Whole Wheat Pizza and Pizza Sauce

Friday night is kind of a celebration around here at the Dobson home.  It's the end of the week and the kids are excited about Daddy being home for two whole days without having to go to work.  Over the last year, Fridays in our home have become our designated pizza night.  The kids look forward to it because they love pizza so much and I look forward to it because it's easy and I always know what we are going to have on Fridays.



I've had to make some adjustments for myself since I cannot have gluten or cow-dairy at the moment.  I haven't found a gluten-free pizza crust recipe I like much yet so I buy the Udi's frozen pizza crusts.  For cheese I use things made from sheep or goat's milk like Feta and Manchego.  For the rest of the family I make a whole-wheat pizza crust.  I have to admit I'm really jealous because it looks, feels, and smells so good.  And my 14-year-old isn't shy to remind me how good it tastes.  I have made many different variations of pizza sauce.  Usually I would just cook up some tomatoes in a skillet with maybe some garlic and olive oil.  Recently we had some of our favorite Turkey Meatloaf with a delicious roasted pepper tomato sauce.  When you roast the tomatoes they smell so delicious and taste so sweet and this got me thinking that it would make a great pizza sauce.  If you look on almost any store-bought pizza sauce it has some kind/amount of sugar in it.  There seems to be a certain amount of sweetness that people like in their pizza and spaghetti sauces.  I like to try to find ways around this because as a country we add way to much unnecessary sugar to our food.  This pizza sauce came out perfect and there was not a drop of added sugar.

Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce
(Enough for 2 med-large and one personal pizza)

Ingredients
4-5 Roma/Plum tomatoes
olive oil
salt
pepper
oregano

Preheat oven to 375 F.  Slice tomatoes in half lengthwise and put them on baking sheet cut side up.  Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper. (roasted garlic would be great in this too.  Just slice off the top of a head and wrap in foil and add to baking sheet).  Put in oven and roast for 1 hour.  Let cool and puree in blender or food processor. You may have to add a little olive oil to get the right consistency.  Season with oregano ( i used about 1/2 tsp) and additional salt and pepper if needed.  I didn't feel I needed it because I had already seasoned the tomatoes.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust
(Makes 2 med-large or 4 personal-size pizzas)

Ingredients
3 cups Whole-Wheat Flour
1 T yeast (1 packet)
1 T honey
1 c warm water
1 t salt
1 T olive oil

In a small cup/bowl mix 1/4 c of the warm water with the honey and yeast.  Allow to sit a couple minutes for the yeast to foam.  In large bowl or stand mixer with a dough hook, combine the flour, salt, olive oil, the remaining 3/4 c water, and the yeast mixture.  Mix and then knead the mixture until it comes away from the side of the bowl and is nice and smooth.  Form a ball and put the dough on a lightly floured surface and cover with a damp dish towel.  Let rise for 1-2 hours.  Separate the dough in 2 or four pieces depending on whether you want large or personal pizzas. Form those pieces in to balls and cover with the damp towel again.  (At this point you could refrigerate/freeze the dough balls.) Let rise for 1 hour.

Put it Together!

To make the pizza, preheat your oven as high it will go (at least 500 F).  Hand toss or roll pizza crusts really thin and place on baking sheets (You could also use a pizza stone.)  The great thing about this crust is that it doesn't seem to stick to the baking sheet and we don't need to put any cornmeal or anything down.  If you are really worried you could use some parchment paper.  Spread a small amount of sauce and add cheese and your favorite toppings.  Bake for 10 minutes.  If making 2 pizzas at once, switch racks halfway through. For the rest of the family, I use just mozzarella that we shred ourselves.  This week we had some pepperoni and added some spinach from our garden. Yum!