have you ever tried teese, the vegan cheese substitute made by chicago soy dairy?! if not, now is your chance.

the company is having this crazy promotion, where all you need to do is enter your email address…and you get a coupon for free teese! they have mozzarella and cheddar flavors, plus a couple of cheese-style sauces. you’d be crazy not to take take them up on this offer.

so what am i gonna do with my free teese?! well, make another deep dish pizza of course:

get your coupon here!

i bet you’ve never had a vegan deep dish chicago-style pizza. this one was awesome, made with cheezly and teese from chicago soy dairy. next time i will throw some daiya in as well.

if you read this blog, you probably know that we’ve given lucifer’s pizza in los feliz a hard time in the past for advertising a vegan cheese option that wasn’t really vegan at all because it contained casein, a milk protein. well forget all about that now, because lucifer’s is now offers a 100% vegan cheese alternative. that’s right, the pizzeria has changed its ways and now offers one of our favorite vegan cheeses, teese from chicago soy dairy.

large pizza with mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic and teese vegan cheese.

i picked up a pie from lucifer’s last night, and was pretty impressed. i got a large pizza with teese cheese, topped with mushrooms, tomatoes and garlic, which came to around $21…not bad for a huge vegan pie. lucifer’s also lets you choose your chili rating on a scale from ‘zero’ to ‘blazing’. i went with ‘medium’ and it was just perfect for me.

lucifer’s did a great job at distributing and melting the teese. it was evenly spread all over the pizza, and there wasn’t too much. i was a little skeptical at first after having previous cheese drama at lucifer’s, but after one bite of this thing, i could tell it was the soy cheese that i know and love.

the sauce on lucifer’s pizza was really damn good, and i love that you can customize it depending on how spicy you want it to be. the crust was super thin and ny-style and while i thought it was great, my husband wasn’t a fan. he thought it was a tad doughy and undercooked. oh well, can’t agree on everything! another great thing about lucifer’s, is they also offer a gluten-free crust option. that doesn’t mean anything to me, but it means a lot to vegans with allergies who have been craving a decent pizza.

so let’s all go show lucifer’s some support, they should be rewarded for changing their ways. they took a bad situation and turned it around, resulting in some damn tasty vegan pizza. after all, another vegan pizza option in los angeles is never a bad thing.

lucifer’s pizza
1958 Hillhurst Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 906-8603

yeah, yeah, yeah…if you are a vegan in los angeles who loves pizza, you probably know all about purgatory pizza. the ny-style pizza joint gained vegan fame in february when they added teese cheese from chicago soy dairy to their lineup, making authentic delicious VEGAN PIZZA available to the masses. as if that wasn’t enough, about a week ago they stepped it up a notch and started offering field roast artisan vegan sausage as a topping.

well just when i thought the best vegan pizza in la couldn’t get any better, they went ahead and upped the topping selection. the field roast was amazing enough, but now just one week later, they are offering a delicious option of vegan gardein chicken STARTING TODAY. i was fortunate enough to attend a sampling party and taste three different gardein chicken pizzas, all of which were unique and insanely tasty. purgatory pizza is really making a conscious effort to embrace the los angeles vegan community and accommodate us at every turn. they even veganized their pesto recipe for good. that’s right, purgatatory pizza has omitted the cheese from their pesto permanently…so you can safely order the basil/pine nut concoction from now on.

now for the three pizzas. i must admit, i was a little skeptical at first…i am usually a mushroom and tomato toppings kind of girl and the thought of fake chicken on a pizza didn’t seem that great. but with a little magic in the kitchen, two talented chefs used the gardein chicken to make 3 of the best pizzas i’ve ever had. vegan cook extraordinaire jennshaggy was on hand to prepare and season the chicken, while purgatory’s own chef ricky made the sauces and crust. the first pizza, which was my favorite, was pesto pizza topped with mushrooms, olives and gardein chicken.

vegan purgatory pizza with teese cheese, gardein chicken, pesto, mushrooms and (1/2) olives

the vegan pesto was absolutely perfect. why anyone would need cheese thrown into this delicious blend of basil, pine nuts, garlic and olive oil is completely beyond me. the pesto was spread lightly all over the pizza, so although it was a bit oily, the pie didn’t taste heavy. the gardein chicken was extremely well prepared, tender and flavorful and not one bit dry. i seriously loved it. not to mention the melty teese cheese. this pizza was so fucking good, really, i swear, it tasted like the real thing.

the next pizza was a standard purgatory pizza with their normal tomato sauce topped with teese cheese, gardein chicken and fresh basil. simple and excellent. while my favorite pizza was the pesto one pictured above, a few of the pizza testers argued that this was the best one and i can totally see where they were coming from. again, the gardein came out very well and tasted great on the pizza…plump little chunks of italian-seasoned soy chicken that were crispy on top and moist in the center.

vegan purgatory pizza with teese cheese, gardein chicken and fresh basil

the third pizza was an amazing concoction from chef ricky himself which came with no sauce…just olive oil and garlic covered with teese cheese, gardein chicken, tomatoes and oregano. this was my husband’s favorite of the three pizzas, and it was definitely unique and like nothing i’ve ever tasted before.

vegan purgatory pizza with olive oil, garlic, teese cheese, gardein chicken, tomatoes and oregano

the olive oil and garlic mixed with the teese and made for a creamy base, so the sauce wasn’t even missed. again, the gardein chicken was excellent was the perfect compliment to the italian-style sauces and toppings. in fact, with all the olive oil, garlic, oregano and tomatoes, this tasted like a pizza version of a pasta dish. everything went so well together, i really suggest you give this exceptional pizza a try…i’ve never had anything quite like it.

so there you have it, get over to purgatory pizza and try the new gardein topping which will be available starting today. extra special thanks to jennshaggy and chef ricky for coming up with the way to make these extremely tasty vegan pizzas. the vegan pizza scene in la just keeps getting better and better.

chef ricky, the master of the pizza

purgatory pizza
1326 east 1st street
los angeles, ca 90033
323 262 5310
open everyday 6pm – 11pm

if you are a vegan in los angeles, i sure hope you’ve hit up purgatory pizza by now. the already-popular new york-style pizzeria started selling awesome vegan pizzas using teese cheese from chicago soy dairy in february, and now just one month later, they are known throughout town for having the best vegan pizza around. the quality of the crust, sauce and now vegan cheese is above and beyond all competition. as far as i know, they are the only pizza joint in los angeles using teese, which is fairly hard to come by, but by far the best brand in the united states.

imagine my excitement when i learned that in just a few weeks purgatory pizza has been so successful with the vegan cheese that they have also decided to start offering fake meat toppings as well. i was even lucky enough to attend a limited tasting-party to try out the new stuff…oh what a treat! the result: tons of new fake meats atop delicious teese pizzas, ending in a food coma of epic proportions.

vegan toppings of the night included field roast sausage, lightlife pepperoni, lightlife bacon, lightlife ham, and tofurky sausage.

all the pizzas we tried are pictured below. results were varied, but my favorite was by far the field roast sausage. it had a really meaty texture and tasted surprisingly like real pizza sausage that i remember from when i was a little kid…right down to the crispy edges and embedded fennel seeds, this stuff was unreal.

vegan purgatory pizza: field roast sausage and teese cheese.

the pepperoni was decent, but in my opinion it didn’t have the wow factor of the field roast sausage. lightlife products tend to be great for what i want to make at home, but just don’t do it for me when they are offered at restaurants.

vegan purgatory pizza: lightlife pepperoni and teese cheese.

same again with the lightlife bacon…it was tasty, but not something i would splurge on for a pizza topping.

vegan purgatory pizza: lightlife bacon and teese cheese.

purgatory also tried out the tofurky sausage as a pizza topping, which was definitely a worthy field roast opponent. this stuff was really good…but it sliced up into little disks, not globby clumps like the field roast sausage. something about this wasn’t as authentic to me, although i would definitely order it if i saw it on a menu.

vegan purgatory pizza: tofurky sausage and teese cheese.

lastly, was the ham and pineapple which, i won’t lie, i didn’t even taste. pineapple on pizza has never gone down well with me…but the other folks tonight seemed to enjoy it. the ham was the lightlife brand of meat, so i assume it was similar to the pepperoni and bacon.

vegan purgatory pizza: lightlife ham, pineapple and teese cheese.

again, in my mind, the clear winner was the field roast sausage. i honestly usually don’t like fake meat on pizza, but this stuff was so good, i think i’d order it every time.

vegan pizza with teese and field roast sausage! YUM.

sorry, readers. i don’t mean to get your hopes up too early or anything…because for right now the vegan meats aren’t available at purgatory pizza just yet. whatever scored best at tonight’s tasting test will hopefully be available soon though, and i will let you know as soon as it is. i’m hoping they at least go with the field roast sausage because that was my absolute favorite!

until then, you will have to suffer through with just vegetable toppings on the best vegan pizza in los angeles. speaking of which…i brought home some teese pizza with mushrooms, tomatoes and chopped garlic for my husband, who missed out on tonight’s festivities, and the stuff warmed up and melted like a charm. turns out vegan pizza is just as good leftover as normal pizza.

vegan pizza to go! teese, mushrooms, tomato and chopped garlic. YUM.

so whether you eat in or takeaway, purgatory pizza is the place to go for vegan pizza in la. they have the meltiest cheese and a load of vegetable toppings. once they get the fake meats come, they will be UNSTOPPABLE. vegans, if you haven’t been to purgatory pizza yet, you are fucking CRAZY. put it at the top of your list.

purgatory pizza
1326 east 1st street
los angeles, ca 90033
323 262 5310

open everyday 6pm – 11pm

After two weeks traipsing around the UK, we were completely set for a quiet weekend to be spent mostly at home. Until, that is, we read this post on Vegan LA. I mean, come on – one of LA’s most established and respected pizza joints, Purgatory Pizza, suddenly announces that all their pizzas are available with vegan cheese? And not the chemical mass that is follow your heart, but none other than the joint winner of the recent Vegan Cheese Pizza Challenge, Teese from Chicago Soy Dairy.

purgatory pizza covered in teese cheese. the best vegan pizza in los angeles, or anywhere for that matter.

So, after settling onto the couch with our slippers on, we were jolted to action and filled with a mission to check out Purgatory Pizza post haste even though we had a rather low expectation of what we might find, exacerbated by a 40 minute drive through Hollywood to downtown LA, on the purgatorious 101 freeway.

Well, the visit to Purgatory Pizza is one of the most memorable vegan dining events I’ve had in a while, possibly since dining on a 50-year old London bus. We arrived at a brightly lit storefront with convenient alleyway parking adjacent, and strode valiantly inside with vegan heads held up high to be greeted by a very nice lady who seemed extremely pleased that we’d shown up as the first customers of the new vegan menu. Indeed, she told us that she’d only posted on Vegan LA a few hours before and was surprised that people were already asking for the vegan cheese.

She was knowledgeable about the cheese/Teese, explaining that she had spoken with the manufacturer and tried several different vegan cheeses before settling on Teese as she felt it cooked and tasted the best. So, we placed our order of a large Teese pizza with garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes.

It was only when we sat at one of the large, comfortable tables that we realized we were somewhere special. The walls were covered in wonderful avant garde murals saying things like “She is pure and perfect and she colors her hair with magic markers”, there were candles on the tables and some great classic rock deep cuts were playing (The Beatles, Queen, The Doors, Elvis…..). We rocked out, read the murals and drank our wine while we waited for the pizza to arrive, our drinking and rocking only punctuated by a wonderfully sweet and helpful teenage girl popping to the table on a regular basis with plates, napkins and an inquisition “Is everything OK? Do you need anything?”

After about 15 minutes our pizza arrived, and for a split second I thought I was sitting in Ray’s Pizza on 7th Avenue at 53rd St. in Manhattan, one of my favorite pre-vegan pizza joints. I’m telling you – this was no ordinary mass-produced pizza but a real, NY-style hand tossed crust with the perfect ratio of toppings, “cheese” and sauce. The entire 16” pie was completely gone within about 5 minutes as we wolfed down bite after bite of crunchy crust, tangy basil-infused sauce and perfectly melted Teese.

purgatory pizza with melted teese is heaven on earth!

The whole experience is a million miles away from the usual vegan pizza experience, where a vegan restaurant attempts to create a pizza from bread dough, chopped vegetables and cashew cheese (ugh now I think about it). No, this is the real deal. Authentic New York-style pizza cooked and prepared perfectly but substituting soy for dairy. As a vegan, you’re dining on the edge here — as authentic a pizza journey as it gets, but screeching to a halt before any animal cruelty.

Purgatory has a busy delivery and carry-out business (they must have fulfilled 5 or 6 orders in the short time we were there, which was around 6pm — hardly peak time for pizza orders!) yet the eat-in experience is really worth doing. One last positive note, Purgatory doesn’t serve alcohol, but they welcome a BYO-style system, and we fortunately had a bottle of wine in the car. It’s so much better spending $10 at a grocery store on a bottle of reasonable wine than $6 on a glass of franzia “house red” at a restaurant. This just makes Purgatory Pizza even better!

Purgatory has probably always been a special place, but now it’s accessible to LA vegans, and I highly encourage you to check it out. Amazing pizza, BYO beer/wine, easy parking, 5 minute drive off the 101. Rather than Purgatory, I think I might just have found pizza heaven in downtown LA.

Here’s the menu (redacted to protect the innocent):

purgatory pizza menu (click to enlarge)

purgatory pizza
1326 east 1st street
los angeles, ca 90033
323 262 5310

open everyday 6pm – 11pm

For a surreal moment, check out this video of the artist who made the mural:

UPDATED 2011: since the time of this post, a new revolutionary vegan cheese called daiya has come along. it melts and stretches like real cheese, and is available at whole foods and ralphs. you can read our review of it here. also, teese has come out with a new and improved version of their product that is vastly superior to the one below. lastly, cheezly is no longer available in the united states. so as it stands today, 2 years later, cheezly is still the best tasting vegan cheese, but daiya and teese are close behind and are pretty easy to find.

PIZZA!! it’s the one thing i really miss as a vegan. i fantasize about one day in my future, when nondairy cheese is just as convincing as vegan ice cream—when the soy stuff tastes and feels like the real thing. until then, i am constantly looking for the best solution, even if that means ordering several vegan cheeses online and pitting them against each other in the ultimate pizza challenge. …so here it goes!

sheese, teese, cheezly, and follow your heart. which vegan cheese will prevail?

we took all the top retail vegan cheeses and they faced off in the ultimate pizza contest. the contenders consisted of all the top competitors: follow your heart, sheese, cheezly and teese. we ordered them all online at veganessentials.com and used them all on a standard, basic, homemade pizza crust.

let’s start off by defining the rating system. we will determine the absolute best of these cheeses by evaluating them based upon 5 very simple qualifications: taste uncooked, taste cooked, meltyness, value, and availability. the scale is on a 1 – 5 scale, 5 being the best of the best of the best.

1.) teese
http://www.teesecheese.com/

from the ordering website: “Teese is the exciting new vegan cheese made by the Chicago Soydairy, makers of the popular Temptation brand vegan ice cream. Teese is the first dairy-free and casein-free cheese that melts and tastes like a real dairy cheese. Teese is crafted through a proprietary process by certified “Teesemakers” to taste just like artisanal cheese. Teese promises to deliver the taste and melt non-dairy connoisseurs have sought for years”

teese pizza

taste uncooked: the taste raw is definitely sour. cheese-like, but weird, wet and waxy. 3 out of 5

taste cooked: pretty close to real cheese, i’ll take it! 4 out of 5

meltyness: teese’s melt factor was insane! we threw this pizza in the oven, and when it came out, the cheese on top was a pinkish SOUP. i have tried a few times subsequently, and it seems that teese cheese always turns into pink mush. i found if you let it cool for about 10 minutes, the pink teese soup turns into a decent edible pizza cheese, thus ultimately warranting a 3 out of 5

teese melty-ness

value: teese is $7.49 for 16 oz, that works out to $0.47/oz. 4 out of 5

availability: not sold in my area, but always available online. 4 out of 5

2.) sheese
http://www.buteisland.com/

from the ordering website: “imported from Scotland, Sheese is a delicious alternative to dairy-based cheese that’s firm in texture and is by far the best eat-straight-from-the-package vegan cheese we’ve ever tried. It can also be used in many recipes, too – it takes a bit longer to melt than other vegan cheeses due to the firmness, but it works extremely well in just about any recipe you use.”

sheese pizza

taste uncooked: oddly enough, this stuff grated beautifully, but it tasted like ice cream! there wasn’t a sour raw flavor to it, instead something oddly vanilla or cake-like. 3 out of 5

taste cooked: when cooked, the vanilla taste of sheese was not so prominent. it was still a tad to sugary, but had definite hints of mozzarella. 4 out of 5

melty-ness: sheese just straight up refuses to melt. you can see, the grated shreds just sit there, after 45 minutes in the oven, totally refusing to budge. 1 out of 5

sheese melty-ness

value: sheese typically costs 8.69 for an 8 oz package—this equates to $1.08/oz. 2 out of 5

availability: while sheese isn’t available at your typical whole foods, it’s pretty easy to find. grab it online at veganessentials or one of the many vegan specialty internet grocers. 4 out of 5

3.) follow your heart vegan gourmet
http://www.imearthkind.com/

from the ordering website: “Hailed as the best American-made vegan cheese, Vegan Gourmet melts beautifully and has a delicious, authentic cheese flavor. Perfect for topping pizzas, pastas, Mexican dishes, or shredded plain in salads!”

follow your heart vegan gourmet pizza

taste uncooked: edible but not great. the shreds were wet and waxy and a slight taste of chemicals…WTF. 2 out of 5

taste cooked: when on homemade pizza, follow your heart still has a strange taste. while not as prominent as when raw, there is a definitely chemical flavor. 3 out of 5.

meltyness: follow your heart cheese melts sometimes; and in my experience, even after a round in the oven, it needs some microwave love to get it melted. plus, it started falling off the pizza in big clumps. 3 out of 5

follow your heart melty-ness

value: vegan gourmet does very well in this category—it seems that follow your heart is basically giving this shit away! a mere $4.69 for a 10 oz package puts it at a shocking $0.47/oz! 4 out of 5

availability: finally, follow your heart’s reach is just as impressive as its price tag. i find this shit in basically every whole foods, and even some ralphs outlets. i’m in la, so i can’t speak for the rest of the country, but here the availability is 5 out of 5

4.) cheezly
http://www.redwoodfoods.es/

from the ordering website: “Cheezly is simply incredible and must be tasted to be believed. We’ve never used a vegan cheese that melts this well AND tastes so much like real dairy cheese! Ideal for pizzas, quesadillas, pastas, grilled cheese sandwiches- anything you can imagine melting cheese onto or into!”

cheezly pizza

taste uncooked: cheezly tasted pretty damn good raw. it was firm, chewy and slightly sour. pretty fucking impressive. 4 out of 5

taste cooked: the taste of the cheezly on a pizza was absolutely delicious. it was salty, cheesy, milky, and probably the best tasting fake cheese i’ve ever had. 5 out of 5

meltyness: cheezly’s melt factor was awesome. pretty much like real cheese. 4 out of 5

cheezly melty-ness

value: when it’s not on sale, cheezly will run you $8.95 for 6.7 oz, that’s $1.34/oz! whoa!! pretty pricey. 1 out of 5

availability: cheezly is only available for me in los angeles via internet order. still, it’s pretty easy to find online. 4 out of 5

and now, for the results!

in the end, teese and cheezly tied for the win with 18 points! follow your heart was right behind with 17 points, and sheese coming in last with 14 points.

even though teese scored the same number of points, cheezly will always be the winner in my book. cheezly won most of its points on pure taste, but fell behind because it’s 3 times the price of teese. so if you don’t mind paying extra, go with cheezly. in my opinion, it is the best tasting vegan cheese.

there ya have it. now go eat some vegan pizza! you’re welcome.

There’s a Piazza in Rome with a small pizza house in it called “American Pizza Company”. It always makes me chuckle whenever I walk by – the terms “ice to eskimos”, “coal to Newcsatle” and “pizza to Roma” all imply the duplicative, perhaps unwanted and inferior activity of taking something to somewhere where there’s already plenty of it there.

Now, while Americans don’t (Chicago pizza aside) have much to teach the Italians about making pizza, they did invent an interesting variation called a “Calzone”. When we in the west adapt a food item from another culture we instantly give it an overly authentic name, hence “Calzone” – can’t sound more Italian than that. We British did the same thing with Vindaloo – a fictitious “Indian” curry based upon, of all things, a Portuguese recipe.

Anyway, while there are plenty of vegan pizza recipes around I thought it would be fun to set about creating a vegan calzone recipe, in honor of the American Pizza Company which serves a damn good, albeit non-vegan calzone.

A calzone is basically a pizza folded in half with lots of extra ‘toppings’ tucked inside. The secret to a properly prepared calzone is to get the crust just right, and then shove in as many toppings as  you can without the thing bursting or leaking while it’s being baked.
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