What Did You Say Pizza? You Want Me to Eat You!?

Ohhhhhh pizza how I love thee.  Sometimes, you just need the comfort of a good 'ol pizza.  And lucky for me, I have a Sicilian fiance who is very good at attending to that need.  Since becoming vegan, we've tackled the challenge of making a vegan pizza TASTE GOOD.  There is no dairy, no oils, no meats.  Hooray!

SUPER GARLICY GOOD PIZZA
Getting Started:
1.First, go get yourself a pizza stone.  They go for about $10, and we use it once a week.  It is VERY handy.
2.  Second, go get some cornmeal.  This is a lifesaver.  By spreading it under your dough, you save yourself the trouble of peeling chunks of your pizza off the stone to eat it. 
3.  You will need dough.  Go ahead and get the pre-made dough.  We found sprouted whole wheat grain dough that was fantastic.  (Go for the wheat over the white).
4.  Preheat your oven to 375.
5.  Have 3 cloves cut garlic ready, handful of basil, your favorite or homemade tomato sauce, vegan cheese, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder and toppings you love (mushrooms, onions).

Working the Dough:
This is actually pretty easy.  Slap a good amount of the corn meal to cover the pizza stone.  Grab your refrigerated dough (make sure you keep it in the fridge before use, it makes it much easier to work with) and before you place it on the pizza stone work it with your hands into a circle.  Pull it a little and spin it and you will see it work itself out nicely.  Once you've pulled it to about twice the size it came, go ahead and drop it down onto your pizza stone.  Wiggle it around so the bottom coats with corn meal.  Gently push and pull the dough towards the outside of the stone, keeping a uniform thickness.  We like to fold up the edges for a good crusty bite.
After you have played with the dough to make it fit your pizza stone take the 3 cloves of carlic you finely chopped and spread it like paste all over the dough.  Add your oregano, a little garlic power and onion powder - to taste.  (We put a little vegan cheese on our crust above).

Now you are going to go ahead and stick it into the oven!  Yes, into the oven before you put anything else on.  Put it in for about 15 minutes or until the crust is just starting to firm up and you can "tap" it without making an indent.

I know it's tempting, but don't eat it yet.  When you pull it out of the oven it will smell so good!  It's now time to start adding the rest of your ingredients.  Boost your oven up to 405 while we do the next step.

With a spoon take your tomato sauce and swirl it around to cover your dough.  Add as much as you like, we add a lot because Tommy loves sauce.  AND since we pre-cooked our dough, the center doesn't get as soggy, if at all!









Oh yes.  This is looking really good.










Even better.

Now start adding the toppings you love.  We chose sweet red onion, because I flippin' love onions. 

Spread them out evenly to cover.

If you use different toppings, just watch, because the more water that is in your topping, the more likely you may come out with a soggy pizza.

 
Now for some vegan cheese and fresh basil from our backyard.  And folks, I highly recommend growing your own basil.  It's not only awesome for pizza but we've used it for so many other things.  Plus it grows like crazy too, so you'll always have some. 

Time to stick that pizza back into your 405 degree oven for another 15-20 minutes.  Depending on your toppings you may need more or less time.  You'll know when it's brown and the crust is pretty hard to touch.


Don't be afraid, until you get the hang of it, to take it out and shoe a spatula under the pizza and lift it a bit to see if your crust is hard, if not throw it back in!    After it comes out it will look something like this!  Grab a pizza slicer and start cutting!

And then after 3 minutes it will look something like this!!





ENJOY!