The Rocket Fuel Bagel

I had this bagel every weekday one summer. 

The summer I learnt Italian (I only ever really learnt to count to twenty, a handful of colors and a couple of family members), wrote my first novel, and watched Friends several times a day. 

The days before I had to stop Italian to focus on French GCSE, moved onto another novel, and the Channel 4 network stopped showing Friends. 

It's also before I became veggie and the sandwich then definitely wasn't veggie. But there was more veggies on it than anything else. So I was on the way... (as I had already been for about 7-8 years by this point). 

This is an alternative to the 'everything' bagel. It's a bagel with everything. Except instead of the everything being in/on the bagel dough - there is everything in on the bagel. 

Except pepper- we ran out. Pretend that there's pepper on there. It totally is if you look hard and squint a bit. 

Did I mention that this was also the summer that I horrified the rest of my family by having an UN-TOASTED bagel. Where- in the bagel rulebook - does it say that bagel's have to be toasted. Even now, years (wow - I feel old when I say years like that!) later- it still deeply disturbs them to know that I don't always (usually) toast my bagels. 

Unless they're stale (cause that doesn't just happen to me, right?) in which case they should always be toasted. 

And if anybody wants to know- yes- I put just about any veggie resembling thing that could be put on a sandwich, in this sandwich. Then covered it in a load of dressing. Then realized that there was no way I was actually going to be able to eat this thing on my plate. And sometimes- chopsticks just won't cut it. The fork actually had to come out this time. 

The main trouble with veganizing this sandwich (to make it into what is truly the best sandwich ever) (and after I had made my own pepperoni) was the dressing. In days of old, (blah) I used a store bought honey mustard. And for obvious reasons- that just wasn't going to do!!!! So...

I consulted the Internet. And what I found I didn't like much. It appears- that the standard way to replace honey mustard dressing is to use maple mustard dressing. Which is great- but I didn't want the flavor of maple in my sandwich. Don't get me wrong- I love maple- but this is neither the time or the place for it. 

That and the fact that I've packed the maple syrup and I'm not getting it out. 

So I had to become resourceful. (Well, not really). I replaced the honey with Sweet Freedom which gives it the sweetness but without any of the distinct flavor. Also- I did consider making a 'real' salad dressing, you know, by mixing oil and vinegar. But I didn't want 'real' salad dressing. I wanted something like the dressing you get in the store- but without... what do they put in that stuff anyway? 

So in the end- I just mixed mustard and sweetener together with some store bought vegan mayo which acted as a base and gave it that 'creamy' feel of store bought dressings. And meant that my fingers didn't get sticky from dealing with the oil bottle. 

The Rocket Fuel Bagel

Makes 1

• 1 Sesame Bagel
• 1/4 cup vegan pepperoni (I used the pepperoni crumbles out of OATrageous Oatmeals)
• 2 inch piece of cucumber, sliced
• 3-4 slices of apple (from the outside in- to get rounds instead of half moons) 
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 3-4 slices of bell pepper
• 1 spring onion, sliced
• 7 olives, sliced
• a few slices of pickled jalapeño pepper
• 1 cucumber pickle, sliced 
• 1 Tablespoon of vegan mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon of prepared mustard
• Liquid sweetener to taste, I used 1 Tablespoon of Sweet Freedom to make it VERY sweet

• Slice the bagel in half, and layer (carefully so it doesn't all topple over) all but the last three ingredients on top of one half. I would advise doing this on the plate that you're going to serve the sandwich on. 
• Mix the last three ingredients together well (no lumps allowed!) and pour on top of the sandwich. It does make a lot of dressing for one sandwich, but there's a lot of sandwich. And a lot of bread to soak it up. And fingers. If all else fails use your fingers. It's the best sandwich ever. Every single atom of it deserves to be eaten up.