Best Gluten-Free Pizza Crust, Goddess Style

My best gluten-free pizza crust to date.

For years I've missed pizza. Not because there isn't gluten-free pizza available. It's out there. You can find it if you look hard enough. Take a gander in the frozen food aisle of your favorite natural market. Snoop around in the dairy case, next to the gluten-free bagels. You might even hit pay dirt at your local pizza joint (if they understand the ins and outs of cross contamination). So yeah. There are some choices out there. Problem is, most gluten-free pizza sucks.

It's usually heavy on the chewy aspect. Or dry as dirt. With zero flavor. Yawningly bland. Certainly nothing to brag about. I mean, you wouldn't eat it if you didn't have to. You know what I'm sayin'? It's okay in a pinch. If you're famished on a Friday night. But it's not exactly inspiring.

So last week I started experimenting. I tweaked and baked. And lo and behold. A new gluten-free pizza crust was born.

And this one doesn't suck.


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How To Make Vegan Pesto

Vegan pesto is all about the herbs and nuts. You won't miss the cheese.

The thing is, making pesto is not an exact science. It's intuitive. It's flexible. And lucky for us dairy-free folks- whipping up fresh pesto sauce is easy-as-pie (I should say, easier than pie, because gluten-free vegan pie is not all that easy).

You can whip up a vegan pesto from any combination of fresh herbs, nuts and good tasting olive oil that your little heart desires. You can use cilantro or basil. Or both. Or try a light and fresh combo of mint, basil and parsley- my favorite. Choose pecans or walnuts or traditional pine nuts. Even hazelnuts.

Dairy-free sauce never packed so much goodness.

More than just a pasta sauce- pesto adds a big flavor boost to all kinds of recipes. Stir it into tomato sauce  just before serving. Or plop a dollop into a bowl of Italian soup. Add a spoonful to stew. Schmear some on croutons,  gluten-free toast and grilled cornbread. It's a fabulous base for pizza toppings.

You can also add pesto to roasted potato wedges and grilled vegetables. Stir it into polenta- or spread it on wedges of broiled polenta. It dresses up rice and risotto, pasta, noodles, and even grilled tortillas. It kicks up salad dressings and hummus.

For flexitarians, pesto is a bright, herbalicious accent for grilled salmon, shrimp, and fish.  Not to mention, egg dishes. Pesto and huevos is a match made in ovo-lacto vegetarian heaven.

So even if pesto is considered passé by some, an eighties foodie fad gone by...

Do we care?

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A Vegan Basil Mint Parsley "Pesto"

Clean. Raw. Pesto!

We're getting so close to our departure now I can taste it. The house is swept and cleaned, boxes and bags are packed. Anticipation is hanging in the desert air. You can almost hold it in your cupped open hands. The hardest part will be trying to sleep Saturday night. I told Steve, If it's 3 AM and we're lying side by side in the dark listening to the whir of the ceiling fan, just waiting, can we get up and go? 

Why not? he responded.

This earned him some extra bonus points.

Not that he needs any. His bonus point status is pretty high to begin with these days. We've had an exciting week. I'm so proud of him. His first script sale, an independent movie titled The Canyon just released its first trailer. If you'd like to catch a sneak peek at the movie, see The Canyon trailer here. You'll see why I fell in love with Yvonne Strahovski and Will Patton when we visited the set.

So what does all this California dreamin' taste like? I decided it tastes like basil and mint with a bite of parsley. 

Green. Earthy. Alive.

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Gluten-Free Pizza Flatbread with Roasted Vegetables

An easy gluten-free pizza flatbread topped with roasted veggies.

Flatbread Topped With Roasted Veggies

I've been offering up picnic food recipes this week because we're eating easy picnic style here in the final countdown phase of leaving for our summer adventure in Los Angeles. Only four remaining stacks of books to box, a tilting fence of wet paintings to frame, and the all important decision of which t-shirts, pots and kitchen power tools to pack stand in the way of our coffee fueled departure early next week.

I am reminded of the opening scene of A Walk on the Moon where Pearl and Lilian Kantrowitz are cramming the family car with colanders and tablecloths and onions and potato peelers. Kitchen stuff for their summer cabin in the Catskills. Such a production this is. Planning ahead for gluten-free snacks on the road (chocolate cupcakes are a must, and popcorn) and an easy microwavable supper for the hotel in Arizona (I'm thinking I'll freeze some of my favorite Mac and Cheese). We still don't have a rental lined up. And the storms knocked out our Internet this week. I'm lucky to be on at all tonight.

So yours truly has been running out of steam by cocktail hour, whipped not only by the attention-to-detail process of organizing two lives and shedding old stuff, but by the monsoon season thunderstorms growling across the Chama River in the afternoons, sending wind and rain and howling coyotes up the mesa. And knocking out our web access.

So forgive me if I have not responded to a comment or a question. I haven't been on-line much. I've been a total social network slacker stranded out here in the wilds. Cooking up flatbreads and Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies between rinsing out empty shampoo bottles. Thinking of you.

Hoping you're having a wonderful week!

Karina's Gluten-Free Pizza Flatbread Recipe Topped with Roasted Vegetables

Originally posted May 2009.

Millet flour gives this chewy Italian flatbread a delicate nutty flavor. I also add plenty of minced onion, garlic and dried herbs to the dough to kick it up. Why not?

Ingredients:

1 cup GF millet flour or brown rice flour

1 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch (tapioca starch gives it a crusty bite)

1/2 cup potato starch (not potato flour!)

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon minced onion

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon chopped rosemary

1 teaspoon thyme

2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

5 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon honey or raw organic agave nectar

1/4 teaspoon light, mild vinegar

1 cup hot water (115 degrees F)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Lightly oil a large round pizza pan or baking sheet and dust it with a little cornmeal or rice flour.

In a large mixing bowl whisk the millet flour, sorghum flour and starches with salt, onion, garlic, herbs and yeast. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the olive oil, honey, vinegar and hot water. Mix with a wooden spoon until you get a dough that is more like a thick cake batter than a standard flatbread dough. It will be wet and sticky.

Scoop out the dough onto the prepared baking pan and using hands shape and press the dough into an even, flat round (or rectangular) shape. Smooth with wet fingers. Set the dough aside to rest and roast your vegetables.

Cut up an assortment of your favorite seasonal vegetables and toss them into a bowl. We used red onion, yellow pepper, Baby Bella mushrooms, asparagus, and grape tomatoes. Add chopped garlic and Italian herbs like thyme, oregano, basil, marjoram. Season with sea salt and pepper. If you like it hot, toss in a few red pepper flakes. Drizzle with a little olive oil and toss the vegetables to coat. Dump them into a roasting pan (or on to a baking sheet) and spread them out in an even layer.

Bake in the center of the hot oven for 15 to 20 minutes until tender crisp. They don't have to be completely cooked, just softened a bit.

Remove the pan from the oven and lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.

Brush the flatbread with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle some sea salt over the top. Pre-bake the crust for about 7 to 10 minutes. You want to be somewhat firm and no longer sticky.

Remove the pan from the oven and spoon the roasted veggies all over the flatbread. Return the pan to the oven and bake until the dough is firm and slightly crisp. In my oven it was done after 18 minutes.

Slice with a pizza cutter and serve hot or at room temperature.

Add fresh chopped herbs just before serving- parsley, basil, mint, rosemary or cilantro.

Great picnic food- serve as an appetizer with a crisp green salad and a chilled glass of vino.

Makes 6 generous slices.

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

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Gluten-Free Buttermilk Flatbread- Easy as 1-2-3

The easiest gluten-free cracker-flatbread ever.

Easy Gluten-Free Flatbread

There are days when keeping a Gluten-Free Pantry Quick Mix in your cupboard can come in handy. Yesterday- as the flannel grey sky spit snow at us out here in the high desert- a certain gluten-free goddess had a casita full of men to feed- including those devilishly handsome amigos of mine, Joey and Will. So Joey and I collaborated in my tiny blue tiled cocina and whipped up some tasty gluten-free comestibles.

He made his fabulous Kicked Up Rockin' Guac. I made some hummus spiked with cilantro pesto. We served up an array of crudities, organic blue corn chips and salsa, chicken salad (from Will), my Pecan Crackers, jalapeno-stuffed olives, and my freshly made basil-pecan pesto with a spur-of-the-moment improvthat is a cross between a tender cracker and a tasty flatbread.

And I'm also thinking, Dear Reader, this dough might make for a delicious and fast yeast-free gluten-free pizza crust.

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