Pizza (or "Overcoming My Fear of Baking")

If you know me, you know that I'm terrified of baking. Kneading, rising, proofing, temperature, control, cooking times...it sounds more like science than cooking. But, over the weekend I decided it was time to face my fears and tackle something everybody loves: pizza.

My experience began with preparing a tofu-based ricotta from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's "Vegan With a Vengeance". Firm tofu, nutritional yeast, garlic, olive oil, fresh basil and lemon juice. After all the mixing and mashing, the ricotta itself certainly isn't something to rave about, but after baking this stuff tastes fantastic.

Some time last year my mom gave me a bread machine after hearing my frustrations with trying to find vegan bread. It's a great gadget to have, but it (like my baking skills) needed to be put to more use.

The ingredients for pizza dough are pretty simple: flour, water, yeast, olive oil, salt, sugar. With the bread machine you can just toss it all in there, set the machine to "Pizza Dough" and the machine will do all the kneading and rising for you. "Knead, monkey, knead" *cracks whip* The whole process takes close to an hour and by the end you should have a nice, sexy ball of dough.

After the dough is ready, it's party time. I floured my hands and board and got to work; beating the dough with my hands, rolling it out with my new rolling pin and finally letting gravity stretch it out by holding on an edge and working around the whole circumference of the dough. It certainly wasn't round, but whatever. I ended up cutting it into squares rather than slices and took Isa's advice by calling it "Rustic".

For toppings, I didn't want to make my own sauce so I used the jarred stuff. Then I added some sliced Greek olives (black and green) from the olive bar at Fry's, mushrooms, red onion, roma tomato, a little Daiya cheddar, Field Roast's Italian Sausage and the ricotta I prepared earlier.

I baked it for about 10 minutes at 425F. A little chewy in the middle, but I was pretty proud of the finished product. I will definitely be doing more pizza in the future.

Superbowl Nachos

Hope everyone enjoyed the Superbowl! I just wanted to post about the snack I made for a little get-together I had at my house for the game: Vegan Nachos!

If you haven’t tried Daiya cheese yet, make that your mission. I mad these for two omnis and they ate it right up. I used daiya cheese, green chilies, vegetarian refried beans, black olives and (obviously) tortilla chips. Some non-dairy sour cream or green onion would be nice, but now I know for next time.

Simple I know, but don’t forget to enjoy the simple things in life right?

Facing my Addiction

I need my fix! Foods that contain hot chilis like jalapeno, cayenne, habanero, serrano etc. release endorphins when the 'hot' element capsaicin comes into contact with the tongue. This is because your body is tricked into thinking that you are in pain and endorphins work as a natural morphine.

This is why, believe it or not, spicy food can become mildly addicting (yes, I'm a perfect example). You can get cravings and build up a tolerance and foods that you once considered spicy may not anymore.

Are you an adict? The first step is admitting you have a problem. The second step is...well, raid your fridge for hot sauce and pour yourself a shot. Fuck! You relapsed!

No, it's not really a problem. But that's not to say I wouldn't pawn all my shit for a jar of sambal. Actually, spicy foods are good for you. But I'll save that for another blog.

Sloppy Somethings

Ok, just a quick post about what I was cookin' up this last weekend! I recently saw a post in a forum about someone who wanted a vegan Manwich recipe. I made Manwiches once before I went vegan and it was something like ground beef and ketchup. Not very good.

So, the challenge was on the table and I went for it! Instead of using Manwich sauce (which is vegan, I believe) I decided I was going to make my own mad concoction. They did turn out surprisingly well and I came up with enough for about 8 sloppy joes on buns.

Check it out:
1-2 tbsp. oil

2 cups green bell pepper, diced

2 cups onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 can tomato sauce

1/3 cup Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce

2 Tbsp. chili powder

1 Tbsp. cumin

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground chipotle

2 tsp yellow mustard

1 cup TVPboiling water

8 buns, toasted

sauerkraut (optional)

Endorphin Rush Hot Sauce (optional)

s&p to taste

Yes, I know it's a lot of ingredients. But with a dish like this you can really play with the ingredients to fit your taste. You could sub the cayenne and chipotle for more chili powder or sub the BBQ sauce for ketchup if you like.

Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and bell pepper and sautee until onion becomes transclucent.

Add garlic, spices, tomato sauce, BBQ sauce, mustard and soy sauce then stir to combine.
Add the 1 cup of TVP and a cup of boiling water and stir to rehydrate the TVP.

At this point what I did was played with it auntil I got the heat and sweetness I wanted. Use hot sauce or chili powder to bump up the heat and use BBQ sauce or ketchup the bump up the sweetness.

Now, you are going to want to cover and simmer for about thirty minutes, adding more water if needed. Serve on a toasted bun with sauerkraut.

First Post

Well, this will be my first post! My intention for this blog is for it to become a source for fans of spicy food, both vegan and non-vegan. You won't find any sweets here!

I will post recipes, notes on ingredients, restaurant reviews and whatever sparks my fancy. Also, let me know if there is something that you would like a veganized recipe for and I will give it a shot!

A bit about myself: I'm a 20 something bachelor living in Arizona. I'm vegan (obviously), spicy food fanatic (again, obviously) and I love to cook (yet again, obviously). I work on the inter-webs doing a variety of things, no I don't do web design and no I don't work from home.

Well, I guess I can wrap this up. I should have my first recipe up shortly!