Pizza

You can buy ready-made pizza bases but that's cheating. It takes a long time to make this pizza, but its worth it. The measures below are enough for a 12-inch (30 cm) pizza.

Pizza Base

1 lb. (450g) plain 85% wholemeal flour
1 sachet dried yeast
2 tbsp. olive oil
½ tsp. salt
6 fl.oz. (150ml) warm water

See here for advice on abbreviations and measurements.

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix into a dough. Add more water or oil if necessary. Knead for 5 minutes to get air into the dough. Put into a bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise for about half an hour while you make the topping.

Punch down the dough, roll out into a circle on a baking sheet or pizza dish.

Topping

1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 or more cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion
3 tbsp. tomato purée
1 tsp. rosemary
1 tsp. sage
2 oz. hard vegan cheese (e.g. Scheese, Cheezley etc.)
Your choice of topping. I recommend: sliced mushrooms, peppers, sweetcorn, olives, vegan meat substitutes such as Cheatin' Ham.

Fry onion until soft and garlic. Add tomatoes, herbs and purée and cook for a few minutes. Add a handful of wholemeal flour if you want to make the sauce thicker.

Spread the sauce over the pizza base. Add toppings and cover with cheese.
Leave the pizza to stand in a warm place for 15 minutes whilst pre-heating the oven.
Bake at Gas Mark 9 / 250 °C / 470 °F for 15-20 minutes.