General Tso's Pizza

For this pizza, we marinated tempeh cubes in a chili sauce left over from a dinner at our favorite Chinese food place in New Haven.  We layered that and broccoli with a simple General Tso sauce recipe we found online, and added sliced scallions at the end.  The dough was adapted from The Vegan Family Cookbook.   

Also ready in about 15 minutes

Allie: This pizza looked and smelled amazing and it completely rocked my taste buds from the first bite.  After 2 pieces I was happy not to eat any more.  We doubled the sauce recipe because it seemed skimpy but the flavor was so intense that it might have been a mistake.  Even Brian couldn't finish it, leaving his "no slice left behind policy" in shambles and truly disappointing us all.  On the plus side, it tasted just like General Tso's, sweet and spicy, and the roasted broccoli was perfect.  I liked the marinated tempeh but it was overwhelmed by the sauce.  The scallions really tied the pizza together.

We're still getting the hang of making pizza dough from scratch, as we had previously bought prepared dough from the supermarket.  We loved the taste of this dough recipe from the Eggs Benny Pizza we made, but it was too sticky.  We tried to remedy this by reducing the amount of oil from 1/4 cup to 1/8 cup, which made the consistency perfect for rolling it out and sliding it onto and off of the pizza peel.  However, we may have kneaded it too much or not let it rise enough, because in the end it was not chewy and bubbly.  It had a cracker-ish texture that was not very appealing to me.  I am rating this pizza 4 out of 5 slices because despite its issues (which could likely be easily fixed), it was still a unique pizza with killer flavors. 


Brian: My first thought on taking a bite of this pizza was "Another 5 slice masterpiece! Oh god, am I going to give everything 5 slices? I probably am, aren't I?" It was a flavor explosion, the spices, the sweetness, the tempeh and the snap of the broccoli was perfect. About 2 slices deep, however, both Allie and I started to have second thoughts. Sometimes explosions can be good, but it is rarely good when things just KEEP EXPLODING (even fireworks need to end sometime.) Talk about being tiring on the taste buds! Granted that didn't stop me from wolfing down 4 slices when I really should have stopped at 3, but I am a creature of habit. As Allie pointed out there is a not so secret shame wrapped in tin foil in the fridge, so I couldn't totally seal the deal. I just couldn't do it. I could see this pizza being great split multiple ways as some sort of appetizer, but for two it was just a little much. One other good note, and this partially applies to the benny pizza as well, is that it was nice to somehow eat pizza and chinese food and not have to drink 6 gallons of water just to not wake up feeling like I was drinking whiskey all night. Overall, I would give it 4.25 out of 5 slices.