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.

Arrested Development Extravaganza!!

Oh guys. The time has come. This little lady has been waiting impatiently for FOUR YEARS (roughly the same amount of time it takes an "average" "college student" to finish a "bachelor's degree," apparently - which is a long time!) for new Arrested Development, and FINALLY the day has come. That cheeky little ballcapped Ron Howard, everyone's favorite ginger in Hollywood, has finally read my baker's dozen of threatening letters and has released Season Four of Arrested Development.

So what else is a hungry girl to do but THROW A PARTAY?! I am always looking for another excuse to feed people. This seemed like a no-brainer. I'll share with you the entire menu near the bottom of this post, but what I really want to discuss here today is my George Sr. SoCal Cornballs. These are easy, fast, and SO delicious. Omnivores devoured them and they fit the theme of the evening perfectly. So hunker down, find some frying oil, put on your favorite Jerky Boys record and let's get cornballing! No Rules, no boundaries, go ahead touch the cornballer you know best!

YO SOY LOCO POR LOS CORNBALLS!

Here's what you'll need:

1 1/2 Cups cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 Cup flour
1 tsp salt
2 egg replacers
1 handful of pickled jalapenos
1/2 Cup canned corn
1/2 Cup Daiya cheddar style shreds
1/4 Cup almond milk

Start with your dry ingredients - whisk together well. Then add the remaining ingredients. If these come out a little dry, add a little milk to moisten them up. The important thing to keep in mind here is that you spend some time making these with the ones you love. These are good for premiere parties but they are even BETTER for a Saturday morning pre-bike-ride snack. Unless your son decides he has better things to do.

Wop wop.

The most important piece of this recipe is getting the frying down. Since The Cornballer hasn't yet reached Kentucky, here we must resort to tried-and-true methods of old fashioned frying in vegetable oil. Be careful though - it's still pretty damn hot if you touch the side.

Find yourself a small saucepan, and fill it about halfway up with vegetable oil. Turn on high and wait a few minutes. Here's where you need to do a test drop - pinch a teeny bit of cornabll mix and toss it in the oil. If it starts to fry, then your oil is ready. If not, then keep waiting. LISTEN guys - I am one impatient gal when it comes to fried treats like George Sr.'s SoCal Cornballs, but you MUST wait for the oil to be hot enough before tossing those suckers in. Once they're ready, turn your oil down to medium-high and throw them in a couple at a time.

Follow standard protocol for frying stuff (until golden brown), remove with a fork and let dry on a paper towel. 

I served these with a sweet mustard sauce, which was BOMB. Just whisk together some brown deli mustard, veganaise, maple syrup and a peeeench of brown sugar and voila! Delicious. 

And for the rest of the menu....

Vodka and Toast

"Get me a vodka rocks"

"Mom, it's breakfast."

"And toast."

Bangers and Mash

"Who'd like a banger in the mouth? Oh, right, I forgot, here in the states, you call it a *sausage* in the mouth."
"We just call it a sausage."

Skip's Scramble

Too many choices? Menu too big to swallow? Let Skip serve you up a scram that has something from every dish on the menu. It will knock you into next week! $47.95 a la carte.

Made this with kale hash browns, cheddar Daiya, smokey tempeh bacon,  and tofu scramble with mushrooms, peppers, spinach and carrots.

Frozen Bluth Bananas

These were frozen twice over and dipped in dark chocolate, rolled in almonds and cashews.

10 cents gets you nuts!

and finally...

Chick'n Fingers.. With Spicy Club Sauce

Also, not pictured:

boxed white zinfandel wine

ice cream sandwiches

Spicy Sweet Potato Fritters

Yes!!!!! Is there anything better than having the morning off and getting to make lunch at home??????

It's the little things, y'all.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS.

So these were delicious, and required a little more time than my typical quick lunch, but well worth it. The process is simple - dip slices in egg replacer, dip slices in flour mix, then fry in vegetable oil and nom nom nom nom.

Here's what you need if you're chopping up 1 sweet potato (feeds about 2-3 people):

2 cups flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbl black pepper
2 Tbl red pepper flakes
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp salt

So there are your dry ingredients for the batter. Sift these together and then prepare 4 egg replacer solutions. I use Ener-G Egg Replacer. Then, pour about 1/4 an inch of vegetable oil into a cast iron skillet, and heat on med-high while you slice your tater.

You'll need to slice your sweet potato pretty thin I did mine about 1/8 an inch. Once you have your slices, dip these in the egg replacer one at a time, then coat thoroughly in the dry flour mix. Toss these into the cast iron (NO wait don't actually toss these, because hot oil) one at a time, and fry until crispy golden brown.

Let dry on a paper towel.

I served mine with a jalapeño mustard sauce, made with yellow mustard, honey and pickled jalapeños. #yumtown