Turkey Gobbler Pizza

This pizza layered mushroom gravy from Veganomicon with cornbread stuffing from Vegan Celebrations, asparagus, more gravy, and Tofurkey smoked turkey slices.  The dough was from The Vegan Family Cookbook.

Gobble! Gobble Gobble!

Allie: Thanksgiving in May, on pizza.  OMFG.  5/5.  Brian sucks. Tofurky 4 eva.
[Translation: I love Thanksgiving, this pizza was a perfect combination of all my favorite parts of it.  Brian doesn't actually suck, but like most things he would be better if smothered in gravy.  Tofurky gets really crispy and amazing on top of pizza.  This meal had me "stuffing" my face all night.]

Brian: While I may suck, this pizza certainly did not. It's all the good things about thanksgiving, including the post meal drowsiness, but on a pizza and without annoying family so it's about a million times better. We finally nailed the crust, using the recipe from the first two pizzas but instead of rolling it out (which is a habit we picked up from using inferior doughs) we just spread it by hand which made it really light and not at all cracker-ish. This pizza required pretty intense preparations, but luckily Allie was kind enough to make an entire cornbread to use in the stuffing, make the gravy and then assemble the stuffing before I got home. All these combined as toppings resulted in a pizza that needed two hands to bring to the grill on the peel. This also meant that I could only down 3 slices, which I think is actually the same amount of food most people normally have at thanksgiving. I will agree with Allie that this was a 5/5 slice pizza, but definitely one to break out only on special occasions.

Peanut Curry Pizza

This pizza was made with a thai peanut sauce adapted from an online recipe (we substituted soy sauce for fish sauce and only used 1 can of coconut milk).  We layered the sauce with cauliflower, red pepper, and chickpeas.  The dough was from Grills Gone Vegan.

Chickpeas! You cauli that a pizza?

Allie: I appreciate that this pizza took no time at all to whip up, because I had a rough day and then we went to a happy hour that ran long and I was beat.  I also appreciate that Brian did all the dishes!  The sauce was very creamy, sweet, and spicy (we used extra hot chili powder that we got at the Indian market).  I would not recommend this sauce if it was a bowl of curry and not a pizza, because that would be a bit much.  I only had 1 piece and it was enough.  The crust was kind of cracker-ish, even though we let it rise for almost 3 hours, which is annoying.  But it was easy to work with.  The veggies were great.  It didn't knock my socks off, but it was a perfectly tasty pizza.  I was too tired to see if Brian left any slices behind, but we did get some help from his roommate Tim, who said it was great.  I was going to give this a 4 out of 5, but upon reflection I'm bumping it down to 3.5 slices because it wasn't anything special, and I've come to have higher expectations from our meals than yumminess alone.


Brian:  Out of the pizzas we have made so far, this one left me the most unimpressed. This is not meant to say it was bad, because it was definitely delicious, it just lacked a certain quality to push it over the top. As Allie mentioned the crust was the thinnest of the ones we have made so far, despite being left to rise the most, which led to a kind of bland cracker vibe. This, combined with the fact that the we forgot we were halving the amount of sauce we would make and put in the normal amount of peanut butter but half the amount of coconut milk, made the pizza have a sort of cracker and peanut butter effect that just wasn't working to put me in true Pizza Wolf mode. The cauliflower, peppers and chickpeas were the best toppings we could have picked, but if we had lessened the peanut butter and upped the spice of the sauce, I think it all would have worked together better. I'm going to join Allie in her 3.5/5 overall assessment. Considering my less than totally blown away first impression, which happened with the previous two pizzas, and the fact that there were two unclaimed slices left over that I had no desire to go back to later on in the evening I don't think I could justify a higher score. THAT BEING SAID: This was still pizza, and pizza is awesome. 4 ever.

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.

Eggs Benny Pizza

This pizza was inspired by a special at the new fancy pizza place down the street from us.  The dough was from The Vegan Family Cookbook.  The hollandaise sauce and "eggs" were adapted from Vegan Brunch and the "chorizo" was leftover from a yummy batch we made last week from Low-Cal Vegan Comfort Food.  We made it by layering Hollandaise, tofu scramble, fresh tomatoes and chorizo slices, MORE hollandaise, and Smart Bacon.

The finished masterpiece

Brian: Let me preface this first review by saying I love pizza. I mean, I REALLY love pizza. It is alway the food I want, and my stomach seems to have the strange ability to never be filled by it. I mention this to illustrate that, like Ebert (R.I.P.) in his later years, it's going to be very hard for anything to get less than at least a 4 slices out of 5 (we're doing slices right, Allie?) As long as it is on crust and has technically spent time in an oven, it's ok in my book. 

Bias aside, I can solidly give this pizza 5 slices out of 5. Considering our winter hiatus from using the pizza stone on the grill, we really knocked this one out of the park. I can assure you that Allie made this pizza in to a perfect circle prior to going on the grill, but due to a band practice gone long the liquids from the hollandaise and tomatoes made the dough stickier than it otherwise would have been. This meant that getting it off the peel and on to the stone was more difficult than in the past. On that topic, the importance of corn meal-ing the crap out of everything the pizza is going to touch cannot be understated, as it was the only thing that made the transfer close to possible. Despite the high sauce level and amount of toppings, the crust cooked perfectly and evenly and allowed for a good slice hold and support. The slight spice of the homemade chorizo really set the whole thing off and the entire experience felt like the most decadent thing you could imagine eating (pizza?! and brunch?! and hollandaise sauce?! Oh my!) This decadence made it the first time in a long time there was a slice left I just couldn't bring myself to eat. Somehow, I managed to find the strength about an hour later and munched it down, leaving my "no slice left behind" policy unblemished. I can safely say this pizza will be in rotation for a long time to come. 

Allie: Brunch is my favorite meal, I love eggs benedict, and I love pizza, so it's no surprise that this pizza gets a 5 out of 5-slice rating from me.  I love brunch so much that my cat is named Brunch, and he is a constant disappointment to me in comparison to brunch the meal.  Pizza is great but I don't love it as much as Brian does, because I can't eat cheese and that's an integral part of most pizza.  I don't think either of us missed having cheese on this one though.

We'd never made this dough before and it was one of the best tasting recipes I've tried, although it was a little sticky even before the moisture of the toppings got to it.  I might add a bit more flour next time.  Also, if I'd seeded the tomatoes and drained the tofu more it could have helped.  But in the end it was bubbly, chewy, and nice and crisp on the bottom.  It was thick enough to support the extra-heavy toppings but not doughy like thick pizzas can get.  The hollandaise was the star of this pizza, it was creamy and rich and went great with the fresh tomato and chorizo. The tofu scramble was sort of overwhelmed by the other toppings but every once in awhile I sort of felt like it was eggy in a nice way.  I don't think I got much Smart Bacon on my slices because Brian was totally picking all the pieces off and snacking on them. [Ed. Note: WAS NOT]  It was incredibly filling, I was stuffed after 2 smallish slices.  And it's definitely the first time we had any pizza left over (not for long!).