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.

Cheesecake!

It's been a while. Welcome back! Know that while I wasn't doing much blogging, I was still baking and cooking and actually remembering to take pictures! A few weekends ago was opening weekend of pheasant season in South Dakota. Don't worry, this isn't pheasant flavored cheesecake, it was just my excuse to make the cheesecake. This particular cheesecake was tested on the Melstad family, and we like our desserts.

This particular recipe uses a Rice Crispy crust and Mom's cheesecake recipe.


Cheesecake:
5 8oz. pkg cream cheese
1 1/4 C sugar
5 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
5 Tbsp Domata gluten-free baking mix.

Cream sugar and cream cheese together, then add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add flour and mix.

Add any toppings you want (I personally like chocolate chips and candy canes) or split the batter in half and add cocoa to the mix (to taste - I did a rich, dark chocolate) and marble or layer it together.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then turn oven to 300 degrees and bake for 1 hour. Do not remove pan from oven while temperature adjusts.

Top with whatever your tastebuds fancy and enjoy!

Squeeze bottles!

This may seem like a no-brainer to some readers, but about a year ago, I discovered the magic, cross-contamination force field of squeeze bottles! It's amazing how many crumbs don't get into mayonnaise when there isn't a place to stick a gluteny knife...When I'm not the only person that eats jelly anymore, I'll have to use a squeezeable jelly bottle as well.