I might be back... :)

SO...It's been a while...something like 2 years. So here's a quick recap:

• Our family grew! We welcomed Malachi (Mac) to our family a little over a year ago. What a blessing! 
• I quit my (day) job to become a stay at home mom. There are days when I wish I could send my little one to daycare and go back adult land, but they are few and far between and are usually associated with grandma withdrawal.
• While still intentionally gluten-free, I have had 2 incidents of cross contamination (in small amounts) in the last year, with very little effect on my system. I'm still not brave enough to try a noodle and see what happens.

I've started to mix my own baking flour using this recipe from www.frugalfarmwife.com.  I have also used equal volumes of brown rice flour, white rice flour, and cornstarch. It works great and even though I'm not grinding my own, using cornstarch and white rice flour from the hispanic food section of the grocery store saves a bundle!

There might be a shift from the 'just food' side of things if I come back permanently. We'll see :)

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Tomato Soup

Tonight's menu was grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Most of us know that both grilled cheese and tomato soup (at least almost every kind that I've seen at the store) have gluten in them. But we had it.

Grilled Cheese

• 2 slices Gluten Free Pantry Favorite Sandwich Bread (made with water and oil)
• Your favorite cheese
• Butter for the outside of the bread :)
• Make sure to make gluten-free sandwiches first! Then you can just use one pan.

Tomato Soup

• 1 - 12oz can tomato paste
• 2 - canfuls water
• 2 - tsp Watkins chicken soup boullion
• 2 - tsp basil
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• Shredded cheese and Garlic to taste

Heat on stove, simmer until time to eat.

It made a wonderful meal...hopefully it makes it back on the menu again sometime soon!

Sunflower Blossoms!

I remembered to take pictures this time :)

Most of this blog has been written about things being gluten-free. However, I also have to be very careful with peanuts/peanut butter as well (I can have 5 pb m&m's. I'm not brave enough to try more). This may be 'old news' to some out there, but this spring I discovered a product called sunbutter. I didn't see it in the grocery stores around here until probably August or so, but it tastes a lot like peanut butter. SO I decided to make peanut blossoms, substituting Domata Gluten Free flour and Sunbutter for the flour and peanut butter. They look and taste super yummy! (sometimes I have issues with the 'look' part of the yummy).

I used the Better Homes and Garden's recipe, and the only other change I made was using heavy whipping cream instead of milk. They are not quite as sweet as regular peanut blossom cookies, because the sunbutter isn't as sweet as peanut butter, but they are super yummy, and not everything needs to be crazy sweet, right?

Rolling out dough

I baked cut-out cookies last Saturday for a cookie exchange (non-gluten free), and was a little nervous about getting a bunch of (wheat) flour floating around in the room and all over my hands. As I was wondering what to do, I got the idea to use the gluten-free flour to roll out the dough. I decided to try it on the first batch, and if it didn't work, I could just clean up and take the risk...It worked wonderfully, and my dining room table wasn't at risk to be a cross-contamination nightmare!  Success.

Homemade Pizza Night

Gluten-free pizza for me!

Our meal planner for last week read 'homemade pizza' and my heart skipped a beat. I really like pizza, and homemade is the best. Now. I obviously can't eat regular pizza (if I could, I wouldn't have anything at all to blog about!), but I'm also not going to make Tim eat gluten-free pizza. The solution I've come up with is a cross-contamination avoidance system. I almost always do my pizza making the same way, and take special care not to get any gluten in my food. So far, it's worked.

I start out with the regular crust. I typically use a regular loaf of frozen white bread (they come in bags of 2-5 in the freezer section at most grocery stores).  I let that thaw and rise during the day, and before doing any other prep work, I get that crust ready to go, cover it with a tea towel and set it aside.

Regular pizza for everyone else!

Then I wash my hands and clean the counter and get ready to prep toppings while the regular crust is rising. Last night we used ham cubes, italian turkey sausage and pepperoni cubes so all I had to prep was the italian turkey sausage. I season my own turkey so I can control what goes in it, so I browned a pound of plain turkey burger with italian seasoning, garlic and a little bit of fennel.

Then I seasoned the sauce. I also use plain tomato sauce, so that I control what goes in there, and I season that as well with italian seasoning, garlic and a little bit of fennel (fennel is what gives pizza sauce its distinctive flavor).



Then I put sauce and all of the toppings on my gluten-free crust. I usually buy frozen brands, and haven't found one that is a whole lot better than the next, although they do all taste a little different. I like to change it up from time to time too - it keeps things interesting.

All in the oven at once!

After I add all toppings to my pizza, I move it to the table and take the regular crust (which has now had some time to rise) and add toppings to that. If I know I'll have extra sauce, I make sure to pour the sauce so that I don't touch the spoon to the bread and then touch the pizza.

When the regular pizza is ready to go and the oven is hot, I put both pizzas in the oven at once - the gluten-free pizza goes on the higher rack and the regular pizza on the lower rack! This ensures that nothing with gluten in it will drip on the gluten-free pizza...unless gravity breaks while you're baking your pizzas.