Gratitude Monday - Pizza Edition

I like pizza.
I am not alone.
I am gluten intolerant.
I'm not alone in that either.
It's not a difficult thing to manage as gluten free pizza crusts are reasonably easy to make and fairly tasty.
But sometimes they just don't do the trick.
I am grateful that I can handle a bit of gluten now and again.
To that end I raided our spelt flour stores the other day and made pizza dough.
It had to be sifted as it has more than its fair share of bran in it. It'll work that way, but I was in the mood for a soft, easy to manage dough.
While it was based on a recipe I made my own variations including playing fast and loose with the measurements of flour and olive oil.
I like what I did:

I really missed fluffy dough.

It was topped with emmentaler, a three year old cheddar ostensibly made from unpasteurized milk, and goat mozzarella, along with a pepperoni that had cheddar in it, elk smokies, mushroom, onion, green pepper, and tomato sauce.
Also, I threw chipotle pepper flakes in the dough.

It worked out and it was reasonably tasty.
For that I am grateful.

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.

Gratitude Monday - Gluten Free Edition

I am so grateful that I've learned to make gluten free pizza crusts. I've tried several versions of them over the past few years and for the most part they've worked well.

The above was our dinner last night. I made the crust ahead of time, par-baked it on the solid pizza pan and froze it. This maneuver allowed me to--after thawing--top it and then bake it on a perforated pan for a crispier crust.
If you're wondering, the gluten-free crusts tend to be very cake batteresque. There may be exceptions, but I haven't found any yet.
This version of a crust was made from rice, sorghum, and almond flours with psyllium husks as a gluten substitute. It made for a light yet filling crust.
The toppings were caramelized onion and mushroom, tomato sauce (paprika, garlic, thyme, and a wee bit of cane syrup) fresh onion in rings, green pepper, smoked Farmer's Sausage, a type of sheep cheese whose name I don't recall, Bulgarian sheep cheese, and soya mozzarella.

I am grateful for the crust and for the toppings that worked out very well.
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Happy Christmas Eve to all, and to all a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2013.

Gratitude Monday -- Jerusalem Artichoke Edition

Stemware was a feature of the gifts for my most recent birthday.  Champagne flutes and liqueur glasses to be be precise. They're wonderful. I appreciate them. But it left me with the problem of where to store them as the cabinets where they should go were full.

Husband suggested the unthinkable: throw something out.

He had a valid point. Most of the cabinets and shelving in the kitchen are devoted to a wide variety of herbs in various forms. Most of these were what he grew in his garden back when he ran a health food store.  Some got sold, portions were used, most were stored and forgotten.
I went through the jars and buckets and found much to be tossed and not without regret. Marshmallow root is a good gluten substitute, I discovered. I also discovered it wasn't for me.
I tossed out old gum weed and sage and horehound and hyssop.  I  could not part with many foundlings including some yarrow and labrador tea and licorice root.
Others were saved, many were tossed, and one treasure was found. We have Jerusalem artichoke both dried and powdered to flour.
I'd forgotten about it. It was still good and I decided it must be put to good use.  A quick hunt around the IntraChoobs told me it could be used as potato starch (one of its nicknames is the Canadian Potato) and up to 1/4 cup could be used in baking.
This stuff works really well. I added it to the gluten-free flour mixture I use for rice bread swapping out the half-cup of potato starch for 1/4 cup each Jerusalem artichoke and potato starch.
It has an earthy, musty, nutty flavour that I found appealing and said loaf didn't fall as much as it commonly does.
I am grateful we have this in the house. I am grateful my husband grew them and I am grateful it goes so well in baking.
Here's a pizza with a crust that included Jerusalem artichoke flour. It's tasty and fluffy and we couldn't taste the musty, nutty, earthy flavour in it at all.

Gluten-free and cow dairy-free.

Like Real Pizza, but Gluten and Dairy Free

Shrimp and 'Shroomie Pizza

I discovered a recipe for gluten-free pizza crust that's so good it may have turned me forever.
It's made from rice flour with tapioca and potato starch and it tastes similar enough to white flour to pass.
It's from Bette Hagman's book More from the Gluten-Free Gourmet (Henry Holt, 1990). The recipe is  actually for lactose and soy free crumpets.
 The instructions for adapting it including spreading the dough on a pizza tin or the like and letting it rise for only 10 minutes. How easy is that?
Hagman has proper pizza crust recipes in a different cookbook, but I don't own it so I went with this one.
The first time I tried it I poured the dough--it's cake batter consistency--into pie plates and make three individual crusts.
It worked well.

Yesterday I decided to try a full-sized crust. This took a bit of thinking as the pizza pan I use has holes in it. It makes for a lovely crust, but batter would pour through. I set down wax paper on it and it worked fine.
It's supposed to be covered as it rises, but I
A) don't have anything large enough
b)couldn't come up with a solution
c)decided to see what would happen if I didn't
It was fine.
What I did:
I baked the crust for 15 minutes, let it cool, and then froze it. I was still debating whether to have pizza or not last night. Freezing it gave me time to think.
Commercial rice flour crusts tend to be smaller than what I made, and they tend to be sweet. Most commercial rice flour goodies be they bagels or crumpets lean to the sweet side and it's kind of off-putting.
This crust wasn't although I have to confess I likely used a bit less sugar than was called for. I'm not into careful measuring.
The point is, it worked well.
I'm gluten intolerant, not celiac, so I have the option of using flours like spelt and rye and kamut in my baking.
I can even have commercial pizza now and again.
But this crust was so good that it may have turned me forever.
For the record, the toppings were mushroom, shrimp, pineapple, onion, and green pepper, and soy cheese making it dairy-free as well.
Husband was so taken with it he thought he may want pizza every night unto eternity.
The crust is good enough to warrant it.

Gratitude Monday -- Pizza By Phone Edition

I like delivery pizza. It's quick, easy as all get out, tasty, and fun.
Clean up after delivery pizza is also quick and easy.
We had a stretch of gloriously warm weather here last week. I didn't feel like cooking most days and neither did I have to. My husband has been working out of town the past two weeks. I am left to my own devices.

A homemade deep-dish pizza that husband and I made. He wasn't home and I wanted pizza. What choice did I have?

 Yes, I can cook. Yes, I do cook. I even make cupcakes last week with the chocolate that my poor husband can't eat.
But one day I wanted pizza and it was too gloriously hot to make it from scratch.  I checked a few of the local places out and decided that I'd have Panago*.  I have wheat and dairy intolerances and I have really good luck with that company.
I had them make me a thin crust multigrain with goat cheese, spinach, and grilled veggies. In a moment of  uncompromising self-sufficiency I drove over and got it myself.
It was so tasty that it is all I want to eat now. I almost got another one yesterday.
Thank you pizza and inventors of same, and Panago for being so easy on my food issues.

* I don't work for Panago. No one paid me to say anything good about the company.

Gratitude Monday -- Alternate Pizza

Today, like most days, I am grateful for pizza. In this case I am grateful that we have access to good Spelt flour so we can make our own.
Commercial pizzas are okay from time to time. In fact it's probably a blessing that both my husband and I have wheat intolerance or we'd have delivery pizza more times than is good for us.
We found some good quality Spelt flour that is ground finely enough for a decent pizza crust without having to first be sifted. It also makes an adequate loaf of bread and pie crust, too.
We enjoy inventing our own pizza. Mike makes the deep-dish crust and I am in charge of toppings.
It's tasty and reasonably healthy and it's a great way to warm up the house on a cold day. I'm grateful for that, too.
Above, the fluffy deep-dish crust that held our recent effort. If you're wondering, it had slow-roasted beef with onion, pepper, Vlahotiri and Kefalotiri cheeses as well as soy cheese, tomato paste thinned with white wine, spinach, portobello mushroom, cilantro, oregano, thyme, and fresh tomato.
It was very good, and I'm grateful for that, too.