Kelly and I are close to having the provisional patent done, so we should be able to start selling these soon. Recently, someone commented on my original Pizza Press post and asked what would happen if you put a crust on top of a pizza and use the Press to create a bunch of calzones. It sounded like a good idea, so yesterday I decided to give it a shot and see what happened. The results were better than I expected, and I think it’s a legitimate additional use for the Pizza Press.

Step 1: Put down the sauce, vegan pepperoni, and olives

Step 2: Add the vegan cheese, some more vegan pepperoni, and a little more sauce

Step 3: Take some dough and cover the toppings, pinch the edges together, and spray the top with some cooking oil

Step 4: Spray the Perfect Pizza Press with some cooking oil, and press into the dough and toppings. Put into oven along with the Perfect Pizza Press.

Step 5: Once the top is a nice golden brown, remove from oven

Step 6: Remove Perfect Pizza Press to create the eight separate “calzones”.

Step 7: Serve and enjoy!

As I said, it was a much bigger success than I expected. Next time, I will add more sauce on the top, and maybe a little more cheese. I don’t know of any other cooking utensil that can do this and make the pre-sliced pizzas.

A couple months ago, I decided to enter the office chili cookoff. I’m a big fan of chili, but of course, there is one twist. I’m a vegan. This I thought could be an issue because if anyone who voted knew my entry was vegan, it might count against me. Also, someone could think someone else’s chili was vegan, and maybe cost someone a vote. So I entered my chili through another party who also was nice enough to bring a crockpot. It seems like a lot of extra shenanigans just for chili, and perhaps I overdid it, but it worked out ok.

My entry came tied for second…in a field of four. No one suspected it was vegan, though. I got a couple of really nice compliments from co-workers, and I let them in on it the subterfuge. One co-worker asked me for the recipe, and so after too long, I’m writing it down. I should also add, that my chili cooking is more like a process, than a specific recipe. I’m writing this down the best I can recollect and I hope that someone gets some use out of it:

Ingredients you’ll need

6 Boca ™ Burgers
3 cups textured vegetable protein
6 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
2 cans Light Red Kidney Beans
2 cans Dark Red Kidney Beans
2 cans White Kidney Beans (also known as cannellini or fazolia beans)
12 chopped jalapeño peppers
3 sliced Bell peppers, any color and spice level will do
2 cans stewed tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1-2 cups bread flour
2 medium onions, diced (i prefer white)
brown sugar
mustard
paprika
chili powder
cumin
black pepper
salt
garlic powder
Predator Great White Shark Hot Sauce

Cooking Process

* Cut up Boca Burger into small chunks and with diced onions, fry in olive oil
* Put all tomatoes and beans in a large pot and slowly bring to boil, using all liquid
* Once at boil, turn down heat to low, and add peppers
* Slow cook for a couple hours before adding textured vegetable protein
* Add spices, hot sauce, and brown sugar to suit tastes
* To thicken chili, add bread flour to thicken to preference
* Slow cook until consistency and taste are both at desired levels

For the record, my version of this was called “Sweet & Spicy” in the contest, and I think it lived up to its name. I like a very spicy chili with an undercurrent of sweetness, and I was very happy with how it came out.

Well, that’s it, I hope someone gets something out of it.

Kelly and I really enjoy pizza. Since we’re vegans (we don’t consume or use animal products), I’ve been making our pizza’s from scratch, dough included, using all vegan ingredients. Vegan cheese, while tasting just fine, has always been kind of an issue when it comes to cutting a freshly baked pizza. I tend to mangle the cheese and the toppings as I cut, and while the pizza is still good, I always feel like the pieces come out messier than they should.

For a while, after each time I mangled a pizza, I’d say to Kelly something along the lines of “I have an idea for a cutter that would pre-cut the slices.” I’m sure I was never that precise, but the idea of a metal utensil that could be used to cut pre-cooked pizza slices always stuck in my mind. I spent time looking for something that did the job, but all I found were either hand held cutters, or large whole pizza cutters, operating on cooked pizzas. Small hand held cutters never worked for me, and large whole pizza cutters started at $200.00. That seemed pretty outrageous for something as simple as I what I had in mind. Finally, I decided to just have one made by a welder or metal worker. That is what I present to the world now:

My invention (for lack of a better word), is a large utensil made of metal, that is pressed into flattened uncooked pizza dough, right after the sauce is put on. The utensil remains in place all through placing toppings on the pizza and the cooking process. The pieces of pizza cook individually, while the metal actually causes the sides of the pizza to cook a little too. The result is a piece of pizza that has all toppings in tact and a clean cut every time. Let me illustrate the process as I tested it myself.

I won’t go into a recipe for pizza or dough here, but simply show the important steps.

First, the dough is spread out and sauce put on.

Second, I spray the Perfect Pizza Press with non-stick cooking spray. This version of the Press requires a tad bit of seasoning.

Next, I firmly press into the dough, using the handles for force and to rock the Press a little to make sure the pieces are cut.

Then I put on the toppings. What you see in this picture are eight slices containing a mix of vegan mozzarella and vegan cheddar cheese, topped with either vegan pepperoni, vegan sausage, or both. You can customize each slice if you want to.

Once cooked, the Press is carefully pulled out. Some cheese stuck in a couple places in my first try, and I think this was due to inconsistent spraying of oil. However, just a quick flick of a butter knife took care of that. The dough did not stick to the metal, and this is the result: Eight perfectly sized pieces of pizza with three different kinds of topping configuration. All other pizza slice devices that I could find are designed to operate on cooked pizzas. My design is the only one I’ve been able to find that focuses on the slice from the beginning and all the way through the cooking process.

There are a few reasons I’m posting this. First, I’m staking my claim to this idea publicly on this day. Secondly, if anyone has seen this before, please tell me. I did a lot of searching and couldn’t find anything that worked like my idea. I even did patent searches. Thirdly, and most importantly, I’m offering this for sale at cost to anyone who would like to try this out for themselves. This is an important step in my eventual goal to market and sell this on a mass scale. It needs more real world use, but I can assure you that it works as I have described, and is extremely durable. Hence, I’m selling it cost because it should last you quite a while.

If anyone is interested in purchasing one of my Perfect Pizza Presses or has feedback please let me know. Since I am not at the mass manufacturing stage, I can’t say what the cost will be until I get an idea of how many people want it to test with. If you’re interested, please email me, and I will let you know when I can calculate the price. Furthermore, since this an early product design, I’ll throw in a 2 year warranty on the Press for any manufacturing defects. It should last nearly forever unless it gets used as a frisbee.

If you’re not interested, but have feedback and comments anyway, I would appreciate that as well. This is completely out of the realm of my normal day job and skill set, and it’s all new to me. Any and all feedback is desired.

To contact me, the best way is shane dot p dot brady at gmail.com. Again, once I get a number (I hope someone is interested ), I’ll be able to give people a price, and if you’re still interested, we’ll work out shipping details as well as what size is needed.

Thank you for reading this and for any feedback it brings on.

I received this press release from Farm Sanctuary this morning:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Tricia Barry, Farm Sanctuary, 607-583-2225 ext. 233,
tricia@farmsanctuary.org

Farm Sanctuary Issues Statement on the Swine Flu Outbreak

Gene Baur: “Factory farms are…a prescription for disaster”

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – April 28, 2009 – Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, today issued a statement from Gene Baur, president and co-founder, regarding the current global outbreak of swine flu originating in North America:

“For more than 23 years, Farm Sanctuary has warned that cramming thousands of animals into factory farms is not only bad for the animals. These stressful, filthy, disease-ridden confines are also bad for humans. Animals packed by the thousands in unnatural conditions suffer immensely and these unhealthy, overcrowded operations are a breeding ground for disease. For too long, agribusiness and the USDA have failed to adequately address animal and human health risks – swine flu, avian flu, MRSA, e-coli, salmonella, mad cow disease – the list goes on. Factory farms are nothing less than a prescription for disaster.”

Through its Anti-Confinement Campaign, Farm Sanctuary is urging the introduction and passage of legislation that would eliminate the use of some of the most common confinement systems in place on factory farms – gestation crates for breeding pigs, battery cages for egg laying hens and veal crates for calves. The organization is also urging passage of federal bills H.R. 1549 and S. 619 that would eliminate the use of sub-therapeutic antibiotics on factory farms. More information on pending legislation can be found at http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/legislation/.

Note: Photos and video b-roll footage of pig factory farms from Farm Sanctuary investigations are available by request. Please contact media@farmsanctuary.org.

About Farm Sanctuary

Farm Sanctuary is the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization. Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the “food animal” industry through research and investigations, legal and institutional reforms, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts. Farm Sanctuary shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif., provide lifelong care for hundreds of rescued animals, who have become ambassadors for farm animals everywhere by educating visitors
about the realities of factory farming. Additional information can be found at farmsanctuary.org or by calling 607-583-2225.

This past week Kelly was telling me about a contest she found on the Vegan Soapbox website, where readers were challenged to walk into a convenience store with ten dollars, and come out with ingredients to make a vegan dinner.

Here are the official rules:

The rules:

1. Go into any convenience store with ten bucks.
2. Choose vegan food.
3. Take it back to your house or motel room, add water, spices, herbs, or nutritional yeast if you like, to make a meal that serves one or more.
4. Add nothing else.

That’s it. The meal does not have to be super-healthy, low-fat, low-sugar or anything like that. It does need to be something that most of us would recognize as a meal, not a snack.

Post your pictures or at least your description of what you got and what you made here and tell us what convenience store you bought from. OR post your meal on your blog and give us the link here. [edited Mar 2, 2009: can post your meal on your blog and put the link here]

Deadline: March 31, 2009

On Thursday night, while we were out, we hit up a few convenience stores, but it was only on the third try (QuikTrip), that we found success.

Kelly had an idea to use Bisquick that would have worked, but we had a question about whether or not the egg replace was allowed under the rules. Looking at the ingredients available, and based on something Kelly mentioned at a previous store, a recipe came to me. To top it off, with a $1.36 left to spend, I found a 99 cent bag of vegan doritos as “dessert”. The following is the recipe (as written up by Kelly):

Shane’s Spicy Sweet Spaghetti

Ingredients

16 oz. pasta (we used thin spaghetti, American Beauty brand)
16 oz. salsa (we used medium, Don Pablo brand)
15.25 oz whole kernel corn (we used Green Giant brand, and only half a can)
5 oz Spanish / Manzanilla olives (we used Best Choice brand, and only 1/4 of a jar)
2 1/8 oz bag (or more) Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos
salt to taste

Directions

1. Prepare the pasta according to the directions on the package.

2. While the pasta is cooking, empty the entire jar of salsa into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add corn and quartered Spanish olives.

3. When pasta’s done, top with salsa sauce, season with salt to taste, and top with a Dorito(s) for decoration. Enjoy!

Makes: 2-3 servings of pasta. (The Doritos won’t last but five minutes!)

It was pretty good actually. I often times put Frank’s Original Red Hot on pasta, so the spicy factor is nothing new to me. I would definitely eat this again.