Meatless Monday — Pizza Pizza

Friday nights are pizza night at our house, and since James got a pizza stone for Christmas a couple of years ago, we make pizza from scratch. Making your own pizza might be a little more work than making the normal dinner but the reward is great. It taste so good, is much healthier and everyone can put whatever they want on their pizza. I love lots of veggies and goat cheese on mine while hubby wants lots of cheese and soy pepperoni. Bella wants cheese and pineapple, and Noah — well, he likes everything on his. I do make my own pizza sauce but if short on time, you can easily use a canned pizza sauce. We like thin crust best. This is recipe for it.

 Thin pizza crust:

• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 ½ cups warm water
• 3 ½ cups white spelt flour or all purpose white flour + more for kneading and rolling out crust

Blend all wet ingredients except for 1 Tbsp. olive oil in a large bowl. Add yeast and blend. Add flour and work to a very nice shiny dough. Rub the 1 Tbsp. reserved olive oil over the dough. Let it rest for 1 hour under a towel. Remove dough from bowl, and knead and punch any air out of the dough. Use a rolling pin to make a thin crust. We bake our pizzas on a pizza stone but you can also bake it on a cookie sheet. Place tomato sauce, cheese and whatever you fancy on the pizza. Bake in oven preheated to F500 (it has to be a hot oven to bake a crispy crust).

 Pizza sauce:

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• ¼ cup yellow onion, minced
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 Tbsp. dried oregano
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 tsp. sugar 
• ½ cup hot water
• Salt to taste
• Black pepper to taste

Heat oil on medium heat in a saucepan. Fry garlic and onion for 1 minute but don’t let them brown. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Place in blender or food processor and blend until sauce is smooth. Done!!