Learn with recipes

What do you make, when you should have gone grocery shopping yesterday, and hubby says "whats to snack on?" Hmmmm, well, I did a quick check of what I had on hand and came up with this idea. The possibilities are endless; tuck in a few chopped mushrooms or pieces of broccoli, or if you arent in the mood for pizza, fill them with cooked chicken and Alfredo sauce?

This really isnt a "recipe" as much as it is an idea. Make sure you buy the large egg roll wrappers (they are great to have on hand since they stay good in the fridge for a long time).
First, sliver the pepperoni and shred the cheese. If you use any other meat or veggie, make sure you cut it fairly small so that the cheese and sauce can melt around it (the filling will get hotter if you keep the ingredients on the small side as well).

The best gluten-free pizza crust to date.

Gluten-Free Pizza Crust, Goddess Style

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.

And it's not from lack of trying, this pizza deprivation.

I've been rustling up g-free versions our nation's most cherished Italian import since week one of going gluten-free twelve years ago. I've made pizza crust from cookbooks (bready and yeasty). I've tried gluten-free mixes (and tortured my loyal little body with bean flour bloat). I've rolled out yeast-free biscuit dough (not bad, actually, but not real pizza). I've topped Italian style flatbread with roasted vegetables. I tried the whole Chebe thing (gum city). While some attempts proved passable, they never hit that elusive sweet spot. They failed to quell the longing. I used to make my own pizza dough, you see, before I discovered I harbored a faulty gene predisposing me to celiac disease. I was never a frozen pizza kind of gal.

I used to knead pillows of dough on my antique bread board, humming along to Crowded House. Ignorance was bliss. For awhile. And Friday night was always homemade Pizza Night.

So I've been a tad bereft on pizza-deprived Fridays.

But last week I started experimenting with a gluten-free dinner roll recipe. And as I tore a warm roll in half, golden and crusty and tender in the middle, it hit me.

This would make a fabulous pizza crust! I murmured to my husband through a mouthful of fresh baked loveliness. I tore him off a piece. He munched. And nodded.

So I tweaked and baked.

And lo and behold. A new gluten-free pizza crust was born.

And this one doesn't suck.


Read more + get the recipe >>

What is easier than a no-knead pizza crust? This recipe (like many I have) are a combination of several recipes, tweaked with years of experimentation on my part. This one is a keeper!!

We love a pizza crust that stays crispy underneath the filling, yet the edges are light and airy with big air pockets inside the dough. The hardest part of this recipe (thats a joke) is to remember to mix the dough the night before (it needs to sit at room temperature for 24 hours). No need to use a mixer and dough hook, just a bowl and spoon; it is super-easy.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours. After 24 hours, the dough/batter will be nearly triple in size, so use a big bowl, see all those bubbles?

After 24 hours, stir the dough. Its going to be pretty sticky, but dont freak out about it.

Heavily flour your counter top and pour/scoop the dough out onto the flour.  Generously sprinkle flour over the top of the dough too.  Fold the dough back onto itself a few times. This is a little messy/sticky, so keep flouring your hands. After youve coated the dough with flour and folded it over a few times, cut it in half (makes 2 medium pizzas).

Preheat your oven (with pizza stone on center rack) to 450 degrees.
Put each piece of dough on its own piece of parchment paper and using floured hands, gently pat it into a circle, leaving the edges thicker and the center as thin as you can. Add toppings and brush the edges of the crust with a little water (not much).
The dough is going to stay on the parchment paper when you put it onto the hot pizza stone. To do this, I transfer the paper and dough by lifting it with a rim-less cookie sheet, and then I slide the whole thing off of the cookie sheet and right onto the stone. Bake it for 8 minutes.

After 8 minutes, pull the parchment paper out of the oven. Turn the bake cycle off and turn on the broiler cycle for about 1 to 2 minutes (watch closely). The hot pizza stone will continue to bake the underside of the crust, but the broiler will brown the toppings nicely.