food trucks! pizza mike's award-winning pie

Season Three of The Great Food Truck Race saw 8 brand new teams competing for the $50,000 prize and the privilege to keep their food truck. While $50K is nothing to sneeze at, the food truck is worth a heck of a lot more, to the tune of 30-200K, depending on how tricked out your truck is, and the Food Network has some sweet rides. The lower end of that budget will only get you a trailer to pull, a used one, at that.

Season Three featured the truck Pizza Mike's from Columbus, Ohio. Michael Evans was the owner and operator of Michael's Pizza, an establishment that burned down around 2008. Not having the funds (or the desire?) to reopen the same place, Mike entered The Race and is currently still operating his own food truck in Ohio, albeit not the same one as he drove on the show. Mike and his team left the race in the third episode. 

In 2001, Mike represented the USA in the World Pizza Championship in Salsimiogorre, Italy, where his "Michael's Traditional" was awarded "Best in the USA" prize. The winning pizza was topped with his Grandfather Collura's sausage recipe, pepperoni and sweet onions. 

Making it vegan, I used Yve's pepperoni substitute and doctored Gimme Lean Sausage. Relatively easy pizza to replicate given vegan ingredients. I figure the sausage, the crust and the sauce are the necessary ingredients to work on. 

In addition to "Michael's Traditional," I also made another of his popular pies, this time topped with pepperoni, roasted red peppers, green peppers, olives and onions.

 Roll your dough thin, bake on high and allow it to rest before cutting. 

Not much chance that Pizza Mike's has anything vegan, so head to the kitchen and make your own "Best in the USA," or at least in your kitchen, pizza pie. 

That's Amore!

Mike's Traditional Pizza Printer-Friendly Recipe

food trucks! 3-bean chili and sweet potato fries bowl

Today our food truck road trip takes us to Los Angeles to visit the Bowled and Beautiful food truck on our magic carpet ride. This California-based hopeful food truck is looking to win this season's Food TV's Great Food Truck Race.

The group of ladies dishes up fusion California cuisine served in a bowl. And they do have a chance to win! The ladies have earned one of the top two spots for three weeks in row, and they don't look like they'll be slowing down. We'll see how tonight's episode progresses.

Since none of the trucks this season actually own a food truck, yet, the ladies don't actually have a business or a menu I can peek at. No matter; Food TV has supplied cyber space with a picture of one of their meals.

A signature dish of theirs is 3-Bean, Beef and Bacon Chili Bowl. The picture of the bowl on the Food TV site appears to contain sweet potato fries, so, in addition to the name, I decided to add this golden root vegetable to the bowl.

I call my dish, 3-Bean, Barley and Smoky Chili Bowl. I used kidney, pinto and black beans as my trio. I added the barley to give the dish some bite while keeping the faux meat out of the bowl. 

I grabbed a package of sweet potato fries at my local Whole Foods, baked them up and plopped them at the bottom of the bowl. Topping the fries with the spicy, smoky chili and finely shredded vegan cheese and minced onions, gave me an adequate facsimile of the pictured dish. 

As it turns out, the bowl was quite a hit! The chili took only about 20 minutes to cook. Bonus! However, the fries were the surprise element that we all thought worked quite well with the chili.

Good luck to these women, although given that they are Californian, I'd expect more veg cuisine from them. 

Here's hoping they hear the rumble of the vegan crowd.

3-BEAN, BARLEY AND SMOKY CHILI BOWL