The lovely people from Redwood Foods sent me some of their new products to try. I love this company to bits but one of the things I love most is they don’t sit still – they are always coming up with new ideas. Invariably, this means that sometimes products do get withdrawn too – the bacon Cheezly which always seems so popular with Americans and Canadians is the latest casualty.
I would generally always prefer to make pizza myself, but like everyone there are times when I’m too busy to cook or just want to throw something in the oven, and a widely available vegan pizza is an excellent answer. Getting in late from football last night after a weekend away was a great chance to try them.
The pizzas are available in 3 flavours – cheese and tomato, ham and pineapple and meatless feast, and cost £2.79, £2.99 and £3.19 respectively. My first instinct was that they are very small. I am a very greedy person, especially where pizza is concerned, and can easily eat a large pizza on my own. These would be a snack for one greedy person like me! We ate all 3 between the two of us without much difficulty.
I gave these the minimum time suggested in the oven, 10 minutes and they definitely didn’t need any longer. I tried them as they came first, then added some shredded basil to the cheese and tomato, and a drizzle of chilli oil to all 3 – I do that to almost any pizza I eat.
We both very much enjoyed these pizzas, and Matthew, who eats dairy, said he would buy one of these if he was on his own rather than get a dairy one. I liked all 3 of them, and I would never normally consider buying pizza with pineapple on. The pineapple isn’t very strong but the pizza had a lovely juiciness that the others didn’t. The meaty one was probably my favourite; it has a slightly spicy crumbly beef on which I don’t recognise from any of the existing Redwood meats.Obviously all 3 varieties use Cheezly and it’s nice and melty.
If I had my choice I would prefer to pay more for a bigger pizza, but that’s just my greed. I’d also prefer a slightly thinner base, but I’ve always preferred very thin crusts on my pizzas. These pizzas are not a fancy gourmet product with stonebaked bases – they are rather an everyday product but an extremely tasty and convenient one. I think they would be popular with children too. I have only once seen vegan pizza to buy in a shop in England, but I didn’t try it, so I don’t have anything to compare it with. But I would definitely buy these again and recommend them.
Cooking the Vegan Books 