Vegan Buffalo Wing-less Pizza with Carmelized Red Onions

I love pizza! The idea for this pizza came from a long-lost favorite of ours--a buffalo wing pizza with peppercinis and all kinds of other bad stuff! In moving from the "city" (think of Green Acres) and leaving behind a lot of the more convenient and varied "dining out" establishments we trusted and frequented (again, not eating out a lot--we did have our faves), we felt we had to have a go-to place immediately and found one on moving day (in hindsight, probably not the best day to make a "restaurant" decision). Moving day is when your whole body is put through basic training sans a drill Sargent. (I hate moving.) Nonetheless, we settled on an Italian restaurant just down the road. We loved its smells, its proximity, its local-ness. One problem, it was a cholesterol buster for sure. Cream pasta with this. Cream pasta with that. Oh, and here is a loaf of bread to enjoy before you eat the pasta! They even had a two-fer Tuesday pasta night. What we really loved was this pizza. Being vegan challenges you to take back that taste you left when you turned the corner (for all the right reasons, I might add). Not only in calories, but in flavor. Sometimes you get it right. Sometimes you make huge mistakes. This is a winner in our humble opinion.

With the help of my Breadman Breadmaking Machine, I put a recipe for whole wheat pizza dough in about an hour and half prior to dinner time. I prefer to make my own crust (it goes to that whole thing of "controlling" what goes into my body and all). For the vegan "wings" I used a package of Westsoy's chicken style seitan. I seasoned some flour and dredged the cut up pieces in it and cooked it in canola oil for about 5 minutes. Then, I took about a 1/4 cup of hot sauce (again, my favorite condiment of all time) and about 2 tablespoons of vegan margarine--tossing the coated wings in it. This was a superb pizza!

Vegan Buffalo Wing-less Pizza with Carmelized Red Onions

1 pizza crust (I used whole wheat)

1 package Westsoy Seitan Chicken (drained and sliced into chunks)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 red onion sliced thin

1 cup diced mushrooms

3 garlic cloves minced

1/4 cup kalamata olives drained (or black olives)

1 green pepper sliced thin

olive oil for drizzling over pizza

1/2 cup vegan mozzarella cheese (I used rice cheese--I prefer the melt factor of this)

*Follow the directions above to cook the buffalo chicken seitan.

Preheat oven to 425. Lightly oil a large cookie sheet, or use a pizza stone, whichever you prefer. Roll pizza dough out to desired size. Bake for about six minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. Add olive oil to saute pan. Add sliced onions and mushrooms and cook for about ten minutes, stirring once every few minutes--until the onions are caramelized and mushrooms have released their juices. Add the garlic, cook for about 3 more minutes. Set aside. Drizzle olive oil over the pizza crust. Add the ingredients from the saute pan evenly over pizza crust. Add olives and peppers and then spread the seitan pieces over this. Sprinkle with cheese and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for about 12-15 minutes.