Perfect Veggie Pizza

We love pizza at our house, so for lunch today I took my usual homemade pizza recipe and transformed it into a delicious vegetarian pizza.

Perfect Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

• 1 envelope active dry yeast (I use quick rising)
• 1-1/2 cups warm (not hot) water
• 1 Tablespoon organic sugar (next time I may try honey)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups organic brown rice flour (first time for me to replace bread flour with rice flour in my crust)
• 2 cups organic whole wheat flour
• organic cornmeal

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and wait about 5-10 min.  Add the sugar, salt, and flours (slowly). Stir to form a soft dough (may be sticky).
Turn onto a floured surface; knead about 5 min. Place in a bowl greased with olive oil, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour but you can cheat on the rising time and it will turn out fine. Punch down the dough. Press onto a pizza stone that's been greased with olive oil and sprinkled with cornmeal.  Add organic vegetarian toppings of your choice and drizzle with organic EV olive oil before baking. Bake at 425° for 15 minutes or until crust is golden brown and toppings are lightly browned.

Sauce  
1 small can organic tomato sauce
1 teaspoon organic oregano
1/2 teaspoon organic red pepper flakes
4 torn basil leaves

Toppings we like (all of the veges are organic on my pizza)
3/4 bag of daiya cheddar style shreds (This was my first time to use this dairy free cheese, and it actually turned out great!)
3 cloves minced garlic
asparagus
sliced mushrooms (I use Shiitake)
fresh spinach leaves
bell pepper (I used red)
red onion
seeded grape tomatoes
drained and chopped water packed artichoke hearts
sliced black olives

We also like a little organic grated Parmesan cheese on top of our pizza after it comes out of the oven. My healthy version of our favorite pizza recipe was a hit today....no leftovers!

UPDATE 5/22/11 - Since transitioning to vegan, we now use nutritional yeast instead of Parmesan.