It was time to make a pizza at home.  One of my favorite things to do.  What I didn’t have was a lot of time so I could not try out a couple of pizza dough recipes that I had. So I did the next best thing…I went and picked up some garlic and herb pizza dough at Trader Joes.  This is one of the best store bought pizzas doughs that I have tried and it is vegan. They also have regular and wheat dough but I really like the garlic and herb. Usually when I know that I am making pizza I will pick up a few things for toppings, but when I can’t, I will simply use what I have on hand.  That is probably what I would do in Italy so that works for me here too. I just see the stretched dough as a blank canvas.

I actually ended up having a very small window of time to do this, less than 45 minutes. The first thing I did was preheat the oven to 500 degrees and then take the dough out of the fridge and out of the package and let breathe on a floured cutting board for about 15 minutes. While that was going on I assembled what I was going to put on top. I am going to be doing some other pizzas down the road with Daiya cheese, but I decided to forego any vegan cheese tonight.  Not really needed in most cases.  I finely chopped four fresh garlic cloves.  I drained about 3 oz. of julienned sundried tomatoes and set aside.  I did the same with 6 oz. of jarred grilled artichoke hearts.  In a saute pan I put a tbsp of Earth Balance vegan butter and melted and added 2 handfuls of spinach and 3 oz. of sliced mushrooms and sauteed for a couple of minutes to soften things up a bit.  Once the dough was ready I began to stretch it to fit the pan.  I like it so that it has a little thickness on the crusts around the side and thinner in the middle. Once it is in place.  I take a fork and poke the crust all around.

I then spread the chopped garlic and about 3 tbsp. Vegan Basil Pesto (see Aug 21 blog) all over the base of the crust up to about 1 inch from the sides. I then add some Vegan Marinara on top of that (see Sept. 25 blog) and spread gently over garlic and pesto up to about 1 inch from the sides.  This is usually a little less than a cup but you can adjust depending on the size of your crust.  I then distribute the sundried tomatoes around the area of the pizza where the sauce is along with the artichoke hearts.  Then I do the same with the spinach and mushrooms.  I sometimes will put a sprinkle of Italian seaasoning over the top before putting it in the oven.  Usually bakes to perfection in 10-12 minutes.  I usually take it out and let it rest for a couple of minutes and then begin to eat.  I like some red chile pepper flakes on top before eating.

There are a number of places about town where you can find vegan pizza or modify regular pizza to make it so.  But one of the great joys is being able to make it at home and experiment with different toppings and combinations. I just feel what I think would be good and go with it.  Load it up with veggies and a good sauce or pesto or both and just enjoy.  Pizza is not one of the things one has to give up as a vegan.  It is one of the things that it can simply just make better.