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Perfect People, Perfect Pizza

8/29/2013

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If I haven’t told you what my favorite foods are, well, here goes: pizza and french fries. Never mind that this love triangle (I’m the third in this equation, you know) started in high school, when my plate on Fridays would be mounded with both. Oh yeah. Greasy Domino’s pizza and cafeteria french fries, with a couple of sides of ranch dressing.
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I may never admit the above again, so please - take it in while you can.

I still love these two things. A lot. Minus the fast-food varieties, of course. And truthfully, when I became vegan my biggest fear was that I’d never find a vegan pizza that quite satisfied my love of stretchy cheese and the once-per-year pepperoni fix. I suffice to say that I lived the past five years as a vegetarian[with the exception of When-Uncle-T-bought-steak or Pepperoni-was-calling-my-name]. It’s true. Even if it was only a couple of times per year, but let’s be honest...

So this past week, as you all know by now, I did a lot of celebrating. Little did I know that homemade pizza would happen in my tiny kitchen not once, but twice! I feel so happy. I forgot what I loved so much about making homemade pizza. Sure, it’s the end result. Ohmygod who doesn't love BREAD with STUFF on it?! I think it’s the crack of our era.


But what I forgot most about making homemade pizza, something I’ve done a lot of over the past few years, is that it almost always involves cooking with other people or at the very least for other people. Pizza is not something to make for oneself alone. Even if you’ve sorta kinda [ahem]mastered it. 
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So when I was planning to have friends over for my birthday shindig on Thursday, which I originally planned to be a Dessert and Drinks Drop-in, I had a moment of clarity that resulted in another mass text to 50 folks saying, “STOP THE SWEETS. Bring pizza toppings!” Great, great call, Hannah. I don’t know what I was originally thinking. Don’t get me wrong - I love sweets. But I’ve been experiencing consistent sugar-induced headaches, and my skin even reacts when I have too much of it. DUH. Pizza rules, and takes the cake. Pun intended.

But seriously, this was the best decision I made all week, next to choosing to have the next day off so I could do some very intentional catching up on my z’s. (It was more like zzzzzz’s, but who’s counting?) Vegan Pizza is only slightly to blame for the coma that ensued the previous evening. That evening I was surrounded by so many great folks - Friends - whom each act as a muse to me in some way, shape, or form. I had some oldies but goodies around (my friend Alex whom I’ve known since my original pizza-face era, for example) and some newbies from work (Matt and Taylor, whom I feel like I could talk for hours with about food, vegan-stuffs, art, you name it) and the grand collection of those in-between, tangential friends and acquaintances, my wonderful boss-friend, and many others whom I cherish and know I will share many a future pizza with. 

These are the hearts and minds that warmed my birthday spirit into it’s most satiated state.

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Then there’s the final element, that I may or may not have already told you about: my favorite recent find, the most beautiful vegan cookbook I have ever seen. It’s called Vegan Secret Supper, and the recipes are lavish, the photos stunning, the recipes doable. Yes, very interesting combo indeed. Surprisingly, it’s the first vegan cookbook I’ve acquired that I’ve ever attempted to cook out of. Usually I hear about recipes, do some google searches, and see what I can scramble together. Cookbooks are for making your shelf pretty, right? But this time, I had something serious in mind that I know very little about:

Cashew Cheese.

I’ve had plenty of them, sure. They’re usually delicious, though a few have warranted the response of yep, that’s made of cashews. So I wanted to do this right. I wanted it to taste like cheese, because hell it’s my birthday and I can want cheese if I want to. I just may not have any.

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In Vegan Secret Supper, Merida Anderson provides 8 different nut cheese recipes, each that lends itself to a myriad of flavoring options. This doesn’t include her baked and spreadable options, scattered throughout the book, where each “recipe” is unapologetically comprised of four or five separate masterpiece concoctions. I love that.

When it comes to her cashew cheese, though, she offers three basic options: Rejuvelac Nut Cheese, Cashew Cheese, and Miso Cashew Cheese. The rejuvelac process scared my socks off, so I went with the easier overnight option of Miso Cashew Cheese. Rejuvelac sounds fun to play with, but again - if I haven’t already told you - make it sweet and simple, people. An overnight cashew soak was as complicated a mood as I could promise at this point in my nut-cheese curiosity. I’ll save the Rejuvelac-IE:moldy-water-sitting-on-your-counter-for-days Project for later.

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When I originally planned to make this cheese, pizza was nowhere on the brain. I wanted to pair it with beets and figs for a potluck, but the combo ended up surprisingly bland and tasteless. I found a seasoning blend from my favorite spice shop in town that I truly believe saved the day. Merida’s Miso Cashew Cheese plus the Savory Spice Shop’s Bohemian Forest European Seasoning may as well be my new bread and butter. Oh my GOD.

The Bohemian Forest European Seasoning spice blend consists of the following: mustard, garlic, rosemary, black pepper, thyme, parsley, lavender (no wonder I like it), and sage. I’m serious when I say that this is the gods’ gift to Me. I may never eat real cheese again specifically thanks to how this blend blends with the Miso Cashew Cheese.

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So, without much further ado, I’m going to share with you my favorite pizza dough recipe (a concoction I derived from many mistakes), my slightly varied version of Merida’s Miso Cashew Cheese, and how to put it all together to make what became the best birthday pizza ever.

Keeping Vegan Classy,
Hannah

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An Assertion of Me as Me, at 30!

8/23/2013

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I turned 30 yesterday...wahoo! Sunday, I celebrated my first anniversary as Manager at Luna’s Living Kitchen. And so many other wonderful things have marked this just being an incredible month. Let’s just say that August of 2013 has gone down in my personal History Book of Life Changing Times.

In addition to these landmarks, I launched The Lavender Lunchbox. It’s been a long, long - did I say LONG? - time in the works. It may not seem like a huge feat, but I’ve actually launched a blog before that I only kept up for one week. I got sick, and my excuse was that I couldn’t taste anything. That was four years ago.

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A Toast to my Favorite Breakfasts.

8/16/2013

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In light of my most recent post on an August Homage to Brunch, and the fact that I woke up this morning really excited about the raw Hemp Seeds I bought to put on my peanut-butter toast, I've decided to share with you a few things that come to mind about my love for breakfast.
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Seriously, ya'll - I LOVE breakfast. Lunch and dinner are great (have I told you that eating is my absolute favorite thing to do?!), so I think my love for that first meal has simply to do with starting the day off doing something I love. Perhaps it's the dreamy state of being to blame, but breakfast is the only meal that allows me to eat the same thing 10 days in a row and never get tired. And since I don't ever eat the same thing quite 10 days in a row, I really never get tired of the even the most simple breakfasts.

Take my absolute favorite, peanut butter and banana on toast, for example. I buy a different kind of peanut butter or a different kind of good, whole grain bread each time I run out, and voilah! New meal all together! Sort of. If I throw in a few slices of fruit, then damn...my taste buds start opera singing.

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An August Homage to Brunch Where Tofu Scramble Takes the Taste

8/13/2013

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Sunday is by far my favorite day of the week. Perhaps it’s because it is both the beginning and the end of two weeks, or maybe it’s because I can do whatever I want. Or, maaaybe it’s just because I have every Sunday off from work.

Scratch all of that. SUNDAY IS BRUNCH DAY! Which is exactly why I love it SO much.

I love brunch so much that for the month of August, I’ve committed myself to brunch every Sunday. Last weekend was spent in Asheville with the family, this week I cooked for friends, and the next couple of weeks have fun plans in store as well! I turn 30 this month, celebrate my first year as Manager at Luna’s Living Kitchen, and also started training for a Half Marathon. I have so much to be excited about! What better way to celebrate than with food.


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Practice makes Pickles.

8/1/2013

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I recently embarked upon a true pickle-making excursion. But before you go thinking I bought canning supplies and all the works, there’s one thing you should know about me and how I cook: I like to keep it simple. Now, you’ll come to find that this is strangely an anomaly to what I love to do with food. This ain’t no “Lavender” Lunchbox for nothing. But what I mean is that when there is a quicker way to do things, I’m gonna do it.

Hence, Quick Pickles! You’ve heard of the kind...overnight pickled veggies that taste just like the long-stood, pressure “canned” variety. With a catch! What I love about quick pickles is that you literally know how they turned out within 24 hours. As a single gal that works a lot lot and lives on a budget (that is not a complaint, btw!), I would be pretty sad to spend my dollars on the goods only to find out after 3 weeks or months or years or whathaveyou that my pickles, well, suck.

Break it to me short and sweet, people. 


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