Vegan Pepperoni & Mushroom Pizza

I was in a pizza kind of mood last night at dinner time, so I whipped up some vegan pepperoni & mushroom pizza. And while I was at it, I went ahead and made some extra for today's lunchbox. Now, I was a serious pizza addict long before I became vegan, and I still am. But luckily, vegan pizza is a lot healthier for me than the greasy cholesterol-laden junk that I used to eat. I wish we had a restaurant around here like Pizza Pi, in Seattle. But I guess the chances of an all vegan pizza joint opening up around here are somewhere between slim and none. Oh well, I guess I'll just continue to make my own homemade vegan pizza and enjoy it. Either that or move to Seattle. Hey, if vegan pizza isn't a reason to move, I don't know what is.

I just made some small pizza crusts using my favorite recipe. Again, I either let these rise too much, or maybe I just put too many toppings on my pizza, because I used to be able to stack both halves of the pizza in the lunchbox, but not this time. It was too thick. So I only ended up bringing half of a pizza for lunch. I topped the pizza with some storebought pizza sauce, Yves Veggie Pepperoni, mushrooms, onion and green pepper. Then I topped it all off with some Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Mozzarella. I don't know if I'll even reheat this when lunch time comes because I've always liked cold pizza, and I think the FYH cheese is even more like the real thing after it's been cooked & melted and then cooled back down. I guess I'll see what I'm in the mood for when I actually eat it.

To go along with my pizza, I brought some steamed veggies. These are just the regular California Blend of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots found in the freezer section of any old grocery store.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to bring for dessert, so I just started looking through the kitchen. I kinda' wanted to bring something a little bit different. I looked and looked and then finally stumbled upon a great big jar of applesauce in the fridge. I bought it for use in reduced fat baking, and have used it for that several times, but it had been a while since I used it. I had even forgotten it was in there. I figured that might make a good dessert, but then I realized that they probably dump tons of sugar into applesauce, and it might not be as good in the calorie department as I thought it was. Well, I looked at the jar and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was apparently being a good boy when I bought this because it was all natural applesauce, with absolutely no added sugar. I was actually surprised that I had bought that because I bought it before I really started trying to pay more attention to what I am eating. I was actually a little bit proud of myself. I sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon on top of the applesauce just to make it extra delicious.

So there you have it, Friday's lunchbox. You really can't go wrong with vegan pizza. It's delicious, it travels well, and you can enjoy it hot or cold, which makes it especially nice for when you're not around a microwave.

Thanks for reading the blog this week and I'll see everyone on Monday.

Have a great weekend!