Vegan English Muffin Pizzas

On March 5, 2019May 31, 2019 By VictoriaIn Low Spoon Recipes, Recipes, Vegan pizza2 Comments

Another veganized recipe.

Here’s a super easy recipe that’s especially great for lazy days or days with flare ups.

We used to make English Muffin Pizzas all the time when I was a kid. It was always a treat to make, but I haven’t made them in years. We were having trouble finding vegan english muffins, but on one of our rare trips to Walmart we saw that the Great Value english muffins are vegan and we had to make them.

We had some leftover homemade marinara sauce that we made by blending tomatoes and adding garlic powder, onion powder, and basil. It’s definitely not the way my mom makes it, but it was good for something fast.

For the cheese we used Daiya mozzarella style shreds and mixed it with garlic powder, oregano, basil, and black pepper.

Finally we topped them with Yves veggie pepperoni, baked them in the air fryer until the daiya melted and the muffins toasted, and served them with a small side of Annie’s Vegan Mac (the cheddar flavor is my favorite, but we added in some nutritional yeast, black pepper, and paprika).

This was so easy to make and so delicious. Have you ever made english muffin pizzas before? Let me know in the comments! ♡

Vegan Travel Log // Durham, NC

On October 12, 2018October 12, 2018 By VictoriaIn Travel Log, Vegan pizzaLeave a comment

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We took a weekend trip to Durham, North Carolina from Dallas, Texas to visit a friend this past weekend. Here’s what we ate as we travelled through Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

First, I want to mention some of the snacks we brought to keep us awake for the long car ride. We brought:

Unsweetened dried mango
Annie’s Chocolate Chip Bunny Grahams (most of the other flavors have honey in them, but these don’t)
Mini bagels and peanut butter
Buddha Bowl Himalayan Pink Salt popcorn
And some leftover pasta with spinach and Boca veggie crumbles (we brought it since it would be bad by the time we got home).

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Thursday night:

We started our road trip to North Carolina with a quick dinner from Freebirds in Plano, TX. We shared a burrito and filled it with Beyond Meat, cilantro-lime rice, black beans, creamy jalapeño sauce (didn’t think this was vegan, but the nutrition info on their website says it is!), sautéed peppers, onions, pico de gallo, and tortilla strips.

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Friday morning:

We stopped by Chik-fil-A and picked up some coffee and hashbrowns. As far as we know, Chick-fil-A is the only place open at 6am that has something vegan.

Friday afternoon:

We were near Knoxville, Tennessee so I looked up on google maps vegan places near us. I found The Tomato Head, a pizza place located in West Knoxville that offered some vegan options. We split a sandwich (marinated tofu, fresh spinach, carrot, red onion, spinach and sundried tomato pesto, tomatoes, and sprouts) and a pizza (vegan cheese, spinach, basil, and tomatoes). Both were so delicious.

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Friday night:

We made it to Durham! We hung out at an outdoor bar called Motorco Music Hall. We ordered some beers and DJ and I split the vegan tacos (eggplant, tofu, pickled red onion, cilantro, and green onion) and some fries (salt, pepper, and parsley). The atmosphere was cool. It used to be a car dealership but was transformed into a bar and music venue. Plus, after looking at their menu online while making this post, they offer a ton of vegan options!

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Saturday morning:

We ate at Elmo’s Diner in Durham for brunch. At first glance there weren’t many options on the menu, but our waitress pulled out a menu that had all of the vegetarian and vegan options highlighted. We ordered the vegetarian chili (which was vegan!) with a dinner roll on the side, plus a house salad with lemon tahini dressing.

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We also stopped at Sam’s Quik Shop which had a large selection of beer. I found a really tasty vegan beer there (and a giant dog!).

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Saturday afternoon:

We planned on picking up a snack before dinner, so we stopped at Ninth Street Bakery on Chapel Hill St. Unfortunately they didn’t have any vegan pastries out while we were there (but they do make them!), so we split the Thai Curry Bowl and we bought a loaf of ciabatta bread. This was so amazing. We were going to pick up another bowl to split on our way back home but they were closed by the time we got there Sunday afternoon. We highly recommend checking this place out if you’re in the area.

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Saturday night:

We picked up a Mellow Mushroom pizza and some pretzels before we headed back to the apartment. We topped it with cheese (which at this location was Follow Your Heart), tempeh, spinach, and basil. When you order from Mellow Mushroom just make sure you ask for the crust and the pretzels without butter and without parmesan cheese.

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Sunday morning:

For our last day we went to Guglhupf for brunch, a nice-looking cafe that had two vegan options: tofu scramble and a roasted poblano panini (avocado, greens, and vegan chipotle mayo on ciabatta bread). I usually don’t like getting tofu scramble out because it’s generally watery and just not very good, but the tofu scramble here was cooked perfectly. The coffee was amazing too.

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We walked around the Duke Gardens after we ate brunch.

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It was a nice, warm day out, and I really wanted some ice cream after we had walked around for a few hours. There aren’t any ice cream parlors near us that offer vegan options, so we haven’t eaten ice cream out in almost 2 years. When DJ and I first started dating we would get frozen yoghurt all the time. But, I found a place nearby called The Parlour that always offers vegan flavors! On this day they had a coconut ice cream and banana sorbet. I tried the coconut one and got it topped with a coconut whip and DJ got the banana sorbet. Both were really tasty. We also split a vegan pecan brownie.

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Sunday night:

Like I said earlier, we planned on picking up another bowl of the Thai Curry soup and bread, but they were closed by the time we got there. Instead we stopped by Dos Perros, a Mexican restaurant that had some vegan options. We split the flautas veganas (crispy corn tortillas, black beans, sweet plantains, red and cayenne peppers, and corn “cream” sauce) and some vegan tacos.

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Monday morning:

At 6am we stopped at a Chik-fil-A again to pick up some hashbrowns and coffee, and we snacked on those with a mini bagel and peanut butter for breakfast.

Monday afternoon:

Taco Bell. Luckily there’s a Taco Bell almost everywhere, and it’s so easy to order a bean burrito fresco style or customize a crunch wrap supreme.

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Monday night:

We got home at 6pm so we stopped by the Target near our apartment and picked up some frozen food to make a cheap, easy dinner. These are some Alexia onion rings, Gardein barbecue wings, Morning Star buffalo wings (Morning Star is making a lot of their products vegan now!), and DJ picked up a frozen curry burrito. We promptly fell asleep soon after.

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That’s everything we ate while in Durham, North Carolina. It’s getting easier and easier to be vegan while traveling. We were surprised how many vegan options there were in Durham and in all the states we travelled through! ♡

what I ate on my birthday // vegan

On July 29, 2018July 29, 2018 By VictoriaIn Vegan pizza, What I Ate Today1 Comment

My birthday was a few weeks ago, but I wanted to highlight some of the amazing meals I had that week.

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On the night before my birthday we went out to Spiral Diner for dinner. I tried one of the Blue Plate specials that I had been wanting to try all month: the Buffalo Mac Doggy. I hadn’t had a hot dog in such a long time, plus it was my first time trying the Beyond Sausage from Beyond Meat. I highly recommend trying it out, it tasted just like sausage. We also had the spicy buffalo chik’n nachos for an appetizer.

For breakfast on my birthday I made myself a feast. I had some scrambled tofu with daiya cheese, avocado slices, and a Hilary’s veggie sausage patty on a mini bagel. I had to work that day so I wanted to treat myself.

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During my lunch break we went out for sushi. I had two avocado rolls with a side of rice noodles that I poured sriracha all over after I took this picture.

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And for dinner that night I ate my leftovers from the night before (the beyond sausage plus the mac and cheese was so filling!).

Later that week my family and I had a veganized version of a family tradition plus an amazing vegan birthday cake.

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I wanted to document all the treats that I ate on my birthday to show that anything can be veganized and you don’t have to miss out on your favorite foods on a vegan diet, especially on your birthday.

homemade stuffed-crust pizza // vegan

On April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 By VictoriaIn Vegan pizza, What I Ate Today1 Comment

My mom made us some pizza dough to take home a few weeks ago. Since I had today off from work we decided to defrost it and make an insane vegan pizza, and I wanted to document the process.

Every Saturday while I was growing up my mom would make a homemade pizza, and when I would come home for a few days at a time from college we almost always had pizza. It was a tradition in our household, but one I gave up for a few months once I moved out and went vegan. Luckily there was an easy way to veganize her dough recipe, which brings us to today. This is how we made a vegan stuffed-crust pizza.

We bought a jar of sauce at our local Kroger and spiced it up with diced tomatoes, a few cloves of garlic, and nutritional yeast. While that was simmering we sautéed a mix of peppers and onions.

After we rolled out the pizza dough we folded some of Field Roast’s chao cheese slices into the crust. We haven’t had a stuffed crust pizza in a long time so we decided to change that.

After we added a tablespoon of olive oil to the base of the pizza and spread it out we added the sauce and all of the veggies. We added spinach under the peppers and nutritional yeast and garlic powder on the crust.

We left it in the oven at 375° for 20 minutes and prepared some of our other movie night snacks while we waited.

When we went to the grocery store for the ingredients we also picked up some popcorn to snack on while we watched a movie. We added a few dark chocolate chips to the popcorn too.

Here’s the finished product. We topped it with avocado slices instead of cheese since there was already a lot of cheese in the crust. We ate this and the popcorn while we watched 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (the one from 1954).

You don’t really have to give up any family traditions or any food you once loved once you go vegan. There is almost always a solution to veganize it. There are so many products and sources online that can lead you to amazing recipes and trying new ways to cook old favorites.

Vegan travel log // Austin, TX

On March 20, 2018March 20, 2018 By VictoriaIn Travel Log, Vegan pizza, What I Ate TodayLeave a comment

We took a small road trip to Austin, TX last month and tried out a bunch of vegan places while we were there.

First off, on our car ride there we snacked on some dried mango, which we always say is like vegan jerky. We also picked up some Taco Bell, which I didn’t photograph. My go-to taco bell order is a bean burrito fresco style, or the triple layer nachos fresco style and with guacamole.

On our first morning there we went to a place called El Chilito, which is not vegan but they had a ton of vegan options. I ordered a burrito and put black beans, rice, avocado, and potatoes in it:

For dinner we went to Mother’s Cafe and Garden. They’re a vegetarian place with lots of vegan options. I ate the vegan tofu enchiladas, and although they didn’t photograph well they were so good. We’ve eaten here a few times over the years and have never had a bad meal.

That night we went out to a bar and I got hungry again. I looked up vegan places nearby and was shocked to see Arlo’s, a vegan food truck that served burgers. We decided to walk there and try it out. If you are craving a vegan burger patty that tastes like a delicious, fast food beef patty, this is the place to go. We didn’t think it was vegan when we took our first bite. This was taken at 1 in the morning, so it’s not the best quality photo:

The next morning for breakfast we ate at Capital City Bakery, an all-vegan bakery. There’s nothing better than vegan baked goods in my opinion (except for vegan mac and cheese, maybe). We each got a pop tart and an oatmeal cookie sandwich.

For dinner we had a vegan feast. We went to Conan’s Pizza and brought home their vegan deep dish pizza topped with Daiya cheese, spinach, and tomatoes and ate while we watched movies. This is some of the best pizza I’ve ever had, including non-vegan (to be honest, the best pizzas I’ve eaten have been vegan). It’s not a vegan restaurant, but their dough is vegan and they have Daiya!

On our final morning in Austin we went back to Capital City Bakery. We read online they had vegan kolaches but they were out when we went the day before and we had to try them. It was definitely worth the wait:

For lunch we went to Bouldin Creek, Cafe. They are a vegetarian cafe with vegan options as well. I ordered the El Tipico which had scrambled tofu, herbed potato hash cake, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, beans, and flour tortillas.

Arlo’s was so good the first time we ate it, we had to make it our last stop before we drove back home. They were out of fries, so they asked if mac and cheese would be okay instead (of course it was) and this time instead of just the classic burger I added vegan bacon too it too.

I posted all of these photos on my Instagram while we were there, so check it out if you want to see more vegan junk food (and sometimes healthy meals too!).

We’re so lucky to have some vegan restaurants near us at home, but we were definitely overwhelmed and spoiled being surrounded by so many vegan places in Austin. We didn’t have enough time to go everywhere we wanted to, so we’ll definitely go back soon (especially for the vegan deep dish pizza and burgers).

Vegan pizza: lazy edition

On October 18, 2017November 6, 2017 By VictoriaIn Vegan pizzaLeave a comment

This past weekend I had the house to myself. I wanted to relax, play video games, and eat pizza. I didn’t feel like making one since I was feeling particularly lazy after a long day of work and a long week ahead.

The point of this post is how easy it is to be vegan while ordering out at pizza chains, and how you don’t have to sacrifice takeout pizza when you become vegan.

One of my favorite places to order pizza is at Pizza Hut. All of the other pizza chains like Domino’s and Papa John’s have vegan options too, but I like the veggie toppings at Pizza Hut the best (plus Pizza Hut is testing out vegan cheese at a few of their UK locations!). My next go-to is Papa John’s, since their plain breadsticks are vegan too.

My latest order has been the following: spinach, peruvian cherry peppers, and black olives. This was the pizza I ordered last week. It’s not particularly pretty, but it was perfect for a relaxing night in:

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This isn’t only a healthier option while eating out, but I think it’s super tasty! This is coming from someone who LOVED cheese pizza. You can always add your own “cheese” when it’s delivered and stick it in the oven for a few minutes. You can even use other fats instead of cheese. One option I’ve tried at Mellow Mushroom is avocado (they have vegan cheeses there too!), which I like to now put on pizzas I make at home.