Gratitude Monday -- A Lesson You Can Eat

Nothing is a failure if you can learn from it. And, as far as I am concerned, you can learn from anything and anyone at any time.

I like to learn from food. Specifically, I learn what works and what doesn't when making something. Generally speaking, we can eat the result no matter what.

On Saturday I decided to make gluten free pita bread to go with the homemade beef vegetable soup I had simmering on the stove.

I had wondered from time to time what would happen if I cooked the whole lot together rather than breaking off bits of dough for individual pitas.

So I tried it.

I rolled it out onto a pizza pan and baked it.

This:

It was tasty enough, but it stuck to the bottom of the pan. It broke a bit during the flipping, but I pushed it back together as well as I could and popped it back in the oven.
It was cut into pieces later and served as flatbread rather than pita, but so what?
I got to conduct an experiment.
Yesterday I tried it again only this time I cut the dough into thirds. It flipped easier and seemed to be fine. I froze it and will know for a fact next time I want pita bread.

I am grateful for a great many things: forming the thought to experiment, enjoying the process, and getting to eat it afterward.
Learning is tasty.

Gratitude Monday -- Leftover Pizza Edition

By that I mean pizza topped with leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

I'd been craving pizza and had the turkey so I figured, why not?
I threw together a gluten free flour mix made from ground rolled oats, sorghum, coconut, brown rice, tapioca and potato starches as well as ground hazelnuts and almonds.
Next I consulted a wide variety of recipes for use as a jumping off point for my own as I require some idea as to how much yeast, salt, oil, and sugar ought to be used.

I decided along with turkey it needed mushrooms and onion. Further, it needed avocado which I decided to add after it was out of the oven.

Dips are a fine adjunct to pizza. My favourite is chipotle. I had some coconut sour cream that needed using up so I consulted several recipes for chipotle sauce and threw together my own with chipotle flakes and chipotle tabasco in it.
It was a fine addition and I am grateful it, and the pizza, worked out.

A Peasant Surprise

I've been wanting to try a this recipe  from Alexandra Stafford for gluten free peasant bread for a few weeks now, but hot weather and surgery got in my way.
No more of that nonsense.
I've been craving bread for about a week. I made a few loaves in my bread machine and a free hand French loaf.
Playing around with gluten free flours is fun, if frustrating.
Most gluten free loaves rely heavily on rice flour and potato, corn, and/or tapioca starch. The combo works great, but they're all simple carbs . One may as well eat sugar.
I've added in various combinations of bean flours, sorghum, even coconut. The latter is very absorbent.
If I toss in psyllium fibre to help things stick together the dough can be too dry.
A few of last weeks loaves are now serving as croutons and are very good in my version of a tomato-bread salad.
Today I came very close to following the recipe as given. I used sorghum, rice, and coconut flours in it and a whole egg rather than the two egg whites called for. 
I do this simply to be contrary.
I got things going fairly early the baking would be done before the heat of the day.
It worked well.
I will the recipe around and work out how much more liquid it needs, but for right now it is just fine.

My Gluten Free Experiment

I had an idea that the gluten free biscuits I'd made last week would make a toothsome pizza crust.

I was right.

The recipe I consulted called for two cups of flour and used a half-cup each of sorghum and sweet rice flours with a half-cup of tapioca and potato starches. 

Instead for the biscuits I used a half-cup of brown rice flour, a half-cup of sorghum flour and one-quarter cup of coconut flour.

It's important to note here that coconut flour drinks a lot and expands. A quarter-cup of it is equivalent to a full cup of most other gluten free flours such as the above-noted rice and sorghum.

I used a whole egg instead of only egg white as the recipe called for, and added an extra tablespoon of liquid as well. It worked out fine.

For the crust below I used soya flour in place of the sorghum, but that was the only change from my version of the two recipes.

I added two teaspoons of guar gum even as the recipe called for a half-teaspoon of xanthan gum. ( They are interchangeable. Guar is one-third the price, but use xanthan if guar upsets your stomach.)
I also added a tablespoon of psyllium fibre. It helps with stretchiness and it soaks up liquid.
When using coconut flour and/or psyllium it's important to let the dough rest a few minutes. It will set. Liquid will soak up.
It rested about three minutes and then I spread it out on the pan using the back of a spoon. I had to wet the spoon a few times to help things along.
That sort of thing is normal.
I did the crust at 425F for 13 minutes. I'd set the stove timer for 17 minutes, but decided --correctly-- the crust was done.
I made it early in case something went terribly wrong.
It was fine.

Sausage with mushrooms, peppers, and onion.

A light and fluffy crust that supports the toppings.
What more could one ask?