"We Are All Sausages" *

Pizza is one of the foods that I eat all the time when I'm out but rarely make at home. I hoard up a few Amy's and Tofurky pizzas for "special times", but that's as close as it usually gets. I don't know why I do it, pizza isn't that tough to make, you can buy sauce and dough at most stores. If you really are hard core, those shouldn't be too hard to do either, unless you are impatient like me, then the sauce might drive you crazy.

To feel like less of a lazy person, I did make my own sausage. Ever since I stopped being scared of seitan, thanks fo Julie Hasson, I have been wanting to make her recipe for Spicy Italian Vegetarian Sausages. I probably wouldn't have gotten around to it as soon as I did except that I had leftover bell peppers from when I made enchiladas the other day. I wasn't sure what to use them in until I thought of pizza. I love mine to have a ton of bell peppers so from there I decided to add some sausage in as well.

My steamer is not too large so I think next time I will arrange them better so they cook more evenly, but they still turned out great. I was a little off in my portions so I ate the little baby sausage with some mustard while I was putting the rest of the sausages away. I only used one sausage for the pizza so I have 5 or 6 more, which I could probably eat all by myself, but I'm going to offer some to my sister since she might want to make a pizza too. If I am really nice I will just give her half of the the new pizza I make with all the extra ingredients I have. I will go easier with the daiya next time since it got greasier and gooey-er than I intended. It was still really good, but I am notorious for overloading pizzas and need to have a lighter hand.

On a non-food related note, I got the best phone call ever today from my future boss. I am going to start my job on Tuesday. I am beyond excited. I was offered the job two months ago, but there was a lot of behind the scenes paperwork that had to happen between now and then. I am truly thankful to be working again and particularly happy that it's in a field that means so much to me. I'm starting at the bottom, but I'm not worried since I'm a quick climber. 2012 is going to be an amazing year full of changes for the better.

p.s. If you don't know what I'm talking about in the title, click here.

Vegan Mofo V Day 31: ¡Adios Mofos!

I'm sad to see mofo go. I really ran out of steam somewhere during the second week and it's been downhill ever since. Even though it wasn't my best, I decided to keep going and finish what I started. I might do some of the recipes that were skipped in the next few weeks to make up for it. I still need to go back and read tons of blogs I missed out on, there were so many great ideas this year. I have lots of pages bookmarked and my feeds list keeps on growing. I added a few of my new faves to my blogroll, but there might be a few I missed.

Today was super busy so I did not get any cooking done. After walking the dog and getting cleaned up, we went to my niece's school for her class party. Then we came home, had snacks and carved pumpkins. Before you knew it, we had to get dressed/painted to go trick or treating and we still hadn't had dinner yet. We decided to get pizza, throw some tofutti slices and bac'uns on it and call it a day. It's our laziest pizza ever, but we were too hungry to be picky.

I had to go get the pizza in my half assed costume, so I was greeted at the door with "hello kitty" and all of the workers meowed at me the whole time I was in the store. It was only a few minutes but it felt like forever. I didn't feel as stupid as they should have, but maybe they were really bored. If only they knew I had dressed up to match my dog's outfit, they would have had a field day. As tacky as it was, we did get a few compliments when I took her for her walk tonight. Happy Halloween Mofos!

Vegan Mofo V Day 29: Yeah Yeah Yams

After not sleeping well the last two nights I really wanted to take a nap today, but then I knew that would spiral into a whole day of laziness, which is what I do on Sundays. I can't do that two days in a row. Well I can, but I shouldn't. I decided I would just keep busy and tire myself out so I would end up going to bed early, or at least earlier than usual.

When I took an apple break with my dog (yeah I do that!), I noticed she needed to be brushed. Then I thought about trying on her Halloween costumes to see which one I liked the best. I dressed her up for the first time last year and she tolerated it well. When the costumes went on sale for a dollar I bought two more so we'd have some variety. After the bath I tried them on her and took some pictures, but I forgot the most important thing- the treats to bribe her to look at the camera. My favorite was the grape costume, but she figured out very quickly to shake her head and make the hat fall off. She'll probably be a pumpkin again since that's the only outfit that doesn't have a head piece.

All the dog activities tired me out. I didn't want to make dinner, but since I hardly cooked during the week I didn't have much in the way of leftovers. Rather than preparing an entire meal I made the "Sweetheart Fries" from Vegan Diner to go with an Amy's pizza. It's my "teen dinner" because that's totally something I would have ate on a Saturday night if I had to fend for myself. Why choose between pizza and fries when you can have both?

The fries were easy enough, after I decided to ditch the mandoline and finish cutting the yams with a knife. I thought it would be faster with the mandoline, but now I realize I would have prepped faster with a knife. I also wouldn't have cut myself, thanks mandoline! As clumsy as I am, I have fairly good knife skills. It's weird but true. I will go lighter with the seasonings next time. I put way too much pepper so they lost some of the sweetness. Luckily we had some vegan ranch in the fridge to help balance things out.

Vegan Mofo V Day 7 - Pizza Supreme

We don't have too many family traditions, but one of the newer ones we've invented is to eat pizza and watch a scary movie each Friday night in October. So far we haven't watched anything truly scary since my niece is only eight and does not seem to have inherited our appetite for gore and guts. Our kid-friendly movies included Return to Oz, Watcher in the Woods, and a few of the Goosebumps dvds. I know there are more but I can't recall at the moment. I know she definitely did not like When A Stranger Calls and we could not get more than 15 minutes into Nightmare on Elm Street before turning it off. I know it sounds inappropriate to let a kid watch those, but we were raised on those movies. My sister took a life size poster of Freddy Krueger to second grade show-and-tell!

There aren't any especially good pizza places near us so we have to make do. Sometimes we order a few toppings on a cheeseless pizza or just get one with sauce and add whatever we want to it. Other times we will buy dough and throw something together really quickly. We do have some Tofurky and Amy's pizzas hiding in the freezer, but I like to save those for emergencies, like when we forget to plan enough dinners for the week or when I am on my own and don't feel like cooking.

Since it's mofo time, I thought I would make a pizza we could really enjoy. Plus, it fits perfectly into my magazine week. This is Southwestern Pizza from Family Circle (who won't let you search recipes without registering, so I can't link it). Anyway this is really easy and you can probably figure out what to do from the photo. They suggested using two 9" premade crusts, but I opted to roll my own out from a store bought dough ball. Then you do a layer of salsa, a layer of cheese (I used FYH Monterey Jack), beans, bell peppers and green onions. Bake it at 450 for about 15 minutes. I put way more of everything because I like my pizzas loaded up. Garnish with cilantro when serving and you're ready to go.

I can't believe the first week of MoFo is done and I've blogged everyday. I hope I can keep this up, gotta start planning for next week.