Gluten Free, Grain Free Pizza

 

 

Walt and I are having wonderful success on South Beach.  I'm down 28 lbs., Walt has lost 33!  The problem is, it restricts grain, and we're bread people.  Walt was missing pizza.  (I could do without pizza, since I almost always had a tummy-ache afterwards).  To satisfy our bread cravings, I looked for grain-free breads and found a recipe for Socca, a flatbread from France that uses garbanzo bean flour instead of wheat flour.  I had my doubts, but went to Woodman's, bought some Bob's Red Mill Garbanzo Bean Flour and gave it a try.

 

The method is entirely different from wheat crust - no yeast (!) and it's made from a watery batter.  Hint: Wipe up any spills, it dries like concrete!

 

Equal parts garbanzo bean flour and water plus salt, seasonings and olive oil are whisked together.  It's poured into two screaming hot skillets and baked for 20 minutes. That baked crust is very different.  Different can be yummy, too.

The toppings must be fully cooked before adding to the crust, because it's topped and then put under the broiler only long enough to melt the cheese.  I microwave the veggies with a little water in a covered dish. My pepperoni pizza below has Pastorelli brand sauce, thinly sliced onions, red bell pepper, turkey pepperoni and reduced fat cheese.



 

My Margherita pizza has my own white garlic cheese sauce, grape tomatoes, fresh basil leaves and reduced fat cheese.

 



The white garlic sauce is very easy to make from cream cheese, minced garlic, cottage cheese and parmesan cheese. Just whizz them together in a mini food processor (or stir in a bowl).

 

 



For the Crust
makes 2 10" crusts

1 1/2 cups garbanzo bean flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning blend
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
extra olive oil for the skillets

Whisk together.  Set aside while heating oven and skillets.

If your broiler is at the top of your oven, place one oven rack at the uppermost slot. Another rack should be on the middle slot. Place two 10" cast iron skillets in oven on the middle slot.  Preheat oven to 450F.  When oven and skillets are hot, remove and add 1 tablespoon olive oil to each skillet.  Swirl to coat bottom of skillets.

Add half of batter to each skillet.  Swirl to coat evenly - kinda like making a crepe. Put skillets back in oven and bake 20 minutes.

For the Toppings
While crusts are baking, slice and cook any toppings (except the cheese, natch).  I microwave sliced onion until limp; sweet peppers until just tender.  Pepperoni is already fully cooked, but if I make sausage pizza, I cook it thoroughly then drain very well on paper towels.

For the Red Sauce
We like canned Pastorelli pizza sauce or Sweet Baby Ray's barbeque sauce. 

White Garlic Cheese Sauce
2 Tablespoons cream cheese
2 Tablespoons cottage cheese
2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon minced garlic

Whizz together in mini food processor or stir together until the cottage cheese is smooth.

Doctoring the Crust
When the crusts are done, remove from the oven and wrap a towel around the skillet handles to remind you that they're screaming hot.  Turn the oven off and the broiler on High. 

Spread crusts with a small amount of sauce - 2 tablespoons or less.  Add pre-cooked toppings and cheese.  Sprinkle with additional Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, whatever you like.  I like Lawry's Seasoned Salt.  Place under broiler until cheese melts.  Let it brown as much as you enjoy.

Remove from broiler onto sturdy cooling racks (or your stove grates).  Using a thin metal spatula, loosen crust and slide out onto a cutting board.  Let rest a couple minutes before slicing.

Serve with cold beer or soda.

 

Unexpected Bonus 1 - NO more Pizza tummy-aches for me!

Unexpected Bonus 2 - cast iron skillets get very well seasoned!

 

What do you do when you have lots of leftover sauce?  Using two tablespoons per pizza, the 16 oz. can of sauce goes a long way.  It will go bad in the fridge before I can use it all. So I froze it in an ice cube tray from the dollar store,  popped out the frozen cubes and put them in a zip top bag. On Pizza

 

Night, I pull out a couple of cubes and zap them in the microwave to thaw.  Each cube is about 1 1/2 tablespoons sauce.

What do you put on your pizza?



Solving a Stinky Problem

Have you ever forgotten about that last load of laundry and opened your washer to a big stinky mess?  Or for no good reason, your front loader washer stinks to the heavens?  Here's how to de-stink on the cheap.

Dollar Store!

Rewash the load, adding 1 cup each of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol to the normal amount of detergent.  Use the longest cycle and warmest water appropriate for the clothes. Dry as normal.

If it's just the washer that stinks, wash a load of whites and use bleach, detergent and hot water.  If still stinky, wash again adding detergent, hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol.

To keep the stink away, wash at least one load of whites with bleach each week and keep the washer lid/door open slightly.

To help get white clothes white again, try soaking overnight in plain cold water. It's not an instant fix, but I see improvement with every wash. I keep a 5 gallon utility pail in my laundry room for just that purpose. The next day, dump into the washer, drain it (usually you can choose rinse and spin; my front loader automatically drains extra water before beginning the wash cycle) and then add detergent and bleach and wash in hot water. Works better for me than OxyClean. Be careful about that bucket if you have little ones! 

Cleaning the Stove - part 2

In an earlier post, I shared how I clean my stove top with oven cleaner.  The grates and burners get nasty with burned on grease too.  Here's how I clean them in my self-cleaning oven.

In a previous home, I had pale grey stove grates and burner covers.  No matter how much I soaked or scrubbed, that burned on grease and food wouldn't come off.  They were so nasty looking I was going to buy new ones. One day I was setting the oven to Clean and and grumbled to myself that the part of the stove everyone could see should be at least as easy to clean as the oven.  I figured, "Why not? What's the worst that could happen?  If they're ruined, I was planning on buying new ones anyway..."

Place dirty grates and burners on oven racks.  Make sure they aren't touching.  (I don't know if it truly matters, but that's how I do it).

Close the oven, remove combustibles (dish towels) that you may have hanging on the oven handle.  Set it to Clean.  If you have the option, set it to a 2 hour cycle.

The next morning, after everything has cooled.  Remove the grates and burners.  

See those grey spots?  That's ash where stubborn, burned on grease and food used to be.

These burner tops were spattered too.  Now just rinse and towel dry.

It's the smarter, easier way to clean.

Cleaning the Stove

I have a secret weapon to clean my stovetop: Easy-Off Oven Cleaner*.  Spray it on; let it sit for a few minutes until it looks like this:

Then I just wipe that crud off with a paper towel.

All those little burned-on spatters and the stuff that gets under the burner just wipe right off. I have no clue as to how it gets under there.  It seems to defy the law of gravity by moving under a solid object.  Back to topic.

After I get the melted crud wiped off, I switch to a dishcloth and LOTS of water.  Fill your sink with warm water.  Wipe, rinse the cloth, wipe, rinse. Keep going until all the Easy-Off is, well, off.  If you find any stubborn bits, use a green scrubby.  Now you have a shiny clean stovetop:

Nice!

There's a quick way to clean the burned-on spatter off of your grates and burners too:  The self clean cycle on your oven.  Leave the oven racks in there and place your stove burners and grates on the oven racks.  Set it to self clean.  When the cycle is done and the oven has cooled, your grates and burners will have a fine coating of grey ash.  Rinse in your sink, dry and replace.

*Disclaimer.  This use is totally off-label. Try it on a tiny section first. I wouldn't use for anything other than a gas burning, porcelain stove top.  Other stove surfaces have their own particular cleaners - use them.

Gluten Free Cranberry Chicken and a Couple Kitchen Hints

3 Ingredient Cranberry Chicken

This recipe is so easy and so yummy.  Best of all, it uses ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.

3 Ingredient Cranberry Chicken

4 - 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 (14 oz.) can cranberry sauce

1 (1 oz.) envelope dry onion soup mix, check label for gluten

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray the inside of a baking dish with non-stick.  Use the size that fits your quantity of chicken just right.  13x9" for 6, 8x8" for 4 breasts.  You don't want the sauce to burn, which it will if the dish is too big.

Put chicken breasts in a single layer in dish.

Combine cranberry sauce and onion soup mix; pour over chicken.

Cover and put in oven.  Bake 25 minutes, remove cover and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until the temperature in the center is 160F (stick it in horizontally).  Let stand 10 minutes before serving. 

Good served with rice to soak up all that yummy sauce.  We had potatoes that looked like tennis balls.  My food styling could use a little help.  Next time, I'll remember to cut open the potato and add butter before taking the picture.

Click for printable recipe for 3 Ingredient Cranberry Chicken

A Couple of Kitchen Hints

Remove seeds with a gravy ladle or ice cream scoop

One scoop and almost all the seeds are out.

Contain messes by putting your cutting board in a rimmed baking sheet

The cutting board in a baking sheet hint will come in very handy come summer.  Think watermelon, tomatoes and other juicy fruits.  No more juice running across the counter and dripping onto the floor!  I use it every time I can tomatoes.