GF Bread Pizza

Steele has pizza parties at school. It's just a fact of life around here. I have to be ready in a day or two to make him a pizza. We have 5 kids. Time to deal with pizza dough isn't always easy to find.

1 top or bottom slice of GF Breadmachine bread.
2T Spaghetti Sauce
1/2t Minced Garlic
Adobo Criollo con Pimienta (Spanish Garlic salt with pepper)
Italian Spice Mix
Cheese
Favorite Pizza toppings.

Spread Spaghetti sauce onto bread (while thinking of what dinner to make with the rest of the can)
Sprinkle italian spices, minced garlic, adobo onto sauce. Add parmesan cheese to the sauce layer if desired.
Top with chopped onion, mushrooms, green pepper, pineapple.. whatever veggies make you smile.
Add some cheese. Not a lot...not yet...
Add meat layer: two slices deli ham torn up, pepperoni slices, some sausage. Again, whatever meat makes you happy.
Add another cheese layer.

Bake at 350 on a greased piece of tin foil on a cookie sheet until the edges get brown and the cheese is all melty and nice.

The last time I made this for Steele, I had to stand over it with a butcher knife and attack cat until the pizza cooled enough to be put away for his lunch or he wouldn't have had a lunch the next day.

No, I'm really not kidding.

GF Breakfast Muffins

This makes nine cupcake sized muffins.
I give Steele 3 at a time for breakfast.

1/4c Nut Flour or Coconut Flour (or regular bagged coconut ground in a food processor)
1/4c Tapioca Flour or Banana Flour
1/4c Sweet Rice Flour
1/8c Sweet Potato Flour or Oat Bran or Soy Flour
1t Baking Powder
1/2t Xanthan Gum
1/8c Brown Sugar
1T Sugar
1/2t Salt

Pour all dry ingredients into a mixer and combine.
Or use a large bowl and whisk by hand.

1/4c Jelly (I'm all about the apricot preserves right now)
2T Melted butter
1 Egg
3oz Milk (or Soy Milk)
1t vanilla or your favorite extract... black walnut, almond, orange

Mix all wet ingredients in a small bowl until combined.
Add to dry and mix well.

Fill cupcake liners or grease muffin tin.
Bake at 350 for 18 minutes.

Additions:
Dried any fruit: raisins, cranberries, chopped orange essence prune bits, blueberries.
One small mashed banana (add 2 minutes to the bake cycle)
Chopped nuts
Chocolate chips
A dash of cinnamon or nutmeg or both.

This is also a great fast breakfast.
If you mix the dry ingredients and put em into a ziplock bag or three, you can dump the bag right into the mixer and throw in the wet while your oven is heating up. If you want to just put it in a canister, it's 2c + 2T dry mix per batch.

GF Hummus

When I'm not into making bread or out of supplies, this is what I make for Steele's lunches. He eats in on tortilla chips and digs it bigtime.

1 can Garbanzo beans
1 1/2t Lemon juice
1t minced Garlic
1/4t salt
2T Olive juice
10 olives
1 cup Tahini (Sesame Seed Paste, I find mine at Publix)

Dump beans and the juice from the can, lemon juice, garlic, salt, olives and juice into
a pan and simmer until garbonzos are soft.

Let this sit for about 10 minutes.
Toss into food processor or use heavy duty mixer stick. (The thunder stick, I love ours!) Puree.
When your bean base has become smooth add the tahini and puree again.
Tahini thickens when put into hot stuff, so this will thick up on you.
Taste it. More salt? More garlic? More lemon? More tahini?

Steele likes it when it's about the same consistency as peanut butter, maybe a little thinner. The thickness is dependent on the amount of liquid in the bean base and the amount of tahini you use.

I've tried it without the green olives because our other children profess an undue hatred of green olives. However, they don't like the hummus as much unless I sneak olives into it. Once it's pureed they'll never know. Unless you get busted.

Optional additions:
Sun dried tomatoes
Fresh basil and rosemary (if you're into the herb-y thing)

GF Bread - big thanks to Mary Frances!

I nabbed this recipe from www.glutenfreecookingschool.com
Ok, so I modified it slightly.... but it's like 98% her recipe.
We use it in our bread machine and it comes out fine.
My big gripe, GF bread is heavy. Not light and airy like
breads made with wheat. I have to cut the slices kind of thin
or Steele's sandwich feels like it weighs more than he does.

1T Yeast
1T Sugar
1.5c Water at 100 degrees (a bit warmer than your finger)

Put yeast and sugar in a small bowl, stir gently.
Add water to this, stir gently again.
Let it sit while you do everything else.

2.5c GF Flour Mix Standard
2t Xanthan Gum
1t Salt
1/4c Dry Milk Powder

Whisk the dry stuff in a large bowl to combine.

2 Eggs
1.5T Oil
1t Cider Vinegar

Beat the wet ingredients very very well.

Make a well in your dry bowl and add the egg mix, then the yeast mix and stir.
If you get a mildly lumpy goo like substance, you're on the right track.
Remember: yeast is alive, so be gentle with it and try to get the large lumps down
to smallish lumps while making sure there's no hidden pockets of flour stuck to the
bottom of your bowl.

Scrape goo into bread machine pan, hit start and wait.

Yay! Bread that doesn't taste like sand.

GF Peanut Butter Cookies

A chum brought some cookies over for our kids, forgetting that Steele was GF.
We whipped these cookies up and made a young boy happy again.

1c Peanut Butter
1c Sugar or 1/2c Sugar & 1/2c Brown Sugar
1 Egg.

Beat the egg. Throw in the peanut butter and sugar.
Mix thoroughly. Spoon onto a greased cookie sheet.
Flatten dough with a greased glass or your hands.

Bake at 350 for 8 mins.

GF Flour Mix Sweet

This is the flour mix I use for sweet baked goods, like muffins or cupcakes.

1/3c Maseca (Corn Flour)
1/3c Nut Flour or Coconut Flour
(You can get regular coconut and shred it to death in a food processor)
1/3c Brown Rice Whole Grain Flour
1/3c Potato Starch (NOT Potato Flour)
1/3c Amaranth Flour or Banana Flour
2/3c Sweet Rice Flour
2/3c Corn Starch

I have a large tupperware container that I throw the ingredients in and then shake the
bejeebers out of. My son likes that part best!

GF Flour Mix Standard

This is the flour mix I use for baked non sweet goods, such as bread and pizza dough.

1/3c Maseca (Corn flour)
1/3c Soy Flour
1/3c Potato Starch (NOT Potato Flour)
2/3c Tapioca Flour
2/3c Brown Rice Whole Grain Flour
2/3c Corn Starch

If you're anti-soy, you can switch it for another GF Flour like amaranth, millet or teff.

Extra thanks to glutenfreecookingschool.com for this one.