Meatless Monday & Mexican Pizza

One of our favorite grocery stores recently started carrying a gluten free Mexican pizza.  It sounded great to us but found that while some of them were great, others were not so good. They were too spicy for one of us and not flavorful enough for others. We really liked the concept, though, so I wanted to figure out an easy version to be able to make on busy school days.  I have tinkered with a couple of crust versions and this is our favorite.  It holds up to the toppings, is a little crunchy and has a nice corn taste.  We liked it rather thick (as you can see in the picture below) but you can always pat it thinner.

The toppings can be anything you like.  We have done pureed pinto and black beans, grated Colby jack cheese, guacamole, salsa, chopped onion, chopped cilantro, sliced fresh from the garden Jalapeños and hot sauce.  You can be creative and add anything you like.

If you’re starting out on the Feingold program you can make this stage one easily.  Just keep the salsas and peppers off and you will still have a lot of flavor.

Mexican Pizza

Have 2 baking sheets covered with parchment or pizza stones ready

Oven to 425 degrees - makes six individual pizzas.

For the crust:

1 package Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Corn Bread Mix

1 Cup Water

2 Eggs

½ teaspoon Cumin

Dash Garlic Powder

Mix everything together for a stiff dough.  Divide into six balls.  Pat each ball into a circle with damp fingers on your parchment lined baking sheet.  Mine were about six inches across. Three crusts fit well on each sheet.

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

For the black bean “sauce” just puree one can of beans with a bit of the liquid in the can - add a bit more if the beans are too thick. You want it to be the consistency of pizza sauce. That will be plenty for six pizzas.

Sprinkle your pizzas with your favorite toppings and put back in the oven briefly – five to ten minutes for us. 

Garnish with salsa and guacamole and enjoy!

Comfort Food Today

Like many people today, I spent much of the day remembering what happened ten years ago. Many prayers were said today for families of those lost and for those serving our country now.

We had crepes filled with ice cream for brunch today - a new comfort food for sure. I'd never made them before but had watched the crepe maker at The Breizh Cafe. Mine were not nearly as pretty as what we had there. It didn't matter a bit - they were eaten too quickly to really notice. We were together and I cherished our time.

I used Arrowhead Mills Buckwheat Flour and adapted the recipe on the back of the package. Buckwheat flour, despite "wheat" in the name is actually gluten free. The recipe, though, called for whole wheat flour and I decided to sub Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix rather than another single gluten free flour. Because they were going to be dessert crepes I used Vanilla Coconut Milk.

Buckwheat Crepes:

2/3 Cup Buckwheat Flour

1/2 Cup Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix

1 Tablespoon Honey

2 Eggs

1 1/4 Cup Vanilla Coconut Milk.

1/4 Cup Butter, melted

Whisk everything but the butter together in a large bowl.

I used a large flat cast iron pan heated to medium hot and spread or pour a bit of melted butter on the pan between each crepe.

Using about 1/2 cup of batter for each crepe, pour into center of pan.  I spread the batter thinly out from the center with this tool until it was as thin as possible.  None were pretty, not one was perfectly round but it doesn't matter.  Just like a regular pancake, when the surface loses its shine and starts to bubble it is ready to flip.  Give it just another couple of minutes and stack them on a plate and covered with a clean kitchen towel to keep them warm as you finish.

Fill them with ice cream and drizzle with honey, fold and enjoy.

Mini Chocolate Chip Pumpkin & Ginger Muffins!

Once Labor Day is behind us it really starts to feel like fall to me - even though it's still pretty hot and humid here. We start some of our homeschooling classes in August because our enrichment activities start early.  After Labor Day weekend our full routine is kicks so now it is time for fall and pumpkin! These mini muffins are the kind of breakfast and snack I love - easy to make, easy to grab and packed full of nutrition.

While I made them in a mini muffin pan today, you can make them larger or even spread the batter into a 13 x 9 pan.  Just adjust the baking time accordingly.

Pumpkin not only tastes like everything wonderful about fall, it's packed with nutrition and fiber. No butter or oil is needed because the pumpkin keeps everything moist and delicious. The crystallized ginger sweetens and spices up the muffins at the same time. I minced the chunks of ginger until they were the size of the mini chocolate chips so the flavors would be evenly distributed.  Enjoy Life mini chips are perfectly sized for mini muffins.

Mini Chocolate Chip Pumpkin & Ginger Muffins
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Prepare muffin pan by greasing or lining with paper liners

1 lb. Almond Meal
6 Eggs
1 cup Reed's Crystallized Ginger, very finely minced
1 can Pumpkin (15 ounces)
1 T Honey
1 T Vanilla
1 T Baking Soda
1/2 t Sea Salt
1 cup Chocolate Chips

Mix everything but Chocolate Chips together until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips and spoon into muffin pans.  Four dozen little mini muffins baked in just under 15 minutes in my oven.

Enjoy!

Happily shared on Gluten Free Wednesdays at Gluten Free Easily!

So close!

First round of honey graham style crackers for s'mores.  Very close but not quite there. There are worse things to do than test s'mores. =D

Elana's Paleo Bread - Yum!

I need to share this recipe now.  Elana of Elana's Pantry always has great recipes but this bread is one of her best in my opinion.  It's hearty, nutritious, moist and delicious.  Easy, too.  

Elana's recipe calls for almond flour and even though I only had almond meal in the pantry I went ahead and gave it a try. The original recipe calls for a smaller pan than I have so I doubled the recipe and made one very large loaf using a standard size pyrex loaf pan. I had to bake it several minutes longer because of the size but it came out perfectly.  With the almond meal, coconut flour, flax meal and all those eggs it's just packed with protein.  A thin toasted slice spread with peanut butter was a really satisfying breakfast. The sandwiches we made with it were wonderful. It's great with butter and it's just perfect plain, too.  Pretty impressive for any bread, let alone a gluten free bread.

Right now I'm working on gluten free graham crackers for end of summer s'mores now so it's back to the kitchen for me. =D