Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Quick Veggie Pizza

This was my first time making pizza dough from scratch, and I really liked it! I found a recipe on allrecipes, changed it slightly and doubled it for my family. Even though it uses yeast, the rising time is only thirty minutes, which was fantastic for a weeknight meal. The only flour my recipe uses is all purpose, and I thought the crust came out great. The dough was incredibly soft to work with and a cinch to roll out. The girls really wanted to see if I could toss the dough, so I did, and to my amazement, it stretched out amazingly. The dough stayed uniformly round when I rolled it, but changed into interesting shapes when I tossed it three or four times. So, that was a fun twist. Some shapes fit on my pizza pan, and some had to be baked on a large cookie sheet. I thought by doubling the dough recipe that I'd have just enough for five mini pizzas, but instead, I ended up with five full-size pizzas, yum! It was the tossing that did it. After the short rise time, the dough already had a sourdough-y fragrance, and I found that very appealing. One thing I will do differently next time is to not make all the crusts ahead of time: even with plenty of flour in between layers of uncooked crusts, they all stuck together, and I had to re-roll and start over. But, it was so quick, it wasn't that big of a deal. There is sugar in this recipe, and some sort of sweetener in all the recipes I searched, so I just decided to put it in. I think I'll give it a try without the sweetener next time, and see if there's a marked difference. With the simplicity of ingredients and the quickness of the meal, I can definitely see me making homemade pizza frequently in our home!



A close-up of Quick Veggie Pizza


What my dough looked like after rolling.

How big it got after a few tosses!


Its fun, quirky shape straight from the oven! What was fun for the Blessings, is that everyone's pizza had a unique shape.

Quick Veggie Pizza

Ingredients:

Crust:

2 pkgs. or 1 and 1/2 Tbs. of active dry yeast
2 cups of warm water
4 cups of flour
1 and 1/2 Tbs. olive oil
2 tsp. salt
1 and 1/2 Tbs. vegan or raw sugar

Your Favorite Veggie Toppings:

We used:
Organic pizza sauce
Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet cheese, cheddar style, finely shredded
Tomatoes, halved and sliced
Can of black olives, sliced in thirds
Dino kale, stripped from stems and torn or coarsely chopped
Mushrooms, sliced

Directions:

In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let rest for ten minutes. Combine the remaining crust ingredients in a large bowl, along with the yeast mixture, and mix well. Cover bowl with a damp towel, and let rise for 30 minutes. Punch dough down and divide into five sections. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a floured surface, roll out one section of dough to about the size of a plate. Pick up and gently toss with your hands, until it's at least one and a half times its original size. Put on your baking sheet or pizza pan, and load with toppings. Bake for 20 minutes. While baking, make your next pizza. (I did not try to bake more than one pizza at a time because I thought they may stay undercooked, and I wanted this first time to be a success. However, I may do that the next time I make these to test my theory.) Remove from oven and let rest for five minutes before slicing. So good and easy! Feeds five hungry vegans, with leftovers for lunch the next day!

22 comments:

  1. Yum....Pizza...:o) I haven't tried making my own crust yet, but I have really been wanting to. The dough recipe that you used sounds easy and good! I have several dough recipes at home that I want to try. I can't wait to try tossing the pizza dough...that ought to be interesting....lol

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  2. That's awesome! I want to try tossing it too!

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  3. a heart pizza made with love!=) looks scrumptious!

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  4. of course they wanted to see mom toss the pizza dough around!

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  5. Michelle (LLV), I can hardly wait to hear how tossing turns out for you! :-)

    Millie, grab a napkin, already!

    FF, yay, everyone should toss!

    Kelli, I noticed it was a heart when I loaded the pic. I was unintentionally adorable!

    Michelle (DD), yes, they sure get kicks out of getting me to do things.

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  6. Tossing pizzas! What fun! I knew you'd be a natural with pizza dough with all the bread baking you do!

    I think you need the sugar to feed the yeast.

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  7. I love homemade pizza dough - it makes the pizza so special! Mine never turn out round, either, but I think that's my skills. I love all those black olives on top, too.

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  8. Rose, I didn't use the special flour you did, but I would like to try to go more "official" with a future batch. This was financially-friendly for me right now. I had no idea yeast needed to be fed; I wonder why that's not the case with regular bread? I must do research! And, tossing pizzas was fun!

    Jessica, I thought the unpredictable shapes were fun and individuality to everyone's pizzas. Yay for olives!

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  9. Great! My family loves pizza, and it is so nice to make your own dough!

    Ciao
    A.

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  10. Oh, I would love to see some of your recipes, Alessandra! I bet they are delicious!

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  11. "What was fun for the Blessings, is that everyone's pizza had a unique shape." I sure hope you're properly preparing them for life out in 'the real world'. Otherwise, that pizza is the best looking I've seen in years.

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  12. Yes, we want to see a picture of the tossing next time. Don't think I've ever tossed dough before. Your pizza looks yummy and bonus that it made 5 pizzas. I usually make two at a time, and it's starting to not be quite enough.

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  13. Oh, I thank you, S.V., for your undying concern over my children's welfare! It touches me so to know how you care...sniff. And, thanks for the compliment on the pizza. :-)

    Jenny, Yes, having a picture of me tossing would be interesting, wouldn't it! Two pizzas would so not be enough for my snarfy gang. As it is, some of them ate their entire pizzas for dinner and had no leftovers for lunch - boo hoo for them!

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  14. I always use strong bread flour for my pizza bases, but I'm going to follow your example next time and try plain (all-purpose) flour. But I'm afraid I don't have the courage to throw them! They'd be sure to land on the floor!
    I love that your children were thrilled to have different pizza shapes! We always enjoyed simple pleasures, too! And still do! :)

    Penny (Scottish Vegan Homemaker)

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  15. Re: the sugar/yeast relationship...don't take my word for it...that's just what I learned and have always put a pinch of sugar in with my yeast...maybe it depends on the kind you use...if you make your awesome bread loaves and rolls w/o adding sugar then, I may have been laboring under a misapprehension.

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  16. Hi, Penny, oh, you must try and toss your pizzas next time! And have John take a picture while you're doing it - we'd all love to see it in action! :-)

    Rose, thanks for coming back for further clarification. I definitely do NOT add sugar to the yeast in my bread or rolls, so maybe I'll experiment with the pizza dough without it next time and see what happens. Oh, my lucky family, always subject to my experiments!

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  17. I always end up with weird shaped dough :) I just made pizza dough in the bread maker recently! Yours looks great.

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  18. Hi, Carissa - I didn't realize you could make pizza dough in the bread maker! I have one but never use it. I should definitely start experimenting with it, I guess.

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  19. Pizza is a winner every time! Yours looks yummy. :-)

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  20. I agree, Fayinagirl, and thank you!

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  21. This pizza looks so luscious. Maybe it is also good if you have hot ketchup on top! Oh my, that so yummy! Hey, tomato sauce might stain your teeth. So you should remind your kids to brush their teeth after, and it is also better that they floss after eating to remove the debris within the teeth.

    Kristen Marlin

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