Easy Vegan Pizza

Have a yen for vegan pizza?  Well, it’s easier than you think thank to some widely available vegan products that have become staples in my household.

Pizza Dough:  Don’t feel like making pizza dough from scratch, or even kneading the premade pizza dough available from Trader Joe’s?   A very easy and delicious alternative is the cornmeal pizza crust from Vicolo’s.  They’re sold as a two-pack in the refrigerated or frozen section of natural food stores.  The last time I checked, New Leaf in Half Moon Bay priced it at $5.09.

Vegan Cheese: This isn’t entirely necessary for a vegan pizza, but it does provide another flavor dimension.  There are quite a few commercial vegan cheeses now available as well as potentially making your own tofu ricotta style cheesey sauce.

The Follow Your Heart “Vegan Gourmet” cheese alternatives are the most widely available, even in small towns on the San Francisco mid-Peninsula.  With this brand, the trick is to broil the pizza for the last few minutes of cooking to help the “cheese alternative” melt. (Hey, that’s what they call it on their website; cheese alternative photo courtesy of Follow Your Heart)

Sauce: I’m rather simple in this manner.  I take a can of tomato paste (Trader Joe’s house brand), and add some water and herbs to it and use that as my sauce base.  For herbs, I use a generic mix called “Italian Seasoning” that I’ve bought from the herb & spices bulk section at Rainbow Grocery.  Another alternative is equally simple – instead of the dried herbs, I’ll use freshly crushed garlic.  Or maybe both.  Then a pinch of salt.

Toppings:  Everything tastes good on pizza.  My favorites are:  bell pepper, onions, olives, pineapple, corn kernels, and broccoli.

Pizza is a very fun food to play with.

Tags:cooking, follow your heart, pizza, review, trader joe's, vegan food, vicolo's

Vegan Pizza by the Slice: Bobby G’s

To the envy of all the people who live in San Francisco, the best vegan pizza is in the East Bay.

First, of the two entirely vegetarian pizzerias in the Bay Area, one of them is in the East Bay.   Oakland’s Pizza Plaza became an all-veg pizzeria a few years back and has a wide selection of vegan pizzas on its menu, or you can entirely create your own vegan combo.  They use Follow Your Heart vegan cheese and offer a wide selection of faux meats, too.  Tony Tutto Pizza opened more recently in Mill Valley.  However, while it is entirely vegetarian, it does not (yet) offer a vegan cheese.

Second, while there are a couple of mixed restaurants in SF that offer vegan pizza, I think for ease and choice of vegan pizza, East Bay wins the prize with 4 restaurants offering excellent vegan pizza choices:

Lanesplitter (which has locations in Albany, Berkeley, and Oakland), Fellini , and Bobby G’s Pizzeria.

After hearing favorable feedback about Bobby G’s, the newest in the preceding list to offer vegan pizza, I had to make a trip to the East Bay to try it out for myself.  And I was not disappointed.  It was scrummy!

Amazingly:

1) You can order vegan pizza by the slice, and each slice can be like a mini pizza (i.e. you can have whatever toppings you want on each slice!)

2) Vegan pizza is available in their lunch special, how cool is that.  I always hate going to restaurants and feeling left out when they don’t have any vegan lunch specials.

Anyways, provided with the first-in-my-lifetime opportunity to have vegan pizza by the slice with whatever toppings I wanted, I could not refuse.  I chose to have different toppings on each of my three slices:  first, olive and pineapples; then spinach (I figured this was in lieu of ordering a salad ); and being the fungi lover I am, mushrooms.

Overall, the proprietary tofu ricotta was yummy, and just the right balance of toppings too.   Let me repeat myself again:  totally scrummy!

You can also make your own mini combination, as my fellow pizza lover did, and they offer a vegan salad, too.  Note, while the combo pizza slices may look more festive, my singular topping slices were excellent and in no way lacking.  I think all 3 slices cost me about $10 + tax/tip.

I would definitely return again, and bring a large to-go container with me

Tags:berkeley, pizza, restaurant, review, vegan food