Happy Monday!
In the spirit of continuing to find things to be happy about, I am about to share with you and awesome vegan pizza recipe. But first, can I please just rant for a moment? It has to do with watching television - something that I do far too often than I'd like to admit. I mean...I watch A LOT of television. It is a product of being unemployed and not having a desk to work at. I sit on the couch while working on my thesis all day, and it is just too easy to turn on Netflix and power watch six seasons of Family Guy in one sitting. ...
The thing that gets me really riled up, though, is ease with which our culture throws around racism, sexist and speciesism. Given that the average North American probably watches about the same amount of television as I do, it sort of freaks me out that swathes of uncritical people are absorbing all this negative, bullshit information on the reg. It is presented in these seemingly innocuous ways - a funny character wearing a poncho, a joke about women being passive aggressive, the off-hand comment about non-hunters being sissies. But even when it is done ironically, I don't think that the average television watcher gets the irony.
I know I can just turn off the television, and there is obviously a deeper problem here for me in terms of my obvious addiction to technology, but this doesn't take away the fact that I find myself constantly wincing, and actually just genuinely feeling like crap when I watch shows like American Dad when Stan casually murders dear, or a raccoon, or whatever he kills in whatever episode; or when I watch a show like Raising Hope, which is generally a pretty funny show, but has an entire episode where they raise and learn to love a pig, and then eat him.
Watching crap like this kind of makes me understand why it is so hard to make the decision to go vegan, or even see veganism as a valid lifestyle choice. We are constantly told by television and other media that eating animals, degrading women, and making racist jokes are completely normal and actually not that harmful - especially if presented humorously. But humour is powerful and dangerous because behind this type of humour are messages of hate. When I see my young niece imitating television characters, or my friends' kids laughing at jokes told in racist faux Chinese accents I can't help but feel a little like a tiny ant trying to knock down a mountain of hate. I feel a little hopeless.
But, then I see some of the awesome vegans out there crusading for a better world, and I see that it really isn't all that hopeless. Media presents a skewed vision of the world in which we live, and while it has a huge influence, it obviously doesn't ensnare us all in its shitty, hate-trap.
So, I'm going to really work on switching off the television, and spending more time with my animal friends, and my awesome vegan boyfriend.
Anyway, that is my little rant. And now for those Monday Happies I promised! I know that I shared a recipe already on Friday, but I had to share this one too, and what is better than pizza to chase those Monday blues away?
VOMD and I don't eat pizza very often. There is a Pita Pizza down the street that makes this awesome vegan falafel pizza, but other than that, we tend to go for sushi or Indian food before we go for pizza. But I had a huge craving last week and didn't really feel like spending money, so I decided to work with what we had at home. This is what I came up with!
The dough recipe I use is exactly the same as the one I learned from my mom's partner when I was a kid, with a few minor changes. First, I use mostly whole wheat flour; second, I used maple syrup instead of sugar; and third, its all about the pizza stone!
Ingredients:
2 cups of whole wheat flour
1 2/3 cup of white flour
1/4 tsp salt
11/2 cups of VERY warm water (NOT HOT)
1 tsp maple syrup
1 tbsp of active dry yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
You start by prepping your yeast. Put the yeast in a large bowl and stir in maple syrop and warm water. Stir lightly and let sit until it gets all foamy on top. While the yeast is doing it's thing mix the whole wheat flour, salt, and 1 1/3 cups of white flour together (save 1/3 for later).
Once the yeast mixture is foamy, start adding the dry ingredients, and the oil, to the wet and once it gets too thick to stir, get your hands in there.
Once it is all combine, turn the dough onto a floured surface (floured with that extra 1/3 of white flour we set aside earlier). Kneed the dough for about 8-10 minutes until you have a nice stretchy firm ball and you can see some little puffs beneath the surface. Place in an oiled bowl, ans swish around until the ball of dough is coated. This will stop it from sticking. Cover with a clean, lightly dampened cloth in a warm place (like by a sun-lit window in the summer, or in an oven with the light on in winter). Let it rise until double it's size (about an hour or so).
Once risen, punch it down and break into 2 pieces. Kneed very lightly and form 2 balls. Cover lightly with that damp towel again and let rise until these pieces are doubled.
While that is rising(which should take about 40-45 minutes) you should start preheating your oven if you are using a pizza stone. If not, wait a bit to conserve energy.
AND while the oven is heating up, start making your sauce.
Bruschetta Style Pizza Sauce (you will have leftovers, so plan to have bruschetta bread tomorrow! Just add a little olive oil, some chopped parsley, and a little splash of red wine vinegar to brighten it up)
Ingredients:
1 large onion, quartered
5 cloves or garlic (or more or less, depending on your taste
1 large can of diced tomatoes (unsalted)
1 palm full of basil
1 hand full of nutritional yeast
A dash of salt and pepper to taste
Put the onion and garlic in the food processor and pulse until finely diced. Then add all other ingredients. Process until saucy (see picture).
Set that sauce aside and start chopping veggies and shredding your vegan cheese, if you want that. We used tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini and red peppers. Leggo was supervising. I find I always cook best under her watchful eye. Once the dough is risen, roll it out until its as thin as you like (VOMD likes thin, crunchy crust, so I make it really thin, about 1/3 inch) And lay on a pan with parchment paper. If you don't want the sauce soaking into the crust, brush the crust lightly with olive oil before putting anything on it. Then, sauce it up, lay out your veggies and toss some cheese or nutritional yeast on top. We put nutritional yeast on one and Vegan Gourmet mozzarella cheese on the other.
Then pop those suckers in the oven. After about 3 or four minutes, the pizza will be firmed up enough to slide it off the pan (using the parchment paper) and then pull the paper out so it is resting on your pizza stone. DO NOT DO THIS WITHOUT A STONE. It will be messy. Duh.
Let it cook for between 12-18 minutes (it depends on how your oven works, whether you have a stone, and how crusty you like it)
Then consume! My camera battery died before I could take the final pictures, so the last ones there are taken with my phone. Deal with it.
Happy vegan pizza eating!
-J
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