Well, hello again!
Life’s been quite a blur since Thanksgiving and it’s so, so good to be back sharing some little bits of life with you. It’s hard to look back at all the moments over the past few months and decide what to share. (Overwhelming really, which is why I decided to just begin with the current and our fave pizza recipes). First off, we are so blessed to have such meaningful moments together as a family and be thankful for all the family and friends that we shared special time with over the holidays!
A couple of weeks ago we finally made it to the Plains Indians exhibit at the Nelson. It was so fantastic and very inspiring for all of us. James asked me to take numerous pictures of the detailed drawings and Emma especially liked the cradleboards and has since made one for her calico critters. I was inspired by all of the handcrafted bags and decided to finally get started on one. The exhibit is over now but I just heard the news that Boys Grow was given a donation of one of the tipis to have on their farm … what a perfect fit! They will truly be inspired by it and they have plans to incorporate Native American teachings as they grow their food and teach their youth entrepreneurial skills.
FAVORITES LATELY
Board games by the fire with two new ones. Ticket to Ride Europe and Busytown.
Two things keeping our family healthy lately. Myco Shield Host Defense and homemade chicken bone broth. Here’s another great source for bone broth.
Gleaning inspiration and guidance from these New Year’s Resolutions from Pope Francis.
Really loving this simple printout from The Artbar Blog to make a family plan based on the above resolutions.
Now for the yummy stuff!
The toughest part about giving up most of my gluten is most definitely the pizza. It’s one of my all time favorite foods, especially if it has a thin crust. I could eat it daily!
I found a recipe from Zen Belly Catering that was very good but I decided to adapt it so it had less starch. I came up with a couple of different versions and decided to use arrowroot starch instead of tapioca starch. They are both very good but the 2nd one is more of a true Paleo recipe. They are not listed in order of favorite. I like them both, so that’s why they both made the cut. The key to these crusts are the warmed pizza stone and the very hot oven.
FAVORITE GLUTEN FREE PIZZA CRUSTS – 2 ways
Each version makes 2 crusts – roughly 9-10″ rounds / I also used a pizza stone covered in parchment paper.
PIZZA CRUST VERSION 1 Ingredients
2 T. yeast
2 T. honey
1/2 c. warm water
1/2 c. white rice
1/2 c. millet flour
1-1/2 c. almond flour
1/2 c. arrowroot starch
1-1/2 t. sea salt
2 T. olive oil
1 egg white
3 t. apple cider vinegar
DIRECTIONS
Hand whisk the yeast, honey, and water together and let sit for 5 minutes to get foamy. In another bowl, mix the flours, starch and salt together. In a small bowl, mix the olive oil, egg white, and cider vinegar. Now hand whisk all the dry and wet ingredients together and let the dough sit for an hour or more ( preferably in a warm spot).
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Place the pizza stone in to warm it up. Split the dough into 2 balls. With a little olive oil on your hands take one ball of dough out of the bowl and start to press it onto oiled parchment paper. Add a little more olive oil if the dough gets sticky. When the dough is roughly 9-10″ round place the parchment paper with dough onto the pizza stone and bake for 6 min. Add desired toppings and cook for another 2-3 min. Let it cool down a bit before cutting.
PIZZA CRUST VERSION 2 Ingredients. (SAME DIRECTIONS AS ABOVE, JUST DIFFERENT INGREDIENTS).
In this one I replaced some of the starch with coconut flour and added more of the liquids since the coconut flour soaks them up really fast.
2 T. yeast
2 T. honey
1 c. warm water
1/2 c. coconut flour
2 c. almond flour
1/2 c. arrowroot starch
1-1/2 t. sea salt
4 T. olive oil
2 egg whites
3 t. apple cider vinegar
TOPPINGS
Try to keep the toppings to a minimum. Since this is a thin crust it holds up better if it’s not weighed down with ingredients.
Some of our favorite toppings include:
sausage/caramelized onions/goat cheese
mozzarella/basil
kale/ caramelized onion/ chicken/ goat cheese
ENJOY!
p.s. let me know if you try them out and have a favorite. Also, let me know if you have a favorite I should try.
I might have to give that second one a try, I have all the ingredients for it.
We don’t have pizza night much, but when we do I am boring and use the recipe on the back of the Pamela’s package.
The Native American exhibit looks very cool!
I know, it’s so great when I have all the ingredients for a recipe that I find! You can certainly borrow our Busytown game to try it out. Emma really loves it and I think even Jack had some fun playing it!
Oh! And a Busytown game, my youngest two would go crazy. They really love all things Richard Scarry right now.