Pizza By Request

I love having friends over for dinner. I love it even more when they are excited to eat my food! Although, if I'm honest with myself, my friends are mostly college students and would be excited for any free meal. But, I like to think it's because of my cooking. My friend Courtney requested homemade pizza, and I'm glad she did since it made me remember how much I freakin' LOVE pizza! I doubled the recipe so we each made our own pizza, which made it a lot of fun.

This is an adaption to my mama's recipe. I always end up adding more flour after letting it sit so I've included that as well as added the nutritional yeast and more sugar.

Homemade Pizza Dough
What You Need:

• 1 cup warm water
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 packet yeast
• 1/2 cup white flour
• 1 1/2 cups wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup flour, use as needed

The Process: 

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. In a small bowl, mix 1 cup warm water with the sugar and yeasts. Set aside for 5-10 minutes. Let it get frothy. 
3. In a large bowl mix the flours and salt. Add the yeast mixture and olive oil. Stir with a spoon until the dough starts holding together. Knead the dough for about 8 minutes. (This is where I usually end up adding some more flour, but not a whole cup.) Cover dough with a tea towel and let set for an hour. 
4. Pour some of the extra flour onto the pizza pan. Knead dough into the shape you want, flipping it at least once to be sure it does not stick to the pan. 
5. Add whatever toppings you would like and cook for 15-20 minutes. 

Our friend Courtney's pizza

Chris' pizza; He seized his chance to add extra meat to his meal

My pizza; I can't believe I thought being vegan would be difficult. 

Spicy Tofu Stir-Fry

I have been wanting to do a stir-fry for FOREVER. But, alas, Chris was adamant that he hates them. I finally decided I wanted to make one so bad that I put it on the weekly menu, told him it wasn't your average stir-fry, and he would like it. Sure enough, he liked it. I loved it. The best part, from start to finish it took less than 3o minutes! Including chopping all the veggies :)

Spicy Tofu Stir-Fry
What You Need:

• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1 onion, cut into wedges
• 1 cup cut cauliflower 
• 1 cup cut broccoli
• 1 package firm/extra firm tofu, diced
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

The Process:

1. Heat the wok/pan until very hot. Add the cumin and coriander, and dry-fry the spices for a minute. Add the oil with the garlic, ginger, and chilli powder. Stir-fry briefly. Add the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes.
2. Add the cauliflower and broccoli, and stir-fry until they are cooked through but still crisp. Add the tofu and lemon juice and toss well until it is coated with the spices. Serve hot.

Tofu Lasagna!

No clever titles here tonight, just our excitement for Tofu Lasagna! In fact, Chris' request for this dish is what started the idea of a favorites week. Direct quote from the man himself, "I never thought I'd love vegan lasagna so much!" In fact, this may have been the first meal I ever made for Chris, but I didn't use vegan cheese that time. It's my mama's recipe which automatically makes it a classic in my eyes.

Tofu Lasagna
What You Need:

• 1 package firm or extra firm tofu
• 1 package, or about 7 or 8 ozs of frozen chopped spinach
• lasagna noodles
• 1 package (vegan) mozzarella
• 1 jar pasta sauce
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
• 4 ozs mushrooms, sliced (optional)
• 1 tbsp oregano

The Process:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cook the pasta in boiling water.
2. While the pasta is cooking, defrost the spinach. In a large bowl mash up the tofu, add the spinach, 1/4 cup of the cheese, nutritional yeast, 1/2 cup pasta sauce and oregano. Mix all together.
3. Pour some pasta sauce onto the bottom of your casserole dish. Add some of the cooked noodles. Put the tofu mixture on top of the noodles, then the mushrooms (if using), and top the layer off with some cheese. Repeat until you're out of tofu mixture. Top it all with more noodles, pasta sauce and the remaining cheese. 
4. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. 

Here is what my first layer looked like. 

And the finished product!

Spring Cleaning

I wouldn't say it was a pretty day here but it was a productive one. We rant some errands and I bought some fertilizer for my garden. Turns out 84 lbs of it was not enough, I guess my garden is larger than I thought. I planted my zucchini out there but it started to rain before I had the chance to plant the seeds that are suppose to be planted directly into the garden. Hopefully I'll have the chance tomorrow before heading to my internship :)

Once it started to rain we tackled some in home spring cleaning! Six Sisters had a blog post with some spring cleaning tips a few days ago that inspired me, which you can see here. I especially loved the list at the end of the post! I wouldn't think to wash the trim on a normal cleaning spree. One that we do often is the baking soda with essential oil for the bed. However, with four dogs we also use it on our rug and living room furniture. Our place smells so much better now than this morning!

Because it's favorites week, we're cooking things already on the blog. Tonight we had Kidney Bean Risotto tonight which was fantastic, of course. Tomorrow we're having Tofu Lasagna, which I can't wait to share with you all!

Start of Favorites Week!

I am so happy that Chris suggested a favorites week! It's nice to take a break from experimenting with new vegan recipes and go back to some in home classics. We kicked off our favorites week with Mexican Casserole. It was a huge hit the first time I made it a few months ago but that was before the switch to vegan. Tonight was my first attempt at a vegan version and Chris couldn't even tell the difference! Talking about it now is making my mouth water.

Mexican Casserole
What You Need:

• 2 cans black beans
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 1/2 cups salsa
• 1 can corn or 1 1/2 cups frozen corn
• 2 tbsp taco seasoning
• 3/4 cup (vegan) sour cream
• 1/2 tsp cumin (optional)
• whole wheat tortillas
• 2 1/2 cups (vegan) Mexican blend cheese

The Process: 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. In a large skillet, heat the black beans, taco seasoning and onion for about 5 minutes. Stir in salsa, corn, sour cream and cumin. 
3. Spoon a generous layer on the bottom of the casserole dish, sprinkle with cheese, and top with tortillas. Repeat until you are out of the mixture. Top with tortillas and use all remaining cheese on top. 
4. Cook in the oven for 25 minutes. Serve hot and enjoy :)