Vegan Pizza!!!

I love just how economical it is to make pizza. It is a perfect meal if you’re on a budget.  Homemade pizza is definitely a family favorite meal at our house. This recipe enough food for a couple of nights. The pizza dough only consists of a few ingredients: flour, sugar, yeast, and water.  If you’d like, you can even flavor the dough.  When I want to change things up a bit, I’ll add some garlic powder to the dry ingredients.  

I’m sharing with you all of my recipes for pizza night.  Which includes the dough, sauce, and tempeh sausage.  ENJOY!

Pizza Dough

Be prepared.  This recipe requires letting the dough sit through two rises.  Total preparation time is approximately three and a half hours.  Below is my recipe for making two 12 inch and two large sheet pizzas.  Despite the time, this method of dough preparation is really easy because it uses a food processor.  The food processor will do the kneading for you. This recipe will feed a VERY hungry family of four for two nights. 

Ingredients

4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
3 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 abundant teaspoon sugar

Preparation

Note: for this recipe, I heat the oven to 500 degrees.  You will not need to preheat the oven until the dough has sat for over two hours. 

In a mug or small bowl, add yeast, sugar, and 1/4 cup hot water (approximately 105 degrees).  Let sit for 10 minutes.  The yeast water should get frothy and have doubled.  If it’s not frothy, check your water temperature or you may need new yeast. 

In your food processor, add the flour, salt, 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil.  Process for a few seconds to mix ingredients.  Add in your yeast mixture and pulse a few times.  Next, turn your processor on and slowly add water through the feed tube of your processor.  You may not need all of  the water or you may need a few more tablespoons.  Your dough will first be crumbly as it processes.  Then, as you gradually add water, it will combine into a hard dough.  Total process time is approximately 2 minutes.

Prepare a large glass bowl with 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.  Take the dough out of the food processor and make into a large ball.  Place pizza dough into the bowl and spin it around in the oil until all of it is covered by oil.  Place a damp kitchen towel over the bowl with the pizza dough and let it rise for two hours.  After two hours, put the dough on a floured work surface and cut dough into 4 or more pieces.  First I cut the dough in half, then each half is cut so that one dough is cut into 1/3 and the other into approximately 2/3s piece.  Roll each piece of dough into a ball, and leave some space between each dough ball to rise.  Place damp towel over the rolled dough balls, and let them sit for one hour.  After an hour of sitting, roll out dough directly in your pizza pan.  I generally use corn meal instead of flour to roll the pizza dough, but use flour if you prefer.  Any unused dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap in stored in the refrigerator for two to three days.  When ready to use refrigerated dough, let it sit on the counter at room temperature for an hour or so.

About twenty minutes before you are ready to bake your pizza, heat your oven to 500 degrees.  After your pizza is rolled and topped with your toppings, place the pizza on the middle rack of your oven.  After baking for 5 minutes, place your pizza on the top shelf.  Let bake for about 4-5 minutes.  Keep an eye on your pizza so that it doesn’t burn.  Total bake time is approximately 10 minutes for a nice crispy crust.  Just keep an eye on it, it cooks fast. 

Pizza Sauce

Tempeh Sausage

The CHEESE!

Putting it all together