This pizza is a life-changer. If it's not already I highly recommend promoting homemade vegan pizza to a first class fixture in your life. The secret to this recipe is the sauce; it's a good idea to make extra as it keeps well in the freezer.
- 1/2 cup pinto beans
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 1 T. olive oil
- 2 T. soy sauce
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
- 1/4 cup nooch
- 1 1/2 t. fennel seed crushed
- 1 t. crushed red pepper
- 1 t. paprika (for this I recommend regular not the smoked)
- 1 t. oregano
- steamer pot (I use a bamboo steamer and it works fine too)
- a good amount of tin foil
- 1/4 cup raw cashews (soaked)
- 1 cup hot water
- 2 T. + 1 t. tapioca starch
- 1 T. olive oil
- 1 garlic clove
- 3/4 t. sea salt
- 1 t. fresh lemon juice
- 3 T. olive oil
- 1 T. Earth Balance
- 1/2 cup onion chopped
- 1/4 cup celery chopped
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
- 1 6 oz can tomato paste
- 2 T. vegan parm
- 1 t. dried basil
- 1 t. oregano
- 1/2 t. salt
- 1/2 t. sugar
- 1/4 t. black pepper
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 t. fennel seed
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 package yeast (I prefer the Fleischmann's Active Dry)
- 1 t. sugar
- 1 t. salt
- 1 cup hot water
- 1 T. olive oil
- 1 handful cornmeal for your pizza pan
If you're making all of this at once I recommend starting with the sausage.
Sausage: Get your steamer situated over water and while you bring the water to a boil mash up the pinto beans in a large mixing bowl and then add all the other ingredients and mix it all up. Once it's mixed form it into a big log like you're making seitan but don't knead it. Cut it into six even pieces and then form little sausage logs on pieces onto tin foil sheets. Make sure the sheets are large enough so that there's room sticking out past the sausage log. Don't worry if it doesn't look "neat" or like sausage yet. Roll up the tin foil and twist the ends up tight. When you're water is boiling put the sausages into the steamer. If you were just making these for fun you can cook them for forty minutes -- that's what the original Vegan Dad recipe calls for -- however, I prefer to steam for an hour and fifteen minutes. This makes them more immediately ready for a pizza. Put on your timer and switch to the sauce.
Sauce: In a reasonably sized sauce pan heat up the olive oil and the Earth Balance. You can probably sub coconut oil for the Earth Balance but I'd recommend refined because you don't want your pizza tasting like coconut at all. Add onion, celery, and garlic and sauté it up. Once the onions are translucent add the rest of the ingredients and simmer on low heat for an hour. Try to remove the bay leaf when it's done if you can spot it.
At this point you have a little break while the sausage is steaming and the sauce is simmering. The dough needs to rise for 30 minutes so it's best to do that next.
Dough: In a large bowl add the sugar to the hot water and stir it until it's gone. Raw sugar will take longer to dissolve but it will work. Once the sugar is gone sprinkle the yeast on top and wait 10 minutes. It'll be frothy when it's ready. Add the flour, salt, and olive oil, mix and then knead the dough for 6 to 8 minutes until it's smooth and elastic. This is the hardest part. The dough will generally be too dry when kneading and you'll need to add extremely small amounts of cold water as you knead it. Do not, not, not let it get too moist. You can add one teaspoon and then boom it's a sloppy, wet mess all of a sudden. Go very carefully and make sure whatever water you add you definitely need. After kneading wet a kitchen towel and wring it out so it's damp but not dripping at all. Put that over the bowl and let the dough rise for a half hour. You may be able to get by with 20 minutes. It's time for the moxarella.
Moxarella: This is very quick to make and it's easiest to spread out on the pizza when it's right off the stove so I recommend prepping all of the ingredients and putting them into a blender (except for the hot water) now and then doing the rest of the mox prep after the dough has risen and pre-baked.
Dough: Heat the oven to 425 degrees. After the dough has risen roll it into a ball and cut it in half evenly. If you're not making two pizzas you can freeze one of the halves for later. Lightly grease a pizza pan with olive oil and sprinkle corn meal on the pan. This next part is the hardest part of the whole process in my opinion. Gently with your fingers press the dough out until it fills the whole pizza pan. You have to be careful not to make a hole in the dough and this part will feel like it takes 3 hours but be patient and it will be worth it. Once the dough is spread out across the whole pizza pan put it in the oven and pre-bake it for 7 minutes.
Okay, this is where it starts getting real. While the dough is pre-baking you need to finish the mox. Add the hot water to the ingredients you already have chillin out in the blender. Blend the hell out of this as high as your blender will blend until it's really smooth. A full minute in my vitamix does the job without even soaking the cashews. Pour this into a saucepan and over medium high heat and stir this constantly. It's going to start to get really thick and weird. A definite "moment of transformation" will occur after a about a minute or so and at that point you should turn down the heat and keep cooking and stirring until it's very thick. It won't take long. Once it's really, really thick turn the heat all the way down and your dough is probably done pre-baking. Get it out of the oven and spread a generous amount of sauce over it. Generous. Now you want to add the mox and this will not be easy. You want to spoon it out and try and drag/spread/whatever you can to distribute the mox without disrupting the sauce too much. Don't worry too much about this, though. Now add some of the cut up sausage and all of the other ingredients you were prepping right? Artichoke, broccoli, pepper, onion, jalapeño, hell even potato can kick some ass on a pizza. Once your toppings are set bake on the bottom oven rack for 11.5 minutes (I'm serious) and then take the pizza out and turn on the broiler and broil on the top rack for 1 minute.