GF Tomato Basil Pizza

For a change in our usual pizza sauce, Keisha surprised us with a garlic butter sauce instead. She used the gluten free Chebe pizza crust mix, and topped it with tomatoes and spinach, giving it an artisan flavor.

The following is how she put it together.

Gluten Free Tomato Basil Pizza:

1 pkg. Chebe pizza crust mix

2 T. olive oil

2 eggs

1/4 c. water

Blend all the ingredients together according to package directions and spread onto a greased baking stone.

Prepare the sauce and spread one-third onto the pizza crust and bake at 450 degrees for ten minutes.

Garlic Butter Sauce:

1/8 c. butter

1/2 t. onion powder

1 T. garlic

Melt the butter and add the onion powder and garlic, mixing well.

Toppings:

Tomato

Spinach

Mozzarella cheese

Parmesan cheese

Basil

Oregano

Remove from oven and spread another one-third of the sauce onto the crust. Thinly slice a tomato and evenly distribute over the top of the crust. Place spinach randomly over the tomatoes and crust. Sprinkle desired amounts of mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, basil and oregano over the top. Drizzle the remaining one-third of the sauce over the toppings. Return to oven and bake an additional nine minutes.

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Sausage Egg Bake

My oldest son and his family were coming for dinner. What to make, what to make? I had been in the middle of using the remainder of my first Sourdough Bread Starter so maybe some bread? What about a sausage egg bake to go with it? Mmmm. Sounded good to me!

I'd have to use two bags of the sausage I prepared to use in my Italian Sausage, Red Pepper and Potato Crockpot Soup. And I had some eggs on hand along with a bag of tater tots.

Because I was once again crunched for time, I scrambled the eggs using a little milk, and boiled the sausage until done. 

While doing this, I also made my sourdough bread into two long loaves for French bread.

I pre-baked the tater tots at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour in a separate pan before layering another pan with the eggs on the bottom, sausage next and then topped with the tater tots.

Before returning to the oven, I sprinkled a little cheese over the top of the tots along with a little black pepper. Then baked it at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Cookie Pizza Bars

I had some leftover Christmas M&Ms and wondered what to do with them and thought, "Mmm ... cookie pizza bars!" There wasn't enough for a whole pan of bars so I added some Twix candy bars, slicing them into smaller pieces.

One for me and one for the bars. One for me and one for the bars. Just kidding, although it is tempting not to find a few in your mouth as you're slicing them up.

Mix all the crust ingredients together and spread it in a lightly greased 9"x13" cake pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Remove the pan from the oven and immediately sprinkle with miniature chocolate chips and drop with peanut butter over the chips. Lower the oven to 300 degrees and place the bars back in the oven for two minutes to melt the chips and peanut butter. 

Remove the bars from the oven again ...

and spread the melted chips and peanut butter evenly.

Immediately top with the candy pieces.

Let cool, cut and enjoy!

Cookie Pizza Bars

Crust:

• 3/4 c. butter, softened
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. vanilla
• 1-1/2 c. flour

Topping:

• 1 c. miniature chocolate chips
• 1/2 c. peanut butter
• Your choice of candy pieces: M&Ms, Reese's Pieces, Butterfinger (crushed), Twix (sliced), or other candy of your choice

Mix all crust ingredients together and spread in lightly greased 9"x13" cake pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Immediately sprinkle with chips and drop with peanut butter over chips. Lower the oven to 300 degrees and put crust back in oven for two minutes to melt chocolate chips and peanut butter. Spread melted chips and peanut butter evenly over crust and immediately top with candy pieces.


Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Individualized Smoothie Packets

After giving up my breakfast smoothies for over a year, I began to toy with the idea of starting up again. I wanted to incorporate more greens into my diet, and while visiting my son, Brandon, he let me try his concoction. It contained fresh spinach and berries. I was hooked!

I had quit having smoothies for various reasons, including the fact that my old blender gave out on me. Because I used it so much, I decided it was time to invest in a Vitamix. Now, granted, they are expensive, but what sold me was a comment by a Vitamix owner saying they never regretted the purchase and it was a great investment for their health. This made sense to me.

Spinach was now added to my grocery list. I don't eat much for salads, so this was a great way to eat more greens. I placed a couple handfuls of spinach in my Vitamix and added a half banana and a quarter apple, along with my coconut milk. It was amazingly delicious and the perfect amount!

Now the problem was by the end of the week, my spinach was going bad.

Solve one problem and another one comes up. Frustrating!

I almost gave up on spinach in my smoothies, but as I thought more on it, I wondered why you couldn't just throw the spinach leaves in the freezer like the berries, until you needed them ~ but in individual baggies! Maybe even add my blueberries and/or strawberries into the baggies for ease of use since mornings are hectic enough getting ready for work.

So there you have it! I threw a handful of spinach, a handful of blueberries, and a strawberry in each baggy and placed them in the freezer. 

Now all I have to do is add my liquids and anything else I choose for a new kick, and I'm all set!

The best one I've tried so far is to use a little chocolate almond milk, a little coconut milk, a handful of frozen blueberries, one banana, fill the remainder of the blender with spinach and blend!

Note:

A couple things I've found after using these individual smoothie packets a couple times:

• It requires a little more liquid to help blend the frozen ingredients.
• The drink is definitely a "chilled" drink. This is something I was trying to eliminate but seems unavoidable when half of the ingredients are frozen to start with.
• I prefer the taste of the fresh spinach smoothie over the chilled spinach smoothie. 
• When the package is thawed slightly, you can add the same amount of milk as before, and the taste is superb! Just remember to take it out about 15 minutes before using.

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Landi Raemi's GF Tomato Garlic Soup

Here is an easy tomato soup recipe that I came up with that uses pints of home canned tomatoes. It has a nice garlicky taste and, it's gluten free! Enjoy!

Landi Raemi's GF Tomato Garlic Soup

2 pint jars homemade canned tomatoes
1/4 c. coconut milk
2 t. minced garlic
1 onion
1 t. basil leaves
1 t. celery seeds
1 t. parsley flakes
1-1/2 T. cornstarch

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend on high until well blended. Then heat in a saucepan on medium until hot and slightly thickened.

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

My Exploding Kombucha!!

Ever have a bottle of kombucha explode on you? I've had my bottles of kefir bubble over and literally spray over half of my kitchen cupboards, but never have I had either the kombucha or kefir bottles explode! Until now that is.

After a long day of work, I came home and opened my computer to a Facebook message from my son, Peter. Occasionally, we send messages back and forth for reminders and I wondered what this one entailed. I opened it to find the following pictures. Since it was just the photos, I suppose he figured a picture is worth a thousand words.

Since Peter didn't write anything, the following are my interpretations of what he wanted to tell me by using these photos.

"Mom! One of your bottles of kombucha exploded today! Just look at this bottle!" (By the way, my son was actually sitting close to the cupboard I store all my fermented drinks in when this happened and said it sounded like a glass shattering and figured it was one of them.)

"Just so you know, I put the kombucha and kefir first ferments on the lazy susan while I cleaned the cupboard out."

"And, I put all the second ferment drinks on the cabinet you got from Barb."

"After I wiped the cupboard clean, I used a fan to dry everything out."

"So, the cupboard is empty now, but clean."

 So that was how my day ended. How did your's go?


Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Landi Raemi's Pretzel Buns

Just look at the salt on this pretzel bun! What are pretzel buns you ask? Well, they are pretzels that didn't keep their form; therefore, I decided to give them a proper name: Pretzel Buns.

These pretzel buns were made using my potato sourdough.

At about 7:30 p.m., I mixed a batch of sourdough potato bread dough using:

• 1-3/4 c. starter
• 3/4 c. warm water
• 4 T. butter, softened
• 1/2 c. olive oil
• 6 c. flour + 2-1/4 c. more flour for kneading
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1-1/2 t. sea salt

I placed the ingredients in my breadmaker pan according to the manufacturer's directions, with liquids on the bottom, the six cups of flour next, and the dry ingredients on top. I set the breadmaker to the dough cycle and as it mixed the ingredients together, I used a knife and helped it by stirring the top into the bottom quickly. As I did this, I added the remaining flour until the dough was the right consistency; nice and pliable. When the cycle was finished, I put the dough into a well-greased bowl and covered with a towel to raise overnight.

About 8:15 in the morning I got up to put my pretzels together. My first disappointment was a hard crust on the top of the dough and that it hadn't risen as much as I expected. I had debated on covering the dough with a piece of plastic wrap the night before and now regretted not doing so. I believe this is why the dough had a hard crust and didn't raise as much.

Because of this hard layer, it was a little more difficult to form the pretzels. No, really, it was just plain awkward for me, but it's nice to have an excuse, right? I've been wanting to make soft pretzels for years, but this was my first time making homemade soft pretzels. The dough didn't seem to want to hold the stretch and so the pretzels reverted back into what I'd call more of a pretzel bun.

I continued to try to form pretzels and placed them on a parchment covered baking sheet.

The next step was to put them in a baking soda bath using:

• 9 c. water
• 1/3 c. baking soda

I brought the water to a rolling boil and placed the pretzels in for 30 seconds, one at a time. After removing from the soda bath, I replaced them back onto the parchment paper.

I baked them at 425 degrees for 10 minutes.

I removed and brushed the pretzels with melted butter, then sprinkled them with sea salt. After that I returned them to the oven for an additional 7 minutes of baking.

After the second baking time, my pretzel buns were still doughy; therefore, I lowered the oven to 200 degrees and baked for an additional 10 minutes.

Here is what they looked like when all done. Not bad, but definitely room for improvement.

They were pretty tasty, but not what I had anticipated. Better luck next time?

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Gluten Free Zucchini Brownie Loaf

Thought I'd give these gluten-free zucchini brownies a try to use up some zucchini.

First I removed the rind from the zucchini and created a pulp in the food processor.

Then I drained the excess moisture with a strainer.

Next I combined all the ingredients in a mixing bowl ...

And mixed it until thoroughly blended.

Poured the batter into a greased 8"x8" square pan and baked for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Inspired by Delighted Momma and The Healthy Family and Home.

Gluten Free Zucchini Brownies

1 c. zucchini pulp
1 c. peanut butter
2 eggs
2 T. miniature chocolate chips
2 T. maple syrup
1 T. vanilla
1 t. apple cider vinegar
1/2 t. baking soda
1/8 t. Himalayan sea salt
1/4 c. coconut flour
1/4 c. sorghum flour

Prepare zucchini by removing rind, then blend in blender to create pulp. Drain excess moisture with a strainer. Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl and mix until thoroughly blended. Pour into a greased 8"x8" square pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Straight from the oven taste-testing results:

• Roger ~ They taste weird, almost a popcorn-like taste. Can't really put his finger on it. They aren't bad. Don't throw them out. (You sure?!)
• Peter ~ "They're really good. The first bite the texture is soft and moist. The flavor of the chocolate chips comes later and is really good. I would recommend experimenting with more chocolate chips." (That's not gonna happen because I won't be making these again.)
• Keisha ~ The flavor tastes pumpkiny. Doesn't like them at all. Wants to make some real chocolatey, gluten-filled brownies now for the real thing! (Couldn't agree more.)
• Me ~ Has a taste similar to pumpkin. Maybe that's why Delighted Momma added the cinnamon and nutmeg. The peanut butter taste is overwhelming. Not a fan and agree with Keisha. (Bring on the gluten-filled chocolatey goodness!!)

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!