Childhood Nostalgia Stuffed Crust Pizza with Mac & Cheese, Fried Pickles and Ranch Drizzle

WOAH IT'S VEGAN PIZZA DAY MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY.

To celebrate, I literally ate nothing but vegan pizza today. No lie - after work, I went to Mellow Mushroom for lunch (one of the very few vegan friendly spots in Bowling Green) and ordered a small pizza with tempeh, Daiya, kalamata olives and mushrooms. Bomb! Thank you Mellow Mushroom for allowing me to eat vegan pizza ALL DAY.

AND THEN for dinner I prepared the following pit-zuh in celebration of this beautiful, meaningful holiday. If I may, I'd like for you to read this post with your eyes and also with your heart - to get our country back to its roots and to recognize the TRUE meaning of Vegan Pizza Day. It's not about buying the most expensive gift or decorating your house with the biggest light show on the block or throwing the biggest holiday party with A-list guests. It's about... well... GOD BLESS AMERICA.

This pizza is all about nostalgia. It ties together a few of my absolute favorite things from childhood (and let's be real - I can devour these dishes in no time as an adult as well) - macaroni and cheese, fried pickles, ranch, and STUFFED CRUST.

As we all know, by now, homemade pizza dough is a labor of love. I have nothing significant to add to Isa Chandra's dough recipe so I will let you find that on your own. Spoiler alert! - the thesis of dough recipes is usually this - dough making/stretching/mixing is an art. It's simple enough - mix some yeast and sugar and water with some flour, cover it in oil, let it rest, stretch it out, kneed it out, let it rest some more, kneed it some more. But it is all about the feeling. Any seasoned pro (i.e. someone who has made dough more than once) can tell you - it's about your technique.

While your dough is resting (as there is plenty of this involved - believe me), first prepare your fried pickles. The biggest challenge in making these is abstaining from eating each one as you pull them out of the fryer. For one, this will burn you. Also, you won't have any fried pickles left to top your pizza. How embarrassing!!!! 

For this you will need:

However many pickles you want to fry - I use the hamburger dill kind 

1 1/2 Cup all purpose flour

2 Tbl cornstarch

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp egg replacer powder

1 tsp paprika

1 Cup almond milk (or your preferred non-dairy milk of choice)

Whisk together all the dry ingredients in a small bowl. Pour the almond milk in another small bowl.

Fill a heavy cast iron skillet or other high-heat pan with vegetable oil about halfway, or about 2 inches below the top of the pan. Heat the oil on medium-high heat and wait a bit.

To prepare the pickles, simply dip them in the milk, then the flour mixture and set aside. As a general frying rule of thumb, always toss in a small piece of batter as a test before frying your main dish. If the small bit begins frying immediately, then your oil is hot enough. If not, wait a little longer.

Fry your pickles in small batches of four or five to avoid them clumping together. Remove with a fork or other slotted utensil and place on a paper towel to dry. These can sit and relax until you are ready for your pizza. If, of course, you resist temptation. Again, let me emphasize that this is THE most difficult part of assembling the nostalgia pizza.

Oh look at that - you still have some resting time for your dough?????!! How shall we pass the time? Watch a few Friends episodes? Read a Billy Collins poem? Walk to your corner bar for a pint of the good stuff? Consider overpopulation? Or perhaps we could, oh I don't know, make some MAC N CHEESE.

Now the easy option here would be to purchase some store bought mac n cheese. This will work in a pinch, of course. When I am feeling lazy/hungover/crampy I indulge in Amy's gluten free mac n cheeze, which beats any store bought product I've personally encountered. The problem with using store bought mac and cheese with this pizza, though, is that you have little to no control over the amount of sauce, which will become crucial in the baking stage.

SO, put on your big girl panties because it doesn't take THAT much effort to prepare your own sauce. Plus it's VEGAN PIZZA DAY so like I said earlier, don't lose sight of the Reason for the Season.

Here's what you'll need:

macaroni elbows
4 Cups vegetable broth
2 Tbl lemon juice
1 Tbl Earth Balance
2 Tbl olive oil
1/2 Cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp black pepper
a couple pinches of dried thyme, crumbled in your fingers
1 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 -2 Cups nutritional yeast
1 Tbl yellow mustard

Prepare the mararoni according to the directions on the package if you're a dummy or if you're not a dummy prepare the macaroni according to how normal humans prepare pasta. There's no crucial time frame for this so you can cook your pasta while gathering sauce ingredients, or mixing a cooking cocktail or finding the perfect Pandora station to cook to. When it's done, drain and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, heat your veggie stock over medium heat until it comes to an easy boil. Add the lemon juice, olive oil and Earth Balance and reduce to medium-low heat. Gently stir in the flour, salt, garlic powder, pepper, thyme and turmeric and cook for a 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Now add the nutritional yeast about a half cup at a time, stirring constantly to incorporate.

At this point, the sauce may bubble up on you. Watch out! Cover your face! Wear safety goggles! Or some hip Ray Bans or something.

Either way, once your nooch is all in, reduce the sauce to low heat and stir in the mustard - the crown jewel of any American dish. Stir a few more minutes until your heart is satisfied and remove from heat.

Set aside 1 cup of the sauce. Stir the rest in with your macaroni elbows and marvel at the beauty of humanity. If your mac and cheese is a little saucy - don't panic. This will be helpful to you in the end due to the wizardly habits of ovens and their tendency to dry things out.

Now is it time to assemble the pizza??? Yes. It is that time now. First! Heat your oven mega hot. (I do mine at 500. 475 or 450 is also acceptable.)

Let's prepare the crust. Toss your dough and make it work for you (I suggest turning on some Ru Paul for this piece). To make a stuffed crust, it works exactly as you think it will - stretch it out a little past the pan to have a little excess for rolling over. Line the edges with mozzorella Daiya cheese and fold the excess dough over.

Now, take that one cup of cheese sauce and spread it evenly over your pizza. Next, pile on the mac and cheese. Top with fried pickles. Brush the crust with melted Earth Balance and stick that guy in the oven for 18-20 minutes, checking back occasionally via the oven light but NOT via opening the door and gazing at your creation like a dumbass letting all the heat out for 20 seconds.

While your pizza is baking, prepare the easy peasy ranch sauce. Vegan ranch is no secret, nor is it too difficult to assemble. Here's a recipe I found on about.com that seems to work well for me:

1 Cup veganaise
1/4 Cup soymilk
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tsp parsley
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 tsp dried dill

Whisk all ingredients together and THE END. I like the store mine in a squirt bottle for easy garnishing. It keeps about a week or two if you're brave. #upthepunx

When your pizza is done, remove from the oven, let cool, drizzle with ranch and enjoy with a PBR to celebrate your adulthood and remember this magical holiday that only comes once a year.

Curry Chickpeas and Pan-Fried Teriyaki Turkey with Spicy Almond Tahini Sauce

You may have heard by now that I only purchase faux meat products when they are on manager's special at Kroger, throw them in the freezer and save them for a rainy day [read: a long-ass 3 PBR day]. This particular long-ass 3 PBR day was an emotionally heartwrenching one (likely involving my poor dying toenail or the ghosts that haunt my 130-year-old home or purchasing a non-ripe avocado or something of comparable heartache) and I wanted comfort food.

If you are looking for a different way to prepare any faux deli slices you have lying around the house, this is a good way to dress up that turkey for a night on the town. Totally appropriate for any fancy-ass dinner party complete with candles and cut-off jeans and the like.

First prepare the chickpeas.

Here's the stuffs (serves two, because, date night):

1 1/2 cup canned chickpeas
1 Tbl curry powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 Tbl extra virgin olive oil

Preheat your oven to 400. In a small bowl, whisk together the dry spices. In a separate, medium-sized bowl, toss your chickpeas with the olive oil to evenly coat them. Then add the spice mixture and toss everything around similar to a 15-year-old Meredith at her first MXPX show. Make sure everything is evenly coated.

Toss your chickpeas into a shallow baking pan and throw them in the oven, uncovered, once it is thoroughly heated. These will need to roast for 35 minutes, so let's get to work on your other elements.

Now is a good time to start on the sauce. Have we talked lately about how the key to any great dish is an exceptional sauce? No? Well, the thing is, anyone can prepare a pan-fried meat slices or baked polenta or crab cakes or spring rolls or what have you, but the sauce is the glue. Many dishes are nothing without it. So pay attention! Gather your sauce ingredients:

1 Cup raw, unsalted almonds
1/4 Cup water
1/2 Cup tahini
1 Tbl chili garlic sauce
1 tsp Frank's Red Hot or Louisiana or your hot sauce of choice*
1 tsp sea salt

*As a declared Kentuckian and loyal PBR drinker with two missing teeth and a busted up front bumper, I take pride in my dedication to Frank's Red Hot (or the occasional Texas Pete) as my redneck hot sauce of choice.

In a food processor, chop up the almond until they are crumbly. Do you know what I mean by "crumbly"? Good. We are all adults here. Once they are crumbly, slowly add the 1/4 cup of water and blend until evenly mixed. It should be rather creamy at this point, but if not, don't panic, we will get to this later.

Next, add the remainder of your ingredients and process until evenly mixed. If the sauce is too thick for your liking, add more water one tablespoon at a time until it is perfect.

This can be served as it, but it will make the cohesive dish temperature a little wonky, so I suggest heating it in a small saucepan on low heat, stirring occasionally, until your dish is pulled together and ready for plating.

Now let's get to the turkey! First, cut up your rounded slabs of faux turkey deli slices (however many you feel will feed two people - I used 6 or 7 slices I think) into strips. Now let's prepare the stir-fry sauce. Here's what you'll need:

1 Tbl Braggs liquid aminos
2 Tbl teriyaki sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp olive oil

Whisk together all ingredients in a small bowl. Easy! Now, find yourself a non-stick skillet and heat your teriyaki sauce in it over medium-high heat. Wait about a half a minute for it to heat thoroughly and then throw your slices in there about 4 or 5 at a time. These should begin to fry rather quickly on a higher heat, so stir constantly. When the edges are black or charred, remove from heat and set aside to assemble your dish.

By now, your chickpeas should be finished. Remove those from the oven. It's time to plate! My favorite time of day!

Lay your almond tahini sauce as a base. Then dump a pile of chickpeas in the center of the puddle. Lay strips of turkey across the top of the chickpea mound. Garnish with sesame seeds. Ta-da!