Buffalo Pizza

If you are a skeptic, this sounds like a stretch. Trust me, it isn’t. Much like Taco Bell, I find myself reusing the same ingredients and ideas in many different recipes. If you don’t know what I am talking about, read this post on my born again buffalo wings. Aleta and I just enjoyed this pizza and I even took a picture (many of you have been asking for this).

As you may or may not know, I am the village idiot of bread making. However, I have always been able to do a pizza crust. Adding my obsession with flax seed, I have created a pretty decent from scratch pizza dough. The recipe will yield two thin crust or one thick crust pizzas.

Pizza Crust:

• 1 1/2 cups of bread flour
• 1 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour
• 3 tablespoons of ground flax seed (read here why flax is a health booster)
• two minced garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp ascorbic acid (vitamin C – read here why this is helpful)

Put the sugar and yeast in a small cup. Add 1 cup of really hot to the touch water. Stir the mixture and let it sit for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, it will be frothy and foamy like a head on a Guinness.

Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl. Pour the water in the bottom of your Kitchen Aid mixer with dough hook (best $100 kitchen investment). Turn the mixer on low and gradually add the dry ingredients. Pour the remaining 1/2 cup of water in a shot at a time until all ingredients are mixed. The dough should incorporate all ingredients and not stick to the bottom of the bowl. Add some flour or water to adjust until you reach this. The dough should spin 6 minutes start to finish. Pull the dough off the hook. Spray the bottom of the mixing bowl with PAM. Throw the dough back in the bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise for 30 minutes. As always, you can help speed this process by putting the bowl on a warm stove-top by the oven vents. I preheat my oven to 200 degrees just to let the heat warm the stove.

In the meantime, you need to prepare the toppings. The pizza toppings consist of:

• 1/4 cup Frank’s Red Hot (accept no substitute)
• 2 tbsp of canola or grape seed oil (olive if you must)
• 1 sliced medium onion
• 1 heaping handful of sliced mushrooms
• 2 cloves of  garlic
• 5  diced boneless vegan buffalo wings
• 4 slices of soy smoked provolone cheese

Pour 2 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan and get it hot. Add the onions, mushrooms, and garlic and saute on high heat for 3 minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat. In a small bowl, combine the hot sauce with two tablespoons of oil and mix it well.

Once the dough has risen to about 50% more (does not have to double in bulk) than the original size, remove the dough from the bowl and drop onto a floured surface. I like a thin crust so I slice the dough in two portions and throw the other in the fridge (good for 7 days).

Roll the dough out on a floured surface and transfer if to a pizza pan. You may have to work on this a bit as this dough is a little more stiff than regular white flour doughs. The dough should be just about paper thin and you should get at least 12 inches out of it. Spread the hot sauce on the dough and cover it. You may have to do a couple shots from the bottle to get full coverage. Layer the sauteed onions and mushrooms over the sauce. Next, layer the chopped vegan chicken pieces.

Place the pizza (no, I did not forget the cheese) in a preheated 425 degree over for 7 1/2 minutes. After 7 1/2 minutes, pull the pizza out and add the smoked cheese. I usually break the slices into little squares and layer it all over the pizza. You want to wait to add the cheese as soy cheese will burn if you add it at the begining of the process. Place the pizza back in the oven and cook for 6 more minutes.

The pizza crust should be brown and the soy cheese should also start to tint a little brown. Remove the pizza and let it stand for a couple minutes. In the meantime, you can whip up an optional ranch dipping sauce:

• 1/2 cup soy mayo
• 1/2 cup soy sour cream
• 1 large garlic clove
• 1 tbsp of fresh parsley
• 1/2 green onion

Throw all this in a food processor and blend it to a sauce. Add onion or garlic powder to get the desired strength of the dipping sauce. If it is too thick, pour in a tablespoon of vegetable stock or soy milk.

Cut the pizza, serve it up with the cool ranch sauce, and enjoy. This pizza satisfied our itch for the Sunday afternoon slouch in front of TV meal. It has salty, spicy, pizza, and dressing all in one sitting. As always, there is ZERO, Nada, zilch cholesterol and half the fat.

I am the village idiot when it comes to making bread. I have either made rolls that could double over as weapons grade tank shells or loafs that are like that astronaut freeze dried ice cream we all thought was really cool when we were kids (you have never been to Epcot Center?). This last week was a complete breakthrough in my artisan brick (or bread) making ability. I had a brief conversation with a friend of mine who happens to be a commercial baker and she gave me 3 tips that took me from the village idiot to the medicine man of the crusty loaf.

Start with ascorbic acid. Yes, good bread requires acid. You may also know this as vitamin C. Vitamin C is a dough stabilizer. It turbo charges the rising of the yeast and also helps with freshness. After you drop some acid in the bread dough, don’t mix it too long. I have a Kitchen Aid mixer with a dough hook and bowl. I mix the dough no longer than 6 minutes. The first minute is mixing the wet and dry ingredients and the last 5 are kneading. Speaking of wet and dry, add your dry ingredients to your wet. In other words, start with your yeast/water mixture in the mixing bowl and then add the flour.

With all that said, here is the village idiot-proof vegan bread recipe:

• 3 cups of bread flour (if you want to be the village idiot,  use all-purpose flour )
• 2 1/4 tsp (one package) active dry yeast
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 1 3/4 cups of water (a little more or less)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons of salt (that 1/4 makes a difference)
• 1/8 tsp of ascorbic acid (you can buy this in powder form or just pulverize a vitamin C tablet)

Do this exactly as I say or risk becoming the village idiot:

Pour the yeast and sugar into a 1 cup measuring cup. Add hot water until the cup is almost full. The water should be almost too hot to the touch. Stir the mixture in the cup and let it sit. In a bowl, add the flour, salt, and vitamin C. Wait about 5 minutes. The yeast mixture should have a foamy surface about 1/4 inch thick (kinda like the thickness of a head on a Guinness). Pour the yeast mixture into the Kitchen Aid bowl (with dough hook) and turn on the mixer to the lowest speed. Gradually add all the flour. Start pouring in the remaining 3/4 cup of hot water a shot at a time. Be patient until all the water is absorbed (you may not need it all). Keep on adding water until all the dough mixes. This should be happening in under 1 minute. The dough should wrap around the dough hook and not stick to the bottom of the bowl as it spins. If it does, add pinches of flour and wait. Repeat until the stickiness stops. Eventually, the bowl should be spotless without any residue as the dough has picked up all this up. Let the dough spin on the hook for no more than 5 minutes. Stop the mixer after 5 minutes and feel the dough. It should be soft enough to *almost* stick on your fingers, but it won’t.

Remove the dough from the hook and the bowl. Knead it a couple times into a ball. Spray the mixer bowl with Pam and drop the dough back in. Cover and let it rise for 45 minutes or until it is roughly twice the size. I put the bowl on the stove-top and turn on the oven to 200 degrees. The heat from the oven vents warms the stove-top and helps the bread rise. Ideally, bread dough should proof above 80 degrees.

Take the dough out of the bowl and shape it into a loaf on a cookie sheet or a Pampered Chef baking stone (the best). Don’t manhandle it too much. I gently shape it into an oval, making sure not to squeeze all the air (or CO2, really) out of it. From there, put a couple toothpicks in the dough and gently place a couple sheets of plastic wrap over it. It should look like a tent. Put the baking sheet on the stove top and let it rise for 2 hours until it is doubled in size.

Fifteen minutes before baking, put a brownie pan with some water on the bottom tray of the oven. The water will start to boil and make steam. The steam will help give the bread a nice hard crust, but not dry it out. Get the oven up to 425 degrees. Remove the plastic wrap from the baking sheet and stick it in the oven. Bake the bread for 25 minutes. The crust should be light golden brown. Remove the bread from the oven and place it on a cooling rack for at least 20 minutes. This will enable the crust to settle.

If you have made it this far, you should have a kitchen that smells like a Parisian bakery. The vegan bread should have a warm and soft center with a nice and chewy crust. There should be a good yeast and salt flavor to the bread.

I have made this vegan bread 3 days in a row now and it has turned out exactly the same. Our days of paying $5.99 for a Panera loaf may be over. Hopefully, I will stay a medicine man. I can also cancel my military contracts for tank shells.

I am sick of chili. I have been making chili for almost 15 years now as my “poor single man” meal of choice along with chicken, rice, and beans that the Mexican dishwashers taught me how to make in my restaruant days. Of course I am not single or poor anymore (except in spirit). Wanting some Mexican zing without the density of chili, I whipped together this absolutely phenomenal hearty stew.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of tomato sauce
• 2 cans diced tomatoes and chilis
• 7 cups of vegetable broth
• 1 package Trader Joe’s soy chorizo (or any soy chorizo)
• 1 medium onion
• 3 medium potatoes
• 3 large garlic cloves
• 4 Tbsp of chili powder
• 2 Tsp of garlic powder
• 2 Tsp of cumin
• 4 Tbsp oil
• 1 avacado
• sour cream
• fresh limes
• cilantro

Dice the onions and potatoes into bite sizes (as in chunks you want to fit on your spoon). Smash the garlic in a cool Pampered Chef garlic press and add to the potatoes and onions. In a large soup pot, add the oil and get it super hot. Add the potatoes, onions, and garlic. You should get some major sizzle going and an awesome aroma. Cook the mixture on high heat, turning frequently for 5 – 7 minutes until the potatoes are almost edible (pick one up and bite into it). Stir in the soy chorizo and cook for another minute. Add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, vegetable broth, and seasoning. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for 20 minutes. You may need to tweak the chili powder and cumin to your taste. Remember that chili powder is much less potent than cumin. You can add chili powder in tablespoon increments, but I suggest cumin in 1/4 teaspoon until taste. Add some salt if needed.

Slice the avocado in half and remove the seed. Scoop out chunks of it with a spoon. Pour the soup into a bowl. Throw a couple chunks of avocado, a scoop of soy sour cream, and chopped cilantro on top. Squeeze a lime over the whole thing in serve. Three words: oh my goodness. I served this to my Oklahoma good ole’ boy deer meat eating neighbor and he engulfed the whole thing in about 10 seconds. In his words “Meat or no meat, if it tastes good I’ll eat anything.” So would I and I don’t have to be poor or single to do so.

A couple of our non-vegan friends and family are deeply concerned about our vegan diet and whether we will get enough protein. There are 4 main sources of vegan protein: soy products, nuts, legumes, and whole grains. If there is one nutrient that is abundant in vegan diets, it is protein. I can’t eat anything from the above 4 categories without eating at least 20% in one sitting.

Here is a great example: Darren’s vegan cheeseburger. Yes, you heard me right. I made up a vegan cheeseburger. Here are the ingredients:

• 2 slices of whole wheat bread: 8g
• 1 chipotle veggie burger: 4g
• 3 slices “Fakin’ Bacon” tempe (soy product): 8g
• 1/2 tablespoon soy mayonnaise: 0g
• 1 slice vegan american cheese: 4g

That is 24g of protein or 50% of my daily intake in one sitting. To take it one step further, here are the total numbers:

• Calories: 475
• Total fat as percent of daily intake: 27%
• Total saturated fat as percent of daily intake: 4.5%
• Total cholesterol as percent of daily intake: 0% (yes, not a gram!)
• Sodium: 57% (that still is a little high)

BTW, it really does taste rather good slopped together with ketchup, lettuce, and mustard. I was pleasantly shocked considering Aleta and I used to spend our date nights going through the “Annual List of Tulsa’s Best Burgers”.

I went to Wendy’s website and got the facts on a single bacon cheeseburger. It has slightly higher protein at 32g. Here are the other numbers:

• Calories: 550
• Total fat as percent of daily intake: 45%
• Total saturated fat as percent of daily intake: 72%
• Total cholesterol as percent of daily intake: 33%
• Sodium: 70%

After doing a calculation of 2 days worth of diet, I am counting an average of 2000 – 2200 calories a day, 55 -65g (115%) of protein, 10g of saturated fat (50%), and 0 (0%) mg of cholesterol.

* Disclaimer – I am no expert at nutrition, just trying to understand what I am reading. My comments are not authoritative.