Buffalo Cauliflower Pizza

Welcome to my latest installment of “You made WHAT with cauliflower???”  This time, I used the dependable crucifer to make a version of spicy plant-based Buffalo wings. And while I was at it, I thought it would be fun to use it as a pizza topping. Recalling that classic Buffalo wings are often served with ranch dressing, I made a ranch-style sauce to spread on the pizza dough before topping it with the spicy cauliflower.

Jon is used to my cooking experiments, but even he thought this was a bit odd – until he tasted it, that is.  In his words, “Wow, this is really, really good!”  Fact is, we couldn’t stop eating it!  Spicy, creamy, doughy, crisp, delicious – all in one luscious pizza.

This recipe uses a very straightforward classic-style Buffalo wing sauce for the cauliflower, but it would be equally good coated with your favorite barbecue sauce.  Likewise, the Buffalo cauliflower can be enjoyed without the pizza crust, with the Ranch sauce used for dipping. (Note: if you don't like cauliflower (gasp) you can instead use strips of seitan, tempeh, or extra-firm tofu that has been baked or sauteed and slathered with the hot sauce.)

I had some roasted asparagus on hand, so I arranged a few thin spears as spokes between the pieces of cauliflower. You can make your favorite pizza dough (such as the one in Vegan on the Cheap) or save time and use the pizza dough from Trader Joes or another source.  Here’s the recipe:

Buffalo Cauliflower Pizza
If you like lots of hot sauce, you can double up on that part of the recipe (it freezes well, too).

• 1 head cauliflower
• 1 pizza dough

Ranch Sauce:

• 1/2 cup cooked white beans
• 1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons finely minced parsley (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon celery salt

Hot Sauce: 

• 1/3 cup Frank’s Red Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.  Remove the leaves and tough core from the cauliflower. Place the cauliflower on a cutting board, cored side down and cut it into 1/4-inch thick slices, as if you were cutting a loaf of bread.  Arrange the cauliflower slices on a baking pan that has been lined with parchment paper, lightly oiled, or sprayed with cooking spray. (You may need more than one pan.) Season the cauliflower with salt and pepper to taste and roast until tender and nicely browned, about 20 minutes, turning once about halfway through with a large metal spatula. 

While the cauliflower is roasting, stretch the pizza dough onto the pizza pan and set aside, then make the hot sauce and Ranch sauce.

For the Ranch Sauce: In a food processor, combine the Ranch Sauce ingredients and process until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings, if needed. Set aside.

For the Hot Sauce: Combine the hot sauce ingredients in a small saucepan, stirring until hot and the Earth Balance is melted.  Set aside.

To assemble the pizza: Keep the oven at 425 degrees F. Spread a layer of the ranch sauce on top of the pizza dough and set aside. Pour the hot sauce over the roasted cauliflower, turning to coat.  Arrange the coated cauliflower on top of the pizza, drizzling any remaining hot sauce onto the cauliflower. Bake until the crust is nicely browned, about 15 minutes.  Serve hot.

Double-Duty Seitan in a Slow Cooker

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook (where I already shared this), I wanted to show you what I made in my new slow cooker recently: "double-duty seitan."

Basically, I wanted to make a pot roast type meal, but with smaller chunks of seitan and I also wanted to make a large piece of seitan that I could freeze for later use. To do this, I simply cut half the batch of seitan into small chunks to simmer right in with the veggies and then I placed the remaining large piece of seitan on top of the other ingredients to let it steam-cook in the slow cooker.  When everything was cooked, I set aside the large piece to cool (and then later wrapped and froze it) and we had the rest for dinner -- with leftovers. I used the slow cooker pot roast recipe from Vegan on the Cheap.

As for the slow cooker itself, it's the Hamilton Beach model that can be used on the stovetop, which will be great if I want to saute some ingredients for a few minutes before slow cooking, or if I want to reduce liquid at the end. I've only used it a few times, so I can't give a full report, but it seems to work just fine so far.  I got it to replace my large Crockpot SmartPot, that turned out not to be so smart after all -- it never got about "warm."  The company replaced it with a new one -- that had the same defect!  So I decided to switch to Hamilton Beach (I have a 4-quart Hamilton Beach forever that I love).

Not sure what's up with the SmartPot -- several of the recipe testers for my upcoming slow cooker book have them and they work fine.  I too had one that worked great for many years until the insert got a hairline crack in the bottom and I had to replace it.  It went downhill from there.

What kind of slow cooker do you have?  Does it have any "quirks" or does it do the job well?

Giveaway Winner + Winning Q & A

Wow, this was such a fascinating giveaway!  There were so many great questions posted.  I wish there was the time and space to answer them all, but there would literally be enough material to fill a book!

The good news is that ONE of the questions has been answered and it's the question from the winner who was chosen at random to win a copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition by Julieanna Hever. 

The lucky winner is #24: Katie!  Congratulations, Katie.  Send me an e-mail with your mailing address and I'll get the book right out to you. (If I don't hear from you within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen.)

Now here's Katie's question:

“My fiance and I have recently started a veg. protein based diet and are wondering why fish should be avoided? All we've ever heard is that the omegas and lean protein are good for us?!”

and here' Julieanna's response:

Fish is one of the most polluted foods you could put into your body. Because our oceans have become giant dumping grounds for most of our environmental pollutants, fish contain toxins such as DDT, dioxin, mercury, and PCB's. You are essentially consuming the lifetime's worth of exposure to these harmful chemicals being collected in its flesh. Further, fish is high in animal protein, which may contribute to chronic disease. Finally, fish do not contain antioxidants, phytonutrients, and fiber which you can find in plant proteins. Omega-3 fatty acids, the type that aggrandizes fish as a health food, can easily be found in plant foods such as walnuts, flaxseeds, hemp seeds, and soybeans.

~  Julieanna Hever, M.S., R.D., C.P.T., The Plant-BasedDietitian 

Thanks to Julieanna for her guest post on dietary oil last week, and also for her response to the winning question.  And thank you all for participating in this giveaway!

Guest Post by Julieanna Hever + Book Giveaway!

Happy Leap Day!  I’m very excited to celebrate this extra day with a guest post by Julieanna Hever (aka The Plant Dietitian).  

The author of the bestselling book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, Julieanna is the co-author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Gluten-Free Vegan Cooking and the nutrition columnist for VegNews Magazine. Julieanna was recently featured on The Dr. Oz Show and has taught as part of Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s eCornell Plant-Based Nutrition Certification Program, among other endeavors.

In honor of Julieanna’s guest post today, I’m giving away a copy of her book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition.  Find out how you can enter to win this amazing book at the end of this post where you can also discover if you're the new winner of the Heart Healthy Pizza cookbook (the previous winner didn't contact me, so a new winner has been chosen.) 

Here now is Julieanna Hever, with her post entitled:

Oil Slick

Confusion prevails in mainstream media and in the minds of consumers regarding oil and its benefits or lack thereof. Commonly, there are questions about which types of fat are healthy, how much we need, and what the best sources are.

 

Due to the popularity of diets like the Mediterranean Diet, oil has become known as a health food….beginning with olive oil. However, olive oil is not the highlight of this successful historical health hint. Instead, there other multiple factors involved, including the fact that the population documented in the Seven Countries Study (the one that kicked off the olive oil myth) ate a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grain breads, herbs, and spices, and were physically active. Yes, they included fish and olive oil, but those components weren't the main attraction to the health achievements of these people.

For anyone trying to lose weight or moderate blood cholesterol levels, using oil in food preparation is not optimal. Remember that oil is 100 percent pure fat and that fat has more than twice the amount of calories per gram as do carbohydrate and protein. The other fact to consider is that you can attain all of the essential fats you need for optimal health by consuming a tablespoon or two of seeds (especially flax, hemp, or chia) or a quarter-cup of walnuts per day. If you compare whole olives and flaxseeds to their derived oils, you will see the difference in nutritional composition (see table). In the whole food version, you retain the healthy fiber, in addition to most of the vitamins, and minerals which are lost in the processing into oil.

Food	Calories	Fiber (g)	Fat (g)
Olives (1 cup)	141	4	14
Olive Oil (1 cup)	1909	0	224
Flaxseeds (1 TBSP)	26	2	3
Flaxseed Oil (1 TBSP)	120	0	14

The key to weight loss success is to focus on satiety. If you feel full, you will eat less and ultimately retain your ideal body weight. Satiety and fullness are the result of a diet high in bulk (fiber plus water). The reason it promotes satiety is because when food is bulky, it triggers sensors in your stomach which tell your brain you are full. If you compare an equal amount of calories of oil versus whole food sources, you can eat a lot more food, as you end up with a lot more bang for your caloric buck. There is even evidence that oil can harm the endothelial cells of the arteries, which can promote heart disease.

The good news is that preparing foods without oil is easy and difficult to detect the difference in taste. Here are some tips for oil-free cooking:

• Sauté with vegetable broth, water, coconut water, juice, beer, wine, or vinegar. It usually requires 3-4 times the amount of these liquids to replace the oil in a recipe. For example, substitute 1/4 cup vegetable broth to replace 1 TBSP oil.
• Make oil-free, yet rich and delicious, salad dressings using beans, tahini, nuts, and seeds.
• Bake with pureed fruit, silken tofu, or mashed avocado or banana.

Find more information on eating low-fat whole food, plant-based on my website PlantBasedDietitian.com and in my books, The Complete Idiots Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Gluten-Free Vegan Cooking.

BOOK GIVEAWAY:

Now's your chance to find out everything you ever wanted to know about vegan nutrition! I’m giving away one copy of Julieanna's book: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition.  And because today is Leap Day, instead of answering a question to win, you get to ask it!  To win this amazing book, all you have to do is leave a comment at the end of this post that asks me a food question or asks Julieanna a nutrition question. (If you don't have a question, you can leave any comment you prefer.) The winner will be chosen at random and when the winner is announced, the winning question will be answered as well.

Here’s how to enter: Just leave a comment at the end of this post asking a vegan food or nutrition question. (If you don’t have a question, just leave any comment you choose!)

To increase your chances of winning, do any or all of the following (leave a separate comment for each one you do): 

• Subscribe to this blog, follow me on Twitter or on Pinterest; or "Friend" me on Facebook, then leave another comment to let me know you did this.
• “Like” Julieanna on Facebook  or follow her on Twitter, then leave a comment to let me know.
• Tweet about the giveaway and use @globalvegan in your tweet, then leave another comment telling me that you did this.
• Post about the giveaway on your own blog or Facebook page, tagging or linking to this post, then leave another comment telling me that you did.

This giveaway will close at midnight on Sunday, March 5.  A winner will be chosen at random and announced on Monday, March 6. Enter now and Happy Leap Day!

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: A new winner in the Heart Healthy Pizza cookbook giveaway has been chosen.  The winner is: # 106 - KELLY G. -- who likes French Fries on her pizza!! Congrats, Kelly! E-mail me with your mailing address and Heart Healthy Pizza will be yours.

Pizza Cookbook Giveaway Winner!

There's no doubt about it -- there are LOTS of pizza lovers out there!  Wow, what an amazing turn-out for this giveaway.  And so many great ideas for pizza toppings, too.

I want to thank everyone who participated, but as you know there can only be one winner.  The always reliable Random.org has chosen lucky # 85: Mandy, who lists "green olives or sun-dried tomatoes" as her favorite toppings.  

Congratulations Mandy! -- Please e-mail me with your mailing address so you can receive your copy of Heart Healthy Pizza by Mark Sutton.  (If I don't hear from you within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen.)

COMING UP:  For those of you who didn't win, there will soon be another chance to try your luck because I'm hosting ANOTHER GIVEAWAY this week when you can enter to win a copy of  the best-selling book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition by Julieanna Hever.  To add to the fun, this giveaway will be in conjunction with a special Guest Post by the Plant Dietician herself.  Check back on Wednesday (Leap Day!) for Julieanna's post and a chance to win her fabulous book.

Heart Healthy Pizza: Review + Cookbook Giveaway!

I first mentioned Heart Healthy Pizza: Over 100 Recipes for the Most Nutritious Pizza in the World on my blog last week. Now I want to tell you more about this breakthrough cookbook (and also give you the chance to win a free copy!)

Heart Healthy Pizza is the first and only cookbook dedicated to the fine art and science of making vegan pizza.  In this book, author Mark Sutton guides the reader on how to make a variety of innovative crusts, sauces, and toppings, with separate sections in the book dedicated to each component. Heart Healthy Pizza has been five years in the making – I know this because I’ve been in touch with Mark as he was developing his book, so I know firsthand how much effort he has put into it.

All of the plant-based recipes contain no added oil and many of the crusts are gluten-free.  The toppings and sauces are made with a wide variety of vegetables, grains, beans, and other plant-based ingredients and include many “cheesy” sauces in a variety of textures and flavors. Sauces include a Quinoa, Artichokes, and Dijon Mustard Sauce, shown in the top photo (photo by Valerie Wagner); as well as a Sweet Potatoes, Carrots, and Chiles Sauce shown here:

There is also a chapter devoted to innovative pizza creations made with different combinations of the crusts, sauces, and toppings.  Readers are encouraged to “mix and match” the various components, allowing for seemingly infinite variety.  The recipes are super-nutritious, cost-effective, easy to make, and delicious. 

If you like the idea of making delicious, inexpensive, no-added oil, plant-based pizza, then you’ll love Heart Healthy Pizza -- Mark Sutton's gift to vegan pizza-lovers.  You can buy the book direct at HeartHealthyPizza -- where you can also see more pizza photos (there are no photos in the book) -- or you can buy it through Amazon.  Below is a sample recipe from the book for the Millet, Sunflower Seeds, and Oregano Sauce shown in this photo: 

(Note: Recipe and photos ©2012 by Mark Sutton.)

Millet, Sunflower Seeds, and Oregano Sauce

For the sauce:

1 cup cooked millet

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

2 T. corn starch

2 T. dried crushed oregano

1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds

1 cup water

Pizza dough
Toppings of choice

METHOD:

1. Combine all the sauce ingredients except the sunflower seeds and water in a blender or food processor. Pulse a few times, gradually adding the seeds and water until the mixture can be processed into a smooth and thick pancake batter-like consistency.
 2. Pour the sauce over prepared dough and pizza toppings, then bake at 425 to 450 degrees F. (depending upon your oven) for 15 to 20 minutes.

Recipe Notes:

• This recipe makes a very thick sauce. As blobs on top of the pizza, it is reminiscent of raw mozzarella slices on a Margherita-style pizza. Works well for one 12" to 14" pizza.

• Soaking the sunflower seeds for 2 to 4 hours, then draining, will make the sauce a bit more fluffy in texture.

COOKBOOK GIVEAWAY:

And now one lucky winner will have a chance to win a copy of Heart Healthy Pizza.  Here’s what you need to do:  Leave a comment at the end of this post telling me what your favorite pizza topping is.  That’s it!

For extra chances to win, do any or all of the following and then leave a separate comment for each, telling me what you’ve done:

* Mention this giveaway and link to it on Facebook.

* Mention this giveaway and link to it on Twitter.

* Follow me on Twitter or Pinterest.

* Friend me on Facebook.

* Subscribe to my blog.

The contest closes Sunday night 2/26 at midnight.  A winner will be chosen at random and announced on this blog on Monday morning. Enter now: What’s YOUR favorite pizza topping?