Pepperoni Pizza

Today I was excited to try another Vegan on the Cheap recipe: Big Stick Pepperoni or, as we referred to it, Disco Stick Pepperoni. And when you have pepperoni, you need to make a pizza.

The dough would have come together in minutes, except that I had a little problem with the tapioca flour. I never used it before, so I expected it to be like…flour. I tore open the package, and a cloud of white powder filled my kitchen. So I had to spend some time wiping down my countertops. For anyone who doesn’t know: tapioca flour is more like cornstarch. That is to say, it can be messy.

Aside from that little mishap, the pepperoni was super easy: mix ingredients together, roll up in pieces of foil, and steam in the oven for an hour. After letting it chill for a couple hours, I sliced it thinly and sautéed it to get it brown and crispy around the edges.

I also got pizza toppings ready: my “parmesan” and my instant red sauce that I use for both pizza and pasta. This makes enough for 1 medium pizza or about 2 servings of pasta.

All-Purpose Red Sauce
1 14-oz can diced tomatoes
½ tsp. dried basil
½ tsp. dried oregano
¼ tsp. dried thyme
¼ tsp. dried marjoram
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. sugar

Puree all in a blender or food processor – or, if you want it chunky, just stir it all together and use.

Here you see all my bowls of stuff, ready to go.

See, for some reason, I had to wait a little while to turn on the food processor and do the actual pureeing.

But it all worked out.

I haven’t eaten real pepperoni in over 25 years, but apparently, I used to be really into it, because it was the last meat product I gave up when I realized, as a 6-year-old, that meat was animals. I didn’t want to eat animals, so I stopped eating meat. Well, most meat. I hung onto pepperoni pizza for another year or so. And now I can have it again. Even my meat-eating husband said this was amazingly close to the real thing. It has tons of flavor. Tip - make sure to sauté it before using it on a pizza, if you want it slightly crispy, because it didn’t crisp up any more once it was in the oven.

Today is a big day – we’re taking Jackson and Olivia to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live, as our birthday present to Jackson. He's totally going to flip out! I can’t wait to see him get all excited and dance his little toddler heart out. What are your plans today? Have a good day – the weekend is almost here!