Gluten Free Pizza

Still on the look out for a great gluten-free pizza crust. I ran across one on this site, glutenfree goddess. If you are looking for gluten-free recipes, Karina's is a site to explore.

Karina's Gluten-Free Pizza Crust Recipe

Grease two 12-inch pizza pans and dust lightly with gluten-free flour. Set aside. (I sprayed one large jelly roll pan with baking spray)

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients:

2 cups tapioca flour/starch
1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup millet flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 tablespoons organic light brown sugar

Set aside.

Proof the yeast:

1 1/4 cup warm water (between 110 - 115 degrees F)
1 teaspoon organic light brown sugar
1 packet (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast

Dissolve the light brown sugar in the warm water and add the active dry yeast. Stir and let the yeast get happy and puffy.

Add the proofed yeast and water to the dry ingredients.

Mix in:

1/4 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup beaten organic free-range egg whites (or egg replacer for two eggs)
1/4 teaspoon light tasting rice vinegar

Beat the dough until smooth and sticky. The pizza dough should be creamy smooth and not too thick- it's not sturdy like typical bread dough. It almost borders on batter. (I added another 1/8 C water, but mine still didn't look like batter- more like bread dough)

Using a silicone spatula divide the dough in half. Scoop each half onto the center of a prepared pizza pan. Using clean, wet hands press down lightly and flatten the dough to create a thin, even pizza shell, with slightly raised edges. You'll have to rinse your hands more than once to do this. Take your time to smooth out the dough with wet palms.
Set the pizza shells in a warm cozy spot to rest and rise a bit- about 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

When the oven is hot, place the two pizza pans side by side on the center rack (if your oven is too small to accommodate both pans on one rack, you'll need to use two racks; rotate the pans half way through baking time to avoid overcooking on the lower rack).

Bake for ten minutes till golden. (This took me longer- about 3-4 minutes more)

Remove from the oven. Preheat the broiler. I didn't do this step. I left the oven on at 400.

Brush the pizza shell with extra virgin olive oil. Season with sea salt and fresh garlic. Sprinkle with Italian herbs. (I brushed mine with a mixture of olive and garlic oil, and then started adding my veggies). 

I used:

Fresh baby spinach leaves and basil
Roasted beetroot
Roasted winter squash
Feta cheese
Country olives
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil all over the top

Karina says to broil briefly to melt the cheese, 4-5 minutes. I put mine back in the oven, instead at 400.  Either way- Don't over cook.

Cook time:20 min

Yield: Makes two 12-inch pizzas

**Pretty easy crust to make. You could hold it without it breaking. It was pretty good. I will be using this crust recipe again. I'd like to try it next with a tomato paste base.

Pickled Beets-Canned

Here is the recipe I decided to use. I used my own pickling spice (already posted on this blog) although you can buy it locally or online.


To prepare the beets for this recipe you will want to leave the root and 2 inches of the stem on the beet. Beets have a tendency to bleed if you remove these areas too soon.

Scrub the beets thoroughly to remove excess dirt and other particles.

Put the beets in a large sauce pan and add water until the beets are covered. Bring the beets to a boil and cook until tender. This can be 20-40 minutes depending on the size and quantity of beets you are processing. OR you can choose to pressure cook them from 10-30 minutes depending on their size.

Remove cooked beets from sauce pan and run cool water over them. OR you can put them into a bowl of icy water and leave them till you are ready to keep working on them.

You should now be able to easily remove the skin, root and stem of each beet.

Now that you have the beets prepared we can continue with the canning process. This recipe makes about six pint jars. 

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Ingredients for Canning Pickled Beets
3 tbsp - pickling spice

2 1/2 cups - white vinegar
1 cup - water
1 cup - granulated sugar
10 cups - prepared beets

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Directions for Canning Pickled Beets
1. Prepare canner, jars and lids.

2. Put the pickling spice in cheesecloth, creating a spice bag.
3. Combine the following into a large stainless steel sauce pan:
- vinegar - water - sugar - spice bag
4. Bring to a boil over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
5. Reduce the heat and boil for 15 minutes more.
6. Remove the spice bag.
7. Add the beets to the mixture and return to a boil.
8. Remove beets from mixture with a slotted spoon put into hot jars. Leave 1/2 inch of room at top of jar.
9. Ladle the hot pickling liquid into each jar, making sure the beets are covered. Remove air bubbles and add more liquid if required. Again, you want to make sure you leave at 1/2 each of head space at top of each jar.
10. Wipe the rim of each jar and place a lid and band on each.
11. Put the jars in the canner and place lid on top
12. Make sure the jars are completely covered with water.
13. Bring to a boil and process for 30 minutes.
14. Remove canner lid and let cool for 5 minutes.
15. Remove the jars and let cool before storing.

**I doubled the liquid. Even though I only had enough beets for 4 pints, I only had maybe one more pint of liquid left. So this would not have made enough for 6 (as it states). Although this was easy to do, it took a lot of time because of all the cooking. The finished product looks beautiful! And the spices smelt amazing. Can't wait to try them when it gets to be winter!

Beetroot chips

Beautiful red and golden beetroot! I found two different ways to make the chips- raw via dehydration and cooked via the oven.

I didn't have the time to dehydrate, so I cooked them.

• beets, large, scrubbed clean
• nonstick cooking spray
• salt, to taste
Directions:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Prep 

1. 2 Using the slicing blade of your food processor, a mandoline or a sharp knife, slice beets thinly. You want them to be the size of a potato chip. 
2. 
   
3. 3 Spread evenly on a cookie sheet that has been covered in parchment paper, spray the paper with nonstick spray,  season the beets with salt, then spray the beets with the nonstick spray.
4. 
   
5. 4 Roast 20 minutes, turn, then cook another 15 to 20 minutes, until crisp. Check often to make sure they don't burn. you may need to roast for a shorter or longer period of time depending on your oven and how crisp you want them - so keep an eye on them.

**Cooking- I used the mandoline to cut them.

**Finished product- Yum! but they went fast!

Pizza with roasted garlic and beets, spinach, olives, sun dried tomatoes, and feta

Pizza dough already on the blog.
As the dough was rising, I roasted beets and garlic together at 400 for 25 or so minutes.
I layered the beets and garlic on the bottom, added a bag of spinach on top, sprinkled feta and kalamata olives on top of the spinach, cut some marinated sun dried tomatoes into quarters and spread them around,  ground salt and pepper over it all along with a splash of olive oil.

Cooked the pizza on 400 for 25 or so minutes. Yummy!

Potato Salad with Herring

I have some leftover red potatoes after making the Manhatten Tuna Chowder and I have been reading that we need to eat more herring. I opened some herring from the Talin Market the other day and now I need to use it up. Here is the online version of the recipe. Although this calls for bottled beets, you could use fresh. I will use the pickles that I canned last summer. I will also cut the herring into very small pieces so they don't compete with the meatballs that I'm serving with this dish.

serves 4

salt and freshly milled white pepper
675 g (1 1/2 lb) new potatoes
4 pickled herring fillets
1 large onion
1 large, fairly sour apple
225 g (8 oz) bottled beetroot
100 g (4 oz) cocktail gherkins
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
5 tablespoons low fat natural yogurt
1 tablespoon wine vinegar

method

1. Half fill a medium-sized saucepan with water and add a generous pinch of salt. Scrub the potatoes under running water, add them to the saucepan, bring the water to the boil and boil the potatoes in their skins for 25 - 30 minutes.

2. Rinse the herring in cold water, pat dry and cut it into squares. Cut the onion into rings. Peel, quarter, core and dice the apple. Drain the beetroot in a sieve and cut it into cubes, reserving 2 tablespoons of the juice. Slice the gherkins.

3. Beat the mayonnaise with the beetroot juice, yogurt, vinegar and pepper. Drain the potatoes, leave them to cool, remove the skins and slice. Gently mix the potatoes with the herring, onion rings, apple, gherkins and beetroot in a large bowl.

4. Fold the dressing into the salad, cover the bowl and leave to stand for a few minutes before serving. Season to taste with salt. 

Baked Beetroot with balsamic vinegar, marjoram and garlic

This comes from The Return of the Naked Chef, by Jamie Oliver. He doesn't have this recipe on his site, but he has several others. I haven't tried this recipe. The hour in the oven sounds wonderful this week!

Serves 4

1 lb fresh beetroots, scrubbed, golf-ball size
10 cloves of garlic, unpeeled and squashed
1 handful of fresh marjoram or sweet oregano, leaves picked
salt and freshly ground black pepper
10 T balsamic vinegar
6 T olive oil

Preheat oven to 400.

Tear off around 5 ft of kitchen foil and fold it in half to give you double thickness. If you can only get larger beetroots,halve them to speed up their cooking time otherwise use them whole. Place them in the middle of the foil with the garlic and marjoram, season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then fold the sides in to the middle. Before you seal the foil, add the vinegar and olive oil. Scrunch or fold the foil together to seal at the top. Place in a preheated oven and cook for around 1 hour until tender. Serve in the bag at the table-lovely.

**This is an amazing way to cook beets. Delicious and easy.  My husband prepared them while I was in Nob Hill listening to A Band Named Sue at The Yarn Store. He used dried marjoram rather than fresh.
***I made it a second time and put the mixture into a casserole dish and covered it with foil. Still delicious!