desperadore

Most vegans are more than a little obsessed with pizza. It's true; the quest for the perfect wheat free gluten free crust consumes us. We dream of cheese that melts into perfect stringy goodness. I am no exception. I love pizza. I have all my life, its pretty much my favourite food. So I wasn't going to let a little thing like a dairy free diet keep me from the delights of the dough.

As a rule pizza is pretty easy to veganize if you cut out the cheese. And I've had some awesome cheeseless pizzas in my time, I won't deny it. I make them quite a lot and there are a lot of resteraunts out there willing to whip you up a specialised pie at no extra cost. But to me a proper pizza needs cheese. There's a lot of debate about the best vegan cheese to use for cooking and I won't go into that now but as a rule I use Cheezly or Toffuti (or both) simply because those are the brands that are the most readily available where I live. I have yet to try Daiya, but it sounds divine.

Now, the one time I absolutely crave pizza and nothing else will do in it's place is when I'm a bit worse for wear after a night out. Nothing sorts out hangover blues like the 'za. Trouble is, when I am hungover I rarely have the patience to make the dough and let it sit etc. For me, the first rule of pizza is the dough must be fresh. None of this pre-made malarkey that's more like glorified flat bread. And if you freeze fresh dough it rarely comes back totally right. Usually the call of the pizza is strong enough to make me drag my ass out of bed and turn on the bread maker, a lovely little shortcut thanks to its 'Dough' funtion, but sometimes it all just seems like too much effort. I have two solutions to this dilemma.

The first option is to order in, this has it's pitfalls though. If I fancy cheeseless (rare, the comfort of cheese when I'm hanging is like a compulsion) I usually go for Pizza Express. Their dough is vegan, all the ingredients are fresh and your order is made from scratch. They are however, pick up only. Obviously as a resteraunt they don't have a team of delivery people so when I don't fancy making the trek to town in my pyjamas, Pizza Express is out. Same goes for all the resteraunts I normally get my cheeseless fix from.

Vegan pizza from Pizza Express.

The other choice is Dominos, all the other pizza places near me are overpriced and the food is crap. Dominos are quite expensive but you can order online and they have a good choice of vegetarian toppings. Having said that, the last few times I have ordered from them have been a complete fucking disaster. They've arrived late and cold, with cheese despite my allergy specific order and once with cheese in the crust but not on top and pepperoni hidden strategically under the vegetables so I didn't notice until I took the first bite. Each time the order has been wrong I have called to complain and while sometimes they've remade my order, sometimes they claim the error was because of my crap pizza ordering skills and if I want something else I'll have to pay again.

THAT ^ is about as vegan as THIS:

Lady Gaga, while awesome, is not vegan.

Friday night I was in London at my friends 21st. There was much rejoicing and a large amount of tequila was consumed. Unfortunately the Metropolitan line was down on Saturday which meant my journey home was long and a bit of a nightmare. When I finally got in, all I wanted to do was sit down in front of the tv and eat some pizza. Being totally exhausted and feeling lazy, I decided to order from Dominos despite my misgivings. This was my first mistake. Ordering went pretty smoothly, the website was running fine for once. However an hour and a half later when my pizza still hadn't turned up I was getting pretty irritated. I called the store and they tell me that the guy delivering my order had come to my door and knocked but the lights were out and nobody answered so he turned around and left. There's two things wrong with that statement, firstly I have a doorbell and I always specify that it should be rung when deliveries come. Secondly, I had been sitting downstairs in the kitchen (with the lights on funnily enough) waiting for the damn thing to turn up since I ordered it so I would have noticed if it had arrived. I told them this, pointing out that the driver must have gone to the wrong house, and asked why no one had called my contact number only to be told they assumed it was a prank order because it had no cheese on it, so they didn't bother. I asked if they would remake my order and send it out and they said they would, but there would be a second charge. So I told them to get fucked basically and that I expected a full refund. Never again.

By this point I was starving and really pissed off. There was no way I was going to be bothered to make pizza dough now, but I was still craving my fix. This is where my second option came into play. Now I said before that proper pizza dough is vital, but desperate times call for desperate measures and this has happened before.

The solution? Tortilla wraps.

These bad boys.

Layer two large tortillas together with a bit of pesto and/or tomato puree in between them to thicken up the base and add some moisture so they wont dry out.

I use a tomato and basil pasta sauce instead of a fresh tomato sauce on top to save time and sprinkle with granulated garlic, although if you have your own tomato sauce lying around you can use that.

Next I go through my fridge and any veg lying around in there gets thrown on top.

This time I found some roast potatos, sugar snap peas, pre roasted courgette, onions, leeks and bell peppers, olives and some garlic tofu.