When the moon hits your eye...

Just a quickie today.

Sometimes a girl just needs some junk food.

What's a better junk food than the good old stand- by pizza?

Some of my non-vegan friends argue that a pizza isn't a pizza without cheese. But I argue that that with the right combination of ingredients you don't need the fattiness of the unnecessary product.

Sure with a pizza, I could pick up the phone and argue with the person on the other end about how or why I don't want cheese on my pie and how I want extra sauce and some olive oil drizzled on it, but why put myself out?

I'll make it myself.

Now i could have been all Martha Stewart- like and made the dough myself ( and one of thee days I will post the awesome recipe i have for the GREATEST homemade dough in the world) but screw that. I want junk food and I want it NOW.

At more grocery stores you can by pre-baked , whole wheat pizza crusts with a package of sauce on the side. Perfect.

This is my combo for the BEST salty sweet pizza combo ever!

Green pepper

Green Olives

Lots of Minced Garlic

Onion

Pineapple

Extra Sauce.

Olive Oil.

Drizzle the oil on the pizza after it's cooked through. It should take about 10 minutes in the oven.

The sweetness of the pineapple is offset by the salty flavour of the olives.

Give it a try and you wont even remember the pizza didn't have cheese.

Off to a slow boil

My adventures this week involve a broken refrigerator and a slow cooker.

When I moved last week my landlord warned me the fridge may be on the fritz and, yes, he was correct.

Although, I am having a new one delivered on tuesday I deemed it necessary to use up all of the fresh vegetables I had while still having food to eat for the coming days.

What to do?

This led me to my vegan creation: Metta's Slow Cooker Chili

I had originally found a recipe online for a stovetop chili but it seemed rather watery and time consuming so i adapted it for the lazy person in me.

For this post I added mushrooms to the recipe. I don't like them at all so I left them out and doubled up on the peppers and broccoli. You can use whatever veggies you like for this.

3 cloves of garlic — crushed

1 tsp of garlic — minced

1 red onion 

1 green pepper

1 stalk of broccoli

4 stalks of celery

1 cup chopped mushrooms

1 cup of red kidney beans — drained

1 can diced tomatoes — drained

1 can of tomato paste

2 tbsp vinegar

2 tbsp lemon juice

olive oil

1 package of Yves "Italian" veggies ground round or whole wheat rotini

chili powder

cajun powder

cayenne powder

salt

pepper

Saute the onion and garlic with half of the spices you intend to use in a pan for a few minutes. Add the tomato paste before adding the onion, garlic and paste to cooker.

Add the diced tomatoes.

Mix in the rest of your veggies and add a bit more spices ( just a bit. You can add more later if you like. Take it slow — You're going to simmer this shit, so don't go overboard.)

NOTE* — Don't go crazy with the salt. There should be enough sodium with the tomatoes but you can add more later if you want. Makes sure all of the veggies are covered with the tomatoes.

Add vinegar, lemon juice and kidney beans and a dash more of  all of the spices. Set the cooker on low and let it simmer for as long as possible.

I like to let it simmer for at least an hour before adding the ground round.

Add the "meat". Stir. If you find it's too think you can add up to a 1/3 cup of water — NO MORE ( you're no making a fucking stew.) You may want to consider adding a bit of olive oil at this point too to replace the fat that will be missing from the chili as the "meat" will be missing that gross run off from regular ground round.

Add the rest of the spices to taste.

Let it simmer for as long as you want.

Serve with your favourite bread and enjoy!

recipes serves 4

Note: If you are going to use pasta: I would under cook it slightly before adding it to the chili as w/w pasta takes a bit loner to cook. You can probably bypass this step if you are going to let this chili simmer for hours. In that case add the pasta at the beginning.