homemade "pizza"

One of my new found favorite meals is homemade pizza. I didn't realize how delicious crust could be until I made it myself. I had always thought of homemade pizza crust being some impossible thing that had to rise and would take forever. However, when we were snowed in for a week I made a couple of batches and it turned out so delicious and was SUPER easy! I have combined a couple of recipes that I have found around the internet and in some of my cookbooks. Here is the recipe that works for me:


Homemade Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
(Vegetarian)


1 tsp. yeast
1 cup warm water
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 tsp. salt
1 tablespoon honey


Pre-heat oven to 350. Combine the yeast and warm water and let sit for about 10 minutes or until creamy/foamy. Meanwhile, mix flour, wheat germ, and salt. When the yeast mixture is ready mix in honey. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and add the wet mixture. Stir to combine until dough starts to form (sometimes I did it in my mixer with a dough hook attached but stirring works fine.) Cover and set in a warm place to rise.* Roll dough onto pizza pan and poke with a fork. Allow to rest a couple more minutes if time allows(if not pizza will still turn out fine). Bake without toppings for approximately 10-15 minutes until it starts to pull away from pan. Take it out and put on toppings. Bake a few more minutes until toppings are hot. Enjoy!


* I usually put a bowl of water in the microwave and heat it up to boiling. I then take it out and put the dough mixture in the microwave to rise. 

So Friday we had planned on having pizza. Kevin made the pizza sauce (recipe at bottom of post) during the day so all we needed were the toppings! Now I put pizza in quotes above because I'm not 100% sure it's OK to call it pizza if it doesn't have cheese but we make ours without cheese. We could make it with soy cheese but Kevin says he would rather have it without. We loaded ours with so much we didn't miss the cheese for a second! Here is what we topped ours with but the possibilities are endless.


-zucchini 
-onions
-peppers
-mushrooms
-olives
-sun-dried tomato 
-artichoke heart
-pepperoncini
-fresh herbs from our garden: basil and parsley

Homemade Pizza Sauce (quick and easy)

You want your pizza sauce to be smoother and thicker than normal tomato sauce or marinara sauce.

-3 small cans hunts tomato sauce

-1 can tomato paste

-Oregano, garlic powder, basil, 2 teaspoons each 

-1/3 onion, very small chop

-2 teaspoons minced garlic

Spray pam in small saucepan, brown onion and add garlic in last minute of browning. Add the 3 cans of tomato sauce and spices, simmer for 15 minutes. Add tomato paste, simmer for 10 more minutes.

From our kitchen to yours :-)