Homemade Veggie Pizza

My kids love helping make homemade pizza and even better they love eating it! On half of the pizza I put a little cheese and the other half no cheese. Topping are onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, fresh basil, and zucchini really, the options are endless with toppings. For the crust I've done white and whole wheat, both tasting great. Just get online and test out different recipes. Making the dough isn't as hard as I thought it would be, but then using my Kitchen Aid mixer helps a lot! If you do make whole wheat crust just be prepared to wait about two hours for the time it takes to rise! Here is the whole wheat recipe I've used and here is a fast and easy recipe, I got from a friend, for the white crust...

Basic Pizza Dough

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 to 4 cups all-purpose flour

1.  Mix the yeast and water in a small bowl, cover, and let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes.   (If you'd like add 1 teaspoon of sugar to this just to make the yeast lively)

2.  Mix the oil, honey, salt and yeast mixture in a large mixing bowl.  If using a food processor, add 1 cup of flour at a time, up to 3 cups, mixing well after each addition.  You may have to stir in the third cup of flour by hand, depending on your machine.  Or mix in all 3 cups of flour by hand with a wooden spoon.

If the dough seems too wet, mix in more flour, 1/4 cup at a time until the dough is soft.  Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead in more flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until the dough is moderately stiff and somewhat firm to the touch, about 6 minutes.

3.  Lightly grease pizza pan with oil and roll into shape desired or breadsticks etc.  Let rise a couple of minutes before putting toppings on.

For breadsticks:  roll into sticks and brush with butter and garlic salt.  Let rise for about 15 minutes and then bake at 425 for 10 minutes, brushing with more butter/garlic halfway through.

This is a very soft but not sticky dough.  You could probably do this in the bread machine as well.

***I've substituted the oil with applesauce and the honey with agave. Tasted great!