Pizza is a truly marvelous food. It’s versatile, cheesy, and crazy tasty. How could something that uses cheese so generously not be a thing of wonder? Anyhow, I doubt I have to convince you that pizza is delicious. You’ve probably had it before and that means you know it’s delicious, so I shall digress.

You can always order a pizza, but those get old quickly. They all taste the same and there’s only so many flavours. Also, I find most of them have meat on them, and the vegetarian ones are usually very uninspiring. Insipid tomatoes, unseasoned mushrooms, and a bunch of other unglorified vegetables. How sad.

I like to make my pizzas with luxury vegetables. Caramelized onions, fire roasted bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and slowly sautéed mushrooms. Chèvre. Garlic. Basil chiffonade. Mmm.

Homemade Pizza Dough

3 cups flour
¼ cup cornmeal
2½ tsp yeast
2½ tsp salt
1¼ cups warm water
¼ cup olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried basil
½ tsp dried thyme

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Cover, and let sit in a warm place for at least two hours, and up to five.

At this point you can use it as is or refrigerate the dough for up to two weeks and use it when you want some pizza.

To turn the dough into pizza, dust it and your hands with flour. Pull off a tennis ball shaped lump and gently stretch it out, a little at a time, avoiding making holes, until it’s pizza sized (whatever you want that to be). Gently lay the dough out on a greased and floured cookie sheet

While your oven preheats to 400ºF prepare your toppings. I’d recommend pesto, caramelized onions, chèvre, and mozzarella cheese.

Dress your pizza and bake until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbling, probably at least 20 minutes, but that will vary with the size of your pizza.