eat again. But in reality, its a recipe that can be transformed into a vegan meal quite easily. I used fettuccine in place of the egg noodles but any thick noodle would work just as well or even bow tie noodles. The beef was seitan and I used Follow Your Heart for the vegan sour cream.

I've seen some vegan Stroganoff recipes only include cream of mushroom for the sauce but I added one cup of Better than Bouillon's faux beef broth for a more authentic feel. I usually buy mine at Whole Foods but have seen it at other local supermarkets as well.

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Serves 4

Ingredients

* 1 lb whole wheat fettuccine pasta or any other eggless broad pasta noodle
* 1 Tb extra virgin olive oil
* 1 onion, diced
* 6 cloves of garlic, minced
* 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
* 1 tsp mustard
* 1 cup Faux Beef Broth ( I use Better than Bullion ) or vegetable broth
* 3 Tb all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup soy milk
* 1/2 cup vegan sour cream ( I use Follow Your Heart’s sour cream )
* Salt/pepper
* 1 pound seitan, store bought, cooked as directed on package ( such as White Wave ) or homemade ( I like to use Veganomicon’s Simple Seitan Recipe )

Directions
1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil and add the pasta noodles. Cook until al dente, about 8-9 minutes. Once cooked, drain and set aside.

2. In a large deep skillet, add one tablespoon olive oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook 5-6 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add the minced garlic and sauté another 30 seconds or until fragrant.


3. Add the mushrooms and sauté another 6 minutes, or until soft.


4. Add the mustard and mix well. Add the faux beef broth and slowly add the flour, stirring constantly until everything is incorporated.


5. Slowly pour in the soy milk, bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until mixture begins to thicken, about 5 minutes.


6. Bring heat to a low and add the sour cream, mix well.


7. Stir in the seitan strips and cook on low for 15 minutes. Then turn off heat and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve over pasta noodles.

Pumpkin Bread

So sorry for my lack of posts last week. My flu that I thought was getting better got a lot worse and I ended up sleeping most of the day for the past three days. Today I feel a lot better and finally was able to make it to the kitchen to bake. I am not the type who eats out a lot, so having to purchase dinner the past couple of nights was killing me. I really missed cooking and I am so glad I am feeling good enough tonight to make myself a quick dinner.

I chose to make pumpkin bread today because it sounded like the perfect thing to eat along side a cup of hot tea. Speaking of which, I went grocery shopping today and found this. So cute, it reminded me of my Taffy. I love white tea and if it has a picture of my boy on the cover, even better!

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Makes 1 loaf; 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/3 cup white or yellow cornmeal
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1 tsp ground ginger
* 1/4 tsp ground cloves
* egg replacer, equivalent of 2 eggs
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
* 1/3 cup canola oil
* 1/3 cup vegan plain yogurt
* 1 cup pumpkin puree ( not pumpkin pie mix )
* 1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly oil a 5 by 9 inch loaf pan.

2. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.


3. In a large bowl, combine the egg replacer, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, yogurt, and pumpkin puree. Beat with a large whisk or an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute.


4. Add the dry ingredients in 2 batches, mixing just until blended after each addition.


5. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle with the sunflower seeds.


6. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. If the top starts to brown too much, cover with aluminum foil for the last few minutes. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, and then remove from the pan and let cool completely on the wire rack.