Loaded Veggie Pizza

This was my first attempt at making an entirely homemade pizza.  I used a combination of 2 recipes for the crust; Wolfgang Puck’s Whole Wheat Pizza Crust & the Hy-Vee Seasons magazine from my local grocer.  The crust was very thin and crisp.  The sauce was very simple but very good.  Use any veggies you like.

Ingredients

Crust recipe:
3 ¾ cups whole wheat flour
1 ¼ cups hot water
1 package of active dry yeast
1 T. honey
Pinch of salt

Pizza sauce recipe:
8 oz. Hunt’s no salt added Tomato Sauce
1 t. oregano
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

Veggie Toppings
6 sweet mini peppers (2 of each color, red, yellow & orange) sliced in rings
2 cups broccoli florets
½ cup green olives, rinsed & halved
¼ red onion, finely diced
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
Oregano to sprinkle on top

Instructions

Prepare whole wheat pizza dough first.  Using a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in the hot water.  Add the honey and let sit for 5 minutes, until foamy.  Next place the flour, yeast and salt in a food processor using the dough hook.  Process until the dough forms a ball and everything is mixed well.  Transfer the dough to a nonstick bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Let the dough rise in a warm place for about 1 ½ hours, until it doubles in size, or overnight in a refrigerator.  Punch dough in the center and divide into 2 equal parts.  Roll dough out on flour parchment paper to cover pizza pan.  (I use a pizza stone I purchased as Sur la Table).  Leaving the dough on the parchment paper, place the crust on top of pizza stone just so you can see how big to make the pizza.  Then remove the pizza stone and place in a preheated oven to 500 degrees on the middle rack. 

Using a small bowl mix all of the pizza sauce ingredients together.  This can be made ahead of time to let the flavors blend together while the dough is rising.  Spread entire amount of sauce on top of the crust.

Arrange the veggies in random pattern on top of the sauce.  Sprinkle extra oregano on top of veggies.  Remove pizza stone from hot oven (be very careful not to burn yourself, this stone will be very hot!)  Slide the pizza on to the stone; do not remove the parchment paper.  Bake 10 to 12 minutes until sauce starts to bubble and the veggies & crust starts to brown.