Gluten-free Pizza!

I wanted to write a short post about this a while ago, and I completely forgot to do it. Last week (I think it was last week), Francois and I went to his mom's house to make pizza for supper. As you all know, I can't eat wheat. But I know a great wheat-full pizza base recipe, so I decided to try to adapt it.

The original recipe calls for a one-to-one ratio of self-raising flour and double thick plain yoghurt. You just mix it together and knead it until it's nice and puffy, adding lots of extra flour along the way. Then you roll it out super thin, add toppings and bake at a really high temperature. Tada!

Last time that we did it, they were super amazing and looked like this:

We also made an onion pizza.

This time, I did this:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 litre Double-thick Full-cream Plain Yogurt 
• 1/2 litre Potato Flour 
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder 
• Fine coconut flour (not desiccated coconut - I can't remember how much. A cup or two? 

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 230°c. (or 250, whatever, really.) 
2. Mix the yoghurt, potato flour and baking powder very well. 
3. Knead it well while adding coconut flour as needed to dry it out, until you have a dough that resembles bread dough. Unfortunately, it won't spring back when you push it lightly with your finger, so don't knead it forever wondering when it'll happen. It won't. 
4. Butter or spray a baking tray, and dust lightly with coconut flour. 
5. Press the dough down onto the tray, making thin pizza bases. 
6. Pop the plain base into the oven on a low shelf, and let it cook for about five minutes. 
7. Pull it back out, cover with toppings, allow to cook for another ten minutes or longer... But keep an eye on things just in case it starts to burn. 
8. You can grill it for a few minutes if you want crispy cheese. 
9. Gently ease the crispy base off the tray with a butter knife. 
10. Tada! 

Yes, it was actually tastier than the original recipe. Super crunchy, but not too tough or chewey. We loved them! And we had loads of toppings so we made a few variations... 

What class, what style... 

And the best thing? Unlike other gluten-free nonsense, potato flour is very affordable. It was R30 for the bag, and we made five 20cm bases and were too full to make more, so I still have some dough wrapped in cling wrap in the fridge.

I lied. The best thing was the cheese.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin

They taste kinda like popcorn.

Lookie here! I roasted the pumpkin seeds, just like I said I would. And contrary to my initial prediction, I did take a picture of the finished product, EVEN THOUGH they were fairly darn tasty. (I did them in coconut oil, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar, if you're interested in that sort of information. I roughly followed this lady's method.)

Also, they're really filling, so we still have some left. Knowing Francois though, they'll be finished by the end of the day. He seems to enjoy them a lot more than I do. I think they're a little too tricky to chew, which puts me off a tad. I'd like to try doing this with seeds from a sugar pumpkin or something similar - apparently it works a bit better.

While nibbling on the seeds, I decided to whip something up that I thought about making last night: A pumpkin smoothie. After defrosting a segment of pumpkin and microwaving it to cook it through nicely, I scooped up (and accidentally shredded) the fleshy contents and plopped them into my smoothie jug-thing. I wouldn't be able to tell you how much pumpkin I used, but I can say that it was a LOT. I added a banana, some cinnamon and nutmeg, honey to sweeten it a little more, and yoghurt and milk to dilute the flavour and thin things out a bit. Here's a picture of the result:

Oh yes, that prediction about not taking
a picture of the yummy seeds in time?
That happened with the smoothies instead.

Sorry, Francois decided that he needed to get all of you with that hand-sign thing. Also, you've now all lost the game. Sorry. Again.

I'd suggest using cold pumpkin and a frozen banana if you decide to try this out. We had ours luke-warm and it was rather tasty, but I get the feeling it would be ten times better if it was icy-cold. Crushed ice is also a good idea if your blender can handle it... Mine can't. :(



The segment of pumpkin that I defrosted and cooked for the smoothie still has loads of flesh stuck to it, so there's definitely more pumpkin on the menu in the very near future. Maybe pumpkin crumpets, or pumpkin mug cakes, or some more pumpkin soup... I'd definitely like to try pumpkin mug cakes. That could be very interesting.

Darn it, the power has gone off. Hoorah for load shedding! I'd better stop typing now and upload this article before my battery goes flat. If I'm lucky, though, my tablet will stay on long enough to write up a short story. Time to get cracking!