Party-Perfect Pizza Dip (psst ... it's vegan!)

Hello Eternal Health Yogis!
By Amy Carlson Gillis, RYT

Welcome to 2013 and the start of this food series of blog entries.  Each month I will bring you favorite recipes of mine that were once completely un-vegan.  When I first considered transitioning to a plant based diet I felt that I needed to ditch all of my previous ways of eating, buy all new cookbooks and dive into a new world of food.  So I did just that, and failed miserably.  I found I didn't know how to cook completely plant based meals.  My food lacked flavor, I was always hungry, and I craved my old ways of eating.  Hanging my head I went back to cooking and eating as I always had.  It then occurred to me that maybe I didn't have to make such drastic changes starting off.  Maybe I could begin by simply substituting items in my current cooking repertoire until I had a vegetarian dish. 

And so it began.  I still pour over my Bon Appetit magazines.  I still watch the Food Channel and I still pin some of those meat laden recipes.  One by one, I re-work these recipes substituting and changing the dish until it is my veggie friendly version. For the next several months I will bring you a recipe that I have re-worked.  Enjoy!

Party-Perfect Pizza Dip

This pizza dip was an easy favorite from days past of meat eating.  Crazy easy to make and crazy good to stuff my face with!  This was also one of my first recipes to convert to vegan and shockingly one of the recipes most laden with animal products.  Since converting this to a vegan recipe I have taken it to many parties without announcing the lack of meat or dairy.  People shovel it in and talk about how good it is.  When it is gone and someone asks for the recipe is finally when I let them all know, "Ohhh yeah, that was vegan." :)

Ingredients

1 cup Vegannaise
1 cup Mozzarella Daiya Cheese Shreds
1 8 oz. container Tofutti Cream Cheese
1 small can black olives
1/2 package of Yve's Veggie Pepperoni Slices*, slices quartered
1 tomato, diced
1 loaf bakery bread, cut into cubes (double check that your bread ingredients are all vegan!)

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients, excluding bread cubes, in an oven safe bowl and mix well.  Place in the oven and cook for 30 min.  While the dip is in the oven cut the bread into cubes.  Once heated through, I transfer the dip into another bowl that isn't so hot. Place on a platter and surround with bread cubes for dipping.

*NOTE: The Yve's Veggie Pepperoni Slices I use to find at Whole Foods.  Lately, I have only seen them at Kroger.  To speed up the prep process, I slice the row of pepperonis into quarters still stuck together and then peel the slices apart (versus cutting each pepperoni slice individually).  Also, the slices are not gluten free.  To make this a gluten free dish, ditch the pepperoni and sub in something else!  You could add mushrooms, onions, bell pepper, etc.  Diced them, sautee them a bit and throw them in the dip!