at home with pizza - Cheezly and Tomato // some other next pizza I made ft. Sainsbury's bases and Violife pizza cheese

At the minute I cannot afford to be a fancy lady who is wining and dining on delicious vegan pizzas all the time because I am an idiot student who was really bad at trying to save money in the summer. That however is a story for another day.

What I want 2 talk to you about today is (duh) pizza, and more specifically, homemade pizza. I haven't yet taken the plunge into making my own dough (but when I go home for Christmas I swear down it's gonna happen and when I post about it you will all cry like you have seen the face of God) but I have assembled a number of pizzas over the last few weeks, so I can definitely give you the lowdown on what's good in the world of shop-bought(ish) pizza.

So first of all there was this cheezy lil number, which I bought from Holland and Barrett for probably about £3, and then added peppers and tofu:

This is a pizza made by the company which makes all of the Cheezly cheeses (the ones you can get in Holland and Barrett) and it is pretty yum. Though I would not say that the tomato sauce or the base are anything particularly special (this is not to say that they aren't satisfactory/can't be jazzed up with some herbs and olive oil) it is super convenient to be able to go to the shop and buy a vegan pizza with actual cheese on that you can just freeze and then shove in the oven at your behest. I love being vegan, but it is not often this convenient, so this pizza gets plus points for that. My only real downside to this pizza is that it is quite small and is obviously not ready for the jelly of a seasoned pizza eater such as myself, as I could probably easily eat three pizzas this size in one sitting. In all though, I was into this Cheezly pizza/would eat it again/am interested to try the 'meatless feast' variety. 

Pizza rating: 7/10

This takes me onto the second pizza that this post will cover:

This pizza was more of a self-assembly job, but considering the toppings were sweetcorn and olives, it was not very labour intensive. Just letting you know in case you were worried I was putting myself through extreme trauma in the name of pizza. (FYI I would probably put myself through minor trauma for pizza i.e. like maybe I would stub my toe or stand on a plug) I have made lots of this kind of pizza and written about it on this here blog before, but with this one I do actually believe I have perfected the art of the assemble-at-home vegan pizza, because I have found both the optimum crust and cheese. 

The baby angels over at Sainsbury's (big up yourselves Sainsbury's honestly) have, in their Italian section of the fridges, started stocking freshly stonebaked pizza bases which you can top yourself at home. I think that everyone can agree, this is a complete gamechanger. Whilst the types of self-assembly pizza bases you can buy in boxes are okay, they never ever pack that authentic crunch of the crust that you always get with a stone bake. Sainsbury's have changed all of that. They have changed everything. *Prayer hands emoji* 

However, to add to my elation (lol), I also happen to have finally found a truly great vegan pizza cheese (it rivals my love of Tofutti Mozzarella style slices and also smells way less terrible/is not slimy) - take a bow VIOLIFE PIZZA STYLE. A truly cheese-like vegan cheese which is also soy free if that's what you like, it melts absolutely great and gives a very authentic cheesy flavour and texture. I'm also pretty sure it's what Basilico use on their vegan pizzas, so there's that. Put together, this cheese and a Sainsbury's stonebaked base created a pizza that I absolutely love and which will be my home cooked pizza standard for a while to come I think. It reminded me of the Pizza Express shop bought pizzas which I used to absolutely love before I went vegan, so that was a nice trip down memory lane for me. 

Basically, meat/dairy eater or not, get to Sainsbury's and make a pizza on one of these bases bc it will be a tru party in your mouth. And not a shit party either, like one after a christening. I mean a properly sick one, like that one New Year's Eve house party which is actually good and makes you disappointed on every New Year's that follows it. 

Pizza rating: 9/10

That is it from me now folks - until next pizza xoxo

Voodoo Ray's, Dalston - 1/11/14

When people hype stuff you automatically go in expecting fireworks. It's why I thought Nando's was going to change my life in 2010, and it's why I bought some New Balance last year and some Nike Free Runs this summer (don't worry I hate myself so you don't have to). Hype, therefore, is obviously terrible.

But apparently I never learn not to trust it, because I was super pumped to go to Voodoo Ray's last Saturday. I heard they did vegan pizza by the New York-style slice, all of which sounded more than good to me, but I shoulda known better (actually feel a Tay Swift style ballad about this place coming on). The pizza was… okay. We ordered 4 slices of their vegan special which had a bunch of veggies and a pesto-like sauce on it, but, um, they dropped one of our slices and we had to get like a Halloween special with a curried pumpkin base. It was fine, but I was sad that I didn't get the pizza I wanted. Here are some photos of the pizza:

The top photo is the pumpkin one, and the bottom photo is the veggie one. The quality of the toppings on these pizzas was definitely pretty good, but I felt like the base was slightly hard (maybe something to do with the slices being reheated after sitting and waiting on the counter). I do enjoy a crispy base, but I like there to be a little softness on top, too, which just was not there. The tomato sauce was, again, pretty nice but largely unremarkable. It was a fine pizza, but I gotta admit, I expected more. 

It wasn't like, a bad experience, and if you find yourself on Kingsland Road needing pizza/a vegan snack, you could totally do worse than going here. But just make sure they don't drop your damn slice *side eyes Voodoo Ray's to infinity*

Pizza rating - 6/10 (minus 1 point for dropping the pizza. Y'all should be carrying pizza slices around like newborns. Protect them at all costs.)