Food of the Week - Pizza/Pizza Toast

In case any of you missed it, yesterday was National Vegan Pizza Day! I think the point of this is to get local pizzerias to cater to vegans for one day and show the public the ease and deliciousness of veg-headed-ness. I'm guessing this works in places like Austin and San Francisco. Alas, living in Tomball, I don't think the day has caught on yet.

For any of you looking for a wondeful frozen vegan pizza, or just a wonderful pizza for that matter, I would recommend Amy's Kitchen Roasted Vegetable Pizza. My brother has raved about this pizza for years and claims it is his favorite pizza, even now that he is no longer a vegetarian. My mother and I tried it for the first time this week, and my brother was right. It is quite scrumptious! And the best part about a no cheese pizza...a lot less calories! So you don't feel nearly as guilty eating it, and you don't feel weighed down after you eat it. And if that doesn't sell you, an Amy's Kitchen pizza won a taste test against 15 other frozen pizza brands. Check it out here: MSN Tastiest Frozen Pizza.

However, since my mother and I had eaten this pizza earlier this week, I didn't really want to make it just a couple days later for National Vegan Pizza Day. Plus, my dad has a tomato allergy. Oh, and pizza dough intimidates me. Needless to say, I had too get a little creative. I decided we would have a Build-Your-Own-Pizza-Toast Night. I had alot of fun planning this out. Our ingredient options included:

• Rosemary Demi-Baguettes (Central Market brand. I found them at in the frozen section at HEB.)
• Roasted Red Pepper Sauce (because of my dad's tomato allergy. You just take a jar of roasted red peppers and throw it in a food proccessor and voila!
• Basil
• Roasted Garlic
• Chopped Tomato
• Artichoke Hearts
• Spinach
• Sauteed Onion
• Roasted Broccoli (from leftovers earlier in the week)
• Sauteed Squash (from leftovers earlier in the week)
• Eggplant Parmigianna (from leftovers earlier in the week)
• Veggie Bacon
• Vegan Cheese

I sliced my baguette into quarters, so I could do four different pizza toasts. Here's what I came up with:

 roasted red pepper sauce, basil, sauteed onion, and eggplant parmigiana

bruschetta theme: a layer of mashed roasted garlic, basil, and chopped tomato

roasted red pepper sauce, basil, sauteed onion, sauteed squash, roasted broccoli

a layer of mashed roasted garlic, basil, spinach, carmelized onion, and artichokes

They were all delicious! I couldn't choose a favorite among the last three. I think one of the tricks was to butter (I used vegan Earth Balance) the bread before you top it. It protects the bread from getting too soggy if you put sauce on it, and also helps it from getting too crisp in the oven.

And get this: my dad wasn't into the idea at first (in his defense, he wasn't feeling well), but after eating them, he did a complete turnaround, was quite enthusiastic, and said he could do this every week!