Alas, gone are the days of the meat-lover's pizza, assuming you are going to begin to follow the rules of how foods should or should not be combined. Pizza is one of the junk food lover's basic group of 4 food stuffs. I make them now on rare occasion. They cannot be a part of the regular diet and you need to realize that whatever you eat must balance ph in your body to the alkaline side because cancer also loves an acid condition. With those cautions out of the way, here is something to try. I have given up conventional bleached flours for a number of reasons and have instead come up with a combination of rice, tapioca, and arrowroot that make an effective crust that tastes good as well.

The crust: ( will make 2 large crusts)

1 1/3 cups rice flour

1 1/3 cups tapioca flour

1 1/3 cups arrowroot

1 tbs dry yeast or 1 pk dry yeast

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 tbs stevia (equivalent to sugar volume) or Splenda

1 pk knox unflavored gelatin

1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning spice mix

** 1 tsp xanthum gum (if necessary to help hold the crust together. Experience will be the best teacher.)

Mix all dry ingredients thoroughly in a bowl. The add the following wet ingredients.

2 eggs

3 tbs olive oil

approx 1 1/3 cup warm water

Mix until batter smooth. This will not be like regular dough, but somewhere between cookie dough and muffin batter. It needs just enough body to not run off a cookie sheet yet enough body to be patted out in place with your fingers. Experience will unfortunately be the best teacher. I have tried more like conventional doughs and attempted to use a rolling pin. Pain in the neck with poor tasting result. Unfortunately, this way tastes the best even though it is harder to work with in this state.

I first use a couple of flat cookie sheets (no lips) and grease the bottoms of them. Next I put half the dough on each one and then literally push it to the edges of the sheet with my fingers. I discovered it is necessary to wet your fingers on a regular basis to keep the dough from sticking to them. Once the dough is pushed out and the crust is approx 1/4" thick, I place both sheets in the oven at roughly 150° F. for 12 to 15 minutes to raise. I then pre-bake it with no toppings, sauce, etc... for 10 minutes at 375 ° F. Note I bake only one at a time at the elevated temperature because one cookie sheet above another in most ovens will tend to overcook the bottom crust which is subject to additional reflected heat.

The next thing to do is remove the crust from the cookie sheet and invert it. I found that these crusts are quite unlike regular bread doughs and tend not to encapsulate, but rather become very porous on the bottom side. By turning them over and using the porous side for sauces, you keep the crusts from being overcooked on the underside and doughy on the top. Again, this is just me, and you can try what you want, but I recommend the effort to turn them. Now to the actual problem of how to turn these crusts. Because there is no gluten factor in this dough, it has a tendency to crack on the top as it raises and can fall apart. If you have continual problems with this, the use of 1 tsp of xanthum gum will be necessary. Xanthum will hold the crust together better, but to me it also adds a little toughness to the actual texture. I use a very long, thin spatula from my old grilling days. This seems to get under the crust best without breaking it apart.

I flip crusts over and put them on pizza screens (expanded metal disks with formed metal edge) as these seem to do the best job of uniformly baking the pizza. Leaving the crust on a cookie sheet does work however and for most people seems satisfactory. Using a screen is my preference. Its your choice as to what you want to do.

Next come the sauce.

It takes some effort, but you can find tomato paste or crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce with no additives such as corn syrup or sugar or salt, etc... Contadina tomato paste, for instance is tomatoes only. Two crusts will require 24 ounces of sauce. If made from paste, that is two 6 ounce cans of paste and 2 matching cans of water.

1 tbs granulated garlic. Do not use garlic salt.

1 tbs Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp of coriander (not necessary, but coriander does good things tomato sauces for flavor)

I usually make the sauce up while the crusts are rising and pre-baking. I also prepare the toppings during this time.

I use finely chopped onion, green and/or red bell peppers and mushrooms. NO MEATS! You can be creative with other vegetable toppings such as artichokes, broccoli, celery, etc...

Decorating a pizza is quite simple. Sauce on the bottom and everything else on top. Mushrooms tend to be the last thing I put on as usually I cover the top of a pizza solid with them. I do not use cheese or if I do, it is very, very limited amounts, maybe 2 or 3 oz to an entire pizza. In the old days, I would use upwards of a pound to a pound and one half of mozzarella.

I put them in the oven, one at a time at 375° F for 16 minutes. Then just cut and serve.