Yummy Vegan Pizza

I had it all decided in my mind, before I left work yesterday, that I was going to bring pizza for lunch today. So I stopped by the health food store to pick up some more FYH Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella and DANG IT! They were out of stock. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the empty shelf there, but I did confirm that they haven't stopped carrying it or anything, they were just temporarily out. So apparently, there is someone else in this town who likes that product as much as I do. HA! Since that was out of the question, I decided to do something else that I have been meaning to try for quite some time now.

I just made some homemade crusts using my favorite pizza crust recipe. Here lately, I've really gotten into making several individual size crusts rather than just one or two big ones because normally, when I cook pizza, whatever is there on the pan is how much I will eat. So just making smaller pizzas really helps me keep from overindulging on pizza, as I so frequently do. I actually made the crusts a little bit too big this time, or I guess I should say that they rose up a little bit more than they normally do. I couldn't fit the whole pizza in the lunchbox like I usually do, so I only brought half of a pizza for lunch today.

Since I didn't have any vegan mozzarella, I whipped up a batch of the Spinach Tofu Ricotta that is used in my favorite lasagna recipe from over at SusanV's Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. I have been wondering how this would be on a pizza, and this was my chance to find out. If you haven't made this stuff before, it's really delicious. I love it in the lasagna recipe. I even like to just lick it off the spoon. And I bet that it would be delicious just tossed in as a sauce on some pasta. That's something that I might try next since I have quite a bit of this stuff leftover.

Anyway, I just spread the Spinach Tofu Ricotta all over the pizza crust. I put it on first because it's pretty thick. If I had put the sauce on first, it would have made a real mess trying to spread this mixture over it. So the "cheese" went on first, then some storebought pizza sauce, and then I just covered it with a bunch of mushrooms & veggies. I was also out of vegan pepperoni but oh well, I didn't miss it. Just plain ol' veggie pizza is great.

This turned out really well. The Spinach Tofu Ricotta made a nice substitute for cheese, and it was a lot cheaper than using a storebought vegan cheese product. I will definitely make pizza like this again in the future.

To go along with my veggie pizza, I brought a baby spinach salad. For the dressing, I started to just bring some olive oil and maybe a lemon wedge, like I did the last couple of times that I brought a salad. But then I remembered that I had an unopened bottle of Brianna's Rich Santa Fe Blend salad dressing that I stumbled upon at the supermarket a couple of weeks ago. When I glanced at the bottle at the store and read the ingredients, I thought everything on there looked vegan. When I got home though and read it again, I noticed that it did list lactic acid as an ingredient. I won't go into the whole lactic acid discussion, but needless to say, I started wondering if it was of animal origin or if it was derived from microbial fermentation. So, I just put the bottle in the fridge and fired off a quick e-mail to the company and asked them about the lactic acid. They responded very quickly and informed me that the lactic acid in that dressing is NOT animal-derived and is indeed vegan. Woo-hoo! Not only is this dressing vegan, it's also delicious and even FAT-FREE!

And for dessert, I just took the easy way out and threw in a Banana Cookie Larabar. These are still one of my favorite vegan treats, but I guess I just don't show them that much on here any more because I usually try to limit myself to one a day and I normally end up consuming them for breakfast or a snack.

So that does it for Friday's lunchbox. I'm always up for some delicious vegan pizza, and today's certainly hit the spot. I'm planning on maybe doing an extra post this Sunday about my new "secret weapon" for my weight loss & health improvement endeavor. It's something that I am really excited about and have really been enjoying. I am excited to share some information about it with everybody. I'm also keen to see what kind of improvements I will see from it in my health.

So thanks for reading the blog today. See you on Monday (well, probably Sunday).

Have a great weekend!