Whole Wheat Garden Pizza

I'm calling this my garden pizza because almost all of the ingredients were grown at home, in my garden, which makes me very happy!  It's a (mostly) whole wheat crust, the sauce is a homemade pesto with garden vegetables on top. This was a particularly fun pizza for me to make, because I used a new method in cooking it.  Normally, after stretching out the pizza dough I put it directly on my pizza stone and it goes into the oven.  This time, I heated up the stone in the oven and made up the pizza on a pizza spatula, then transferred it to the hot stone (it makes the crust crispier).  It was crisp and fresh and really tasty! 

I make my pizza dough in a bread maker, I like that it's hands off and super easy.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

1/2 tsp salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil

Place all of the ingredients in your bread maker.  Keep in mind that each bread maker is different, so there may be a particular order to place in your ingredients.  After the dough is made (it takes about 1 1/2 hours), form into a ball and either roll it out, or stretch it out gently (if you know how to make pizza dough that way, if not, you could probably look it up or just roll it out).  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and place your pizza stone in the oven to heat up.  I made my pizza on a pizza peel (spatula) covered with corn meal, to prevent the dough from sticking and then transferred it to the hot pizza stone.  You could also just make up the pizza on the pan or baking dish you are going to be cooking it on.  Then for the sauce, I made a pesto with fresh basil from my garden.

Garden Fresh Pesto Sauce

3 cups basil
1 cup parsley
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup almonds
salt and pepper to taste
 1/2 cup olive oil


In a food processor, blend together everything but the olive oil, until it forms a paste.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and with the processor running slowly pour in the olive oil.  Taste to see if you need more salt or pepper.

Top with fresh, seasonal veggies (I used zucchini and peppers) and shredded mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted.   Enjoy!