Pizza

One of the interesting things about blogging for me is seeing how I go through cycles with food. I return to recipes and modify them a lot – I guess it’s a process of refining as much as it’s a desire to eat something I’ve enjoyed in the past. This is a modification of an earlier pizza recipe. The mushrooms are smoked briefly with hickory. The smoking isn’t essential but it does add a really great note to the pizza, so smoke them if you can.


There are a couple of differences in this version. The herb aioli is out of the Millennium cookbook, but this version has less lemon juice. I also added some seitan sausage to it. It’s a recipe that you can adapt to whatever suits your fancy.

Pizza dough

2 cups of white flour
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon of dried yeast
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1 1/3 cups of water

Mix the dry ingredients together and add the water. Knead the dough on a floured board for several minutes until it’s smooth. Let it rise for several hours until doubled and then punch it down.

For the toppings:
6-8 large white button mushrooms, sprayed with oil and smoked for an hour, and then sliced
4 jarred piquillo peppers, julienned
20 black olives, halved
1 seitan sausage, sliced into thin slices
Herb aioli (recipe follows)

Herb Aioli

1 - 12.3 oz. package of silken tofu
1/3 cup of roasted garlic
2 teaspoons of white miso
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
1-2 tablespoons of fresh basil, chopped (or cheat like I do and use the frozen cubes of basil from Trader Joe’s – I use four cubes
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
Lemon zest from 1 lemon finely minced
¼ cup of lemon juice
1 - 2 tablespoons of water

Blend all of the ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Assemble the pizzas: Divide the dough into 4 pieces and stretch or roll it until it’s thin. Add some herb aioli to each as a base. Divide the seitan sausage, peppers, mushrooms, and olives between the four pizzas. Bake in a 500 degree oven until the crusts are just starting to crisp, about 10-12 minutes

Catalan White Bean and Seitan Sausage Stew

Day 11 of Vegan Mofo.  I love Spanish food and Catalan food in particular. Because of its reliance on vegetables (onions, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, eggplant and legumes plus a huge assortment of others), it’s easily adaptable to vegan cooking. The best book on Catalan cooking in the US is Colman Andrews’ brilliant Catalan Cuisine. This recipe isn’t authentic – it’s more an amalgamation of several Catalan cooking elements. It also using a few tricks to save some time, which Mark Bittman would approve of but Coleman Andrews and your Catalan grandmother likely wouldn’t. But it tastes great and it’s easy to do.


There are lots of slow cooked braises in Catalan cooking, most of which start with a sofregit, which is a slow cooked combination of onions, tomatoes and olive oil. This is a slightly lower fat version (but don’t kid yourself in to thinking it’s super low fat because it’s not). If fat isn’t an issue, double the amount of olive oil. I use canned tomato sauce primarily because it cuts down on the time it takes to make the sofregit. If you use whole or canned tomatoes it will take a little longer. The other traditional element is a picada, which has been called a sauce but is more of a thickening agent in this recipe. They can be made from a variety of ingredients, but usually contains dried bread, nuts, garlic, and some spices. Traditionally they’re made in a mortar and pestle and are stirred into stews or braises towards the end of cooking to thicken the dish. When I’m in a rush, I use a min chopper instead of the mortar and pestle. Because the picada contains raw garlic, it will need to cook for 10-20 minutes in the stew in order to tame the sharpness. I use homemade seitan sausage, but you can substitute vegan chorizo if you want.

I normally am only cooking for two, so this is a two person recipe, but you can easily double, triple or even quadruple it. A final warning: a lot of traditional Catalan food is what Colman Andrews calls “brown food.” You can add some chopped parsley to it for some color, but if you want vibrant colors, this dish isn’t it. But if you want earthy, hearty food for a cold day, look no further.

Catalan White Bean and Seitan Sausage Stew

2 large onions, finely diced
1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1-2 teaspoons of pimento (smoked Spanish paprika, regular paprika is not a substitute)
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup of white wine
16 oz. canned tomato sauce (or 2 cups of canned or fresh, skinned tomatoes)
2 cups of cooked white beans
1 seitan sausage, sliced in quarters lengthwise and then into 3/8 in slices
1 piece of dried bread, toasted or fried in oil
¼ cup of toasted almonds
2-3 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Parsley for garnish

In a non-stick skillet, cook the onion, oil and salt over medium heat until well browned (about 20 minutes). Watch it carefully and don’t burn it. Add the pimento and cinnamon and cook for a minute or so. Deglaze with white wine. Add the tomato sauce and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add the white beans after the sauce is reduced and let them heat through, about five minutes. Make the picada: in a mini chopper or food processor, process the almonds, bread, and garlic to a thick paste. Stir the picada into the stew and let it reduce for about 10 minutes. Stir in the seitan sausage and heat through for 5-10 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust to your preferences.

Penne with Roasted Fennel and Onions, Seitan Sausages, and Roasted Garlic Cashew Cream

Fennel is one of my favorite vegetables. Although it’s become better known in the last 10 years, it’s still under appreciated. It’s incredibly versatile and works well cooked or raw. It’s also something that’s generally readily in cooler months. Roasting fennel mellows its flavor and brings out its sweetness. OK, the picture isn't stellar because most of the ingredients are similar in color, but it's a dish with a rich creamy garlic cream flavor and an underlying sweetness from the roasted fennel and onions. 

Penne with roasted fennel, roasted onions, seitan sausages and roasted garlic cashew cream
Serves 4-6

1 bulb of fennel (use 2 if they’re small), trimmed, cut in half lengthwise, and sliced into 3/8 inch slices (reserve some fronds if you want for garnish)
1 large onion, peeled and cut into 3/8 inch wedges
Spray oil
White wine (for deglazing the baking sheet)
1 seitan sausage (see previous blog post), cut into quarter lengthwise and the sliced 3/8 inches thick
4 teaspoons chopped basil
Salt and pepper to taste
1.5 cups roasted garlic cashew cream (recipe follows)
1 pound dried penne (you can substitute whole wheat pasta if you want)
Juice from 1 lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degree. Spray a sheet pan with spray oil and scatter the onion and fennel on the sheet pan. Lightly spray the onion and fennel with oil. Put the sheet pan in the oven and cook until the vegetables are browned and lightly caramelized (about 30 minutes). When they’re done, remove the pan form the oven and deglaze it with a little white wine.
2. While the fennel and onions roast, heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Lightly coat it with some spray oil and add the seitan sausage and sauté for about 5-8 minutes. The seitan is already cooked – all you need to do is give it some color and texture. Don’t overcook it! Hold to the side, while the vegetables finish roasting and the pasta cooks.
3. Cook the penne until it’s al dente. Try to time it so it’s done when the vegetables are done.
4. Add the roasted vegetables and any juices to the skillet with the seitan sausages. Add the basil, salt and pepper and toss to combine. Add the cooked, drained pasta and the cashew cream. Serve in bowls. Drizzle a little lemon juice on each bowl. Garnish with fennel fronds if desired and serve.

Roasted garlic cashew cream
Makes about 1.5 cups

½ cup raw cashews
¾ cup water
½ cup roasted garlic puree
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast (nooch)
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend for several minutes until emulsified and creamy.

Weekend prep work

Let’s be honest. A lot of us who like to cook do spend a lot of time in the kitchen. We brag about quick, easy dishes we can whip up in no time, but most of us probably spend a lot more time cooking than we mention to casual observers. There’s nothing wrong with it. I love to cook and find the entire process therapeutic and fun, but at times it can be a labor intensive hobby.

Weekends are my time to do a lot of the prep work for things I’ll use during the week. I have time to make some of the more labor and time intensive things that I’ll need during the week. This weekend’s prep includes a pot of white beans (likely destined for white bean cutlets – a variant of the PPK chickpea cutlets and perhaps a white bean, rosemary, and lemon juice dip), white wine braised roasted garlic (to be used in pretty much everything), and seitan sausages (for pastas and maybe pizza). The seiatan sausages are a variant of the ones in the Millennium Cookbook (a continual resource for inspiration and idea poaching).

Seitan Sausages

2 cups of wheat gluten
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 dried negro entera chile (or substitute pasilla or ancho)
2 teaspoons pimento (smoked Spanish paprika)
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1 teaspoon cumin, ground
2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup of water
¼ cup of oil
2 tablespoons of tamari or soy sauce
Cheese cloth and kitchen twine (for wrapping and cooking the sausages)

For the poaching liquid:
4 cups of vegetable broth
½ cup of white wine
1 bay leaf
3 cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix the liquids in a separate bowl. Add the liquids to the dry ingredients and work into dough. Knead on a board for 5 minutes to get a smooth dough. Divide the dough into four pieces and roll each one into a cylinder about 4 inches long. Roll the sausages in the cheese cloth (to help them hold their shape) and tie the ends shut with kitchen twine.

Combine the poaching liquid ingredients in a pot large enough to hold the four sausages in a single layer. Bring to a boil, add the sausages, and turn down to a simmer. Simmer for one hour. Remove the sausages and allow them to cool slightly before removing the cheese cloth. Store the sausages in the poaching liquid in the fridge until ready to use.

Garlic braised in white wine

This is another idea stolen from Millennium. Whole heads of garlic are roasted in white wine and herbs until they get soft and creamy. It’s fat free but adds sweet, mellow garlic flavor and creaminess to anything you add it to. It’s perfect to thicken pan sauces and dressings without adding fat.

4 whole heads of garlic, top ½ inch or so cut off
1 cup of white wine
A few sprigs of fresh herbs of your choice (thyme, tarragon, and rosemary all work well)

Put the garlic in a small baking dish, add the herbs and white wine. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 350 for 75-90 minutes. When the garlic is completely soft and the tops have browned a little, it’s done. Check it half way through the cooking. If it dries out, you can add more white wine. When it’s done, let it cool. Squeeze the heads out and store it in the fridge. It’ll keep for a week, but you’ll probably use it sooner. You can easily double or triple this recipe.