BBQ pizza

It was a cold and dreary spring day yesterday but that didn't stop us from tasting a hint of summertime thanks to modern transportation which brings us all sorts of produce off-season! We didn't venture out to the grill for this one though if the weather had cooperated grilling the toppings and the pizza on this one would have been superb.

Toppings:

• BBQ sauce
• tempeh (pan-fried in a splash of soy sauce and then tossed with BBQ sauce)
  
• Eggplant (sauteed until soft)
• onions (sauteed until almost crispy)
• bell pepper (this was grilled - leftover from a grilled meal a few days ago)
• slices of fresh tomato
• and, of course, we passed the nutritional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table

This was a schweeeeet pizza. It was tasty but I'll only give it a 7 because I thought the BBQ sauce was too sweet. We used a jarred sauce that K got as a holiday gift from work. It had good flavor but was just too sweet - I prefer a BBQ sauce that tends towards zippy and away from sweet.

Spicy Red

Oooooo, spicy!!! I had planned to do pizza one night this week and I had pondered a few different ideas but then when it came time to actually make the pizza we were starved and hadn't prepared any sauces or anything yet so it ended up being a quick turn on the oven and toss whatever we have on the dough kind of pizza. And well, it turned out pretty darn good, we just felt it was a little too spicy. And when K admits that something is too spicy you know it has got to be HOT!

Here is what I put on the store-bought whole wheat pizza dough...

• a little bit of salsa
• chipolte seasoned kidney beans (this is where our heat came from - we used a little too much chipolte, oops!)
• onion
• tomato
• red bell pepper
• avocado (put on the pizza as it came out of the oven)
• No need to pass the hot pepper at the table but we did pass the nutritional yeast

We both rated this an 8. It had great flavor, just a bit too hot. We also felt that more tomato would be good (I only had a rather small tomato to slice up). , I'm not sure which would be better - either more fresh slices or some extra tomato sauce mixed in with the salsa on the base. I also might try this on a different kind of dough next time. With just a scaled down spiciness and more tomato this pizza would be pushing the 9 or even 10 rating (could we really eat it every day? )

'mater overload!

K couldn't resist the pile of beautiful tomatoes from the farm that have been adorning our kitchen counter. So he decided to try taking quercetin, eat 'maters. I wanted to make gazpacho but instead he wanted a pizza with tomatoes. So here is what we had on an herb and garlic crust...

• homemade tomato sauce (with onion, garlic and fresh farm tomatoes)
• eggplant (sliced and browned in a saute pan)
• purple bell pepper sliced in rings
• thick slices of fresh tomatoes
• and of course we passed the nutritional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table

I rate this one a 9, mostly because the tomatoes tasted so delicious!!! Some arugula and faux feta would have made it the perfect relatively traditional vegan pizza. K doesn't think he can rate it fairly since he gets to eat tomato so rarely and they tasted so good to him.