Gluten free SATURDAYS! Who want's pizza for dinner tonight!?

 It's Saturday night if you can't go out to eat because you are gluten free and have no restaurants around you, who serve gluten free foods, you can make a delicious pizza at home!

I love making my own pizza anyway because I can put whatever toppings I like and as much or as little cheese as I want. I do love white sauce on my pizza but haven't come up with a good one yet. 

I use a pizza crust from my favorite cookbook " the Gluten Free Almond Flour cookbook" by Elana Amsterdam

Check out the video here! In this video she has a fan of her cookbook showing you how she makes the pizza crust. 

I agree with most of what she say's in the video but I add kosher salt and half the amount called for in the recipe. I also use olive oil instead of grapeseed oil because my husband say's it's bad for you and wont eat it. I usually double the recipe because it is so good we can eat a large pizza in one night.

Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 cups blanched almond flour

1/2 teaspoon salt (half this if you don't eat salt very often)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 Tablespoon oil

1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Set aside a large baking sheet. Cut two pieces of parchment paper (very important to keep these flattened out with no wrinkles especially when rolling the dough out otherwise it cracks) 

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients, then in the middle of this pour oil and egg mix a little alone then mix with the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined. If you want to add herbs, garlic or onion powders feel free it's to your taste, I usually add it to the tomato sauce instead.

Roll dough into a ball then place between 2 sheets of parchment paper and roll out into 1/8th inch thick (or if you like it thicker make it 1/4 inch) in the shape you like your pizza. I've done square, rectangle and round whatever fits your pan. It's okay if it is flatter on the outsides because I go back in and make an edge pushing the crust up towards the middle in the shape I like. The transfer the bottom parchment paper to the baking sheet.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden. (very important to bake it before adding toppings, i've forgotten to bake it and I got a big pile of mush.) Remove from oven and add toppings while still warm.

This is the fun part you can add whatever toppings you like! We usually do mushrooms, broccoli and cheese. This one above was our summer delight pizza with a layer of colby cheese, tomato sauce I handmade with onion, garlic, thyme, oregano and basil, red bell pepper, zucchini, olives, broccoli and another layer of cheese on top. Yummy!

So have a great dinner and enjoy!

Cheers,

Chandra

Prismatic Lotus

 Just playing with the prismatic technique with the lotus and twinkling H2O's!

 "The lotus perfectly embodies the spiritual path, rising up through the murkiness of worldly experience until it reaches the surface of the spiritual realm and becomes, vibrant and pure, free from all attachment."

Prismatic Cat and Tea

What's Cooking Saturdays? (Gluten Free!)

almond crust pizza

yummy toppings

Are you working on being gluten free? Do you miss eating pizza? I did when I started my gluten free life. I discovered a lovely recipe for this almond crust pizza above from Elana's Pantry. I bought her book see here... just look at that cake on the cover!

I don't do well with the gluten flour mixes they have out there with the potato starch and tapioca flour, too many carbs. So, I was delighted to find Elana's blog and cookbook on almond flour recipe's! She has done a lot of research and work developing these. I thank her so much :) !! And because I don't eat sugar either her book is right up my alley as she uses agave nectar as a sweetener. She gives you a lot of info on ingredients and where to get them in her book. 

chocolate filled cookies

Keep an eye out for my upcoming posts " What's Cooking Saturday's" to see some of the lovely cooking I'm doing at my house. I like to use recipe's but I always alter them a bit to my tastes. 

chocolate cream pie

Here are some muffin's I made that are delicious! On the left side is a recipe I found in Vegetarian Times magazine 12 years ago. It's the best vegan muffin recipe I've found. The base is peanut butter ( I use almond now) and banana. I add whatever flavors we are in the mood for chocolate chip, blueberry etc. I took out the wheat flour and added almond flour. Yummy! The muffin on the right is a delicious pumpkin spice coconut flour one from "The Primal Blueprint Cookbook by Mark Sisson" My husband loves this guy he's got a blog see it here... Marks Daily Apple

For the first recipe of this series that will post on Saturday's is...

 My very own chocolate chip oatmeal cookies! When I was a child my Grandma would bake these cookies and put them in the cookie jar. I loved them so much I would eat them even if they were super old with white marks on the chocolate chips. It has been a long struggle to create a recipe that worked but I finally did! 
Here it is...


Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cup ground rolled oats ( I use gluten free Bob's Redmill grind them up in a cuisinart)
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup softened butter ( vegan use a butter substitute)
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 T almond extract
1 egg ( if you want it vegan use oil and water instead)
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 cup chocolate chips (  I use grain sweetened ones from Sunspire)

Set the oven to 350 degrees

Grind up the oats in a cuisinart to a fine flour. Mix the dry ingredients, oatmeal, flours, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. 
Cream together the eggs, agave, almond extract, oil and butter in a small bowl. 
Mix together with as few strokes as possible the dry and wet ingredients, then fold in chocolate chips.

You can drop a Tablespoon full of the dough on a cookie sheet or use an ice cream scoop and flatten them down. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Let them cool for a few minutes if you can stand it otherwise dig in! I can never wait but they fall apart if you eat them hot. Enjoy :) 

Come back next Saturday for the next recipe! 

Have a lovely healthy day!

Chandra

Twinkling Butterflies

butterfly on mixed media paper

I am having the time of my life painting with my twinkling h2o watercolors! Thanks to Dion Dior. Look at these butterflies! I can tell you before my version of a butterfly was sloppy and more spread out. I like how she taught us to overlap the wings. 

ATC on card stock

Part of our color lesson is to make ATC's. I love ATC's as you know and even have a group where we send them to each other in the US and abroad. I added some zentangle into this butterflies wings.

ATC on card stock

 I love the polka dots on this one's body

the start of a twinkling watercolor butterfly with no pen outline 

  I tried to see if I could mix the colors in the wings but the mixed media paper does not let them blend so easily. The paint just absorbs into the paper. 

twinkling butterfly blending

The colors blended much better in this butterfly because it was on very good mixed media paper in the Stillman & Birn Beta Series notebook. I will work on outlining these later today. 

Happy Arting!

Chandra

Mixed Media with Twinks

       

A bird is looking into the daisy. 

 The peacock feather is beautiful!

Daisies

A leaf and other abstract shapes.

Purple daisy.

The whole picture! Not finished yet.

Finished.

A fun mixed media piece using stamps, painting with twinkling h2o's, stencils, words, pen, and textured foam prints.

When the sun shines you can see so much of the world in all it's beauty. The light reflects special color on every living thing from birds to flowers. What is it that you see? Do you really look at the beauty the sun brings every day?

Chandra

Twinks ;) Fruit Magic

I love my class in Twinkling H2O's! Check out what I've been creating.

pear magic

grape and apple magic

fruit magic

This is the first time I've painted fruit and done watercolors. I think they are growing on me. I've learned a lot about the colors and shading. I'm not sure I have shading down yet but it's a good try.

Happy painting,

Chandra

Dion Dior teacher of Mastering Twinks is so good!

my color wheel

I love my new class by Dion Dior called Mastering Twinks. It's full of fun activities as well as information on Twinkling H2O's, watercolor techniques, water color pencils, and all kinds of art tools! 

Twinkling H2O's are these fabulous sparkling iridescent watercolor paints. They have a thick consistency so they are different to use. Here is some of my creative play from the class. 

trying to play with the paint for the first time

seeing how the paint works by it's self and mixed with water

making circles and writing words

I've always wanted to make madala's  I tried but was not too successful. These I really enjoyed making.

Mandala play my first one

My circus or fair mandala

Third mandala I made

Then she wanted us to play with the colors, mixing them together. I loved this exercise so much I can't stop. Even my daughter saw me making one and wanted to make one of her own.

The first one I made I love dragonflies!

I made this one while in my mixed media play group

This one I made last night with my daughter who started one too

I love Dion Dior's art so much and I am so happy with this class. Check out her blog sometime.

Love,

Chandra 

Last week of The Summer Of Color

For the last week of The Summer of Color by Kristen at Twinkle Twinkle Like a Star. The majority voted on the colors sepia and sage. (I voted on lavender and yellow) I was thinking that sepia was more of a reddish color so I went with that, but as I was at my mixed media group one woman had india ink that was called sepia. I used it on the piece below in the background. It looked more like a black. I added a bit of a red tint over top. 

I heard this song on Pandora called 5 Years Time by Noah and the Whale. In the lyrics they say,"They'll be love wherever you go." I loved it so much I put it on this piece.

Here is my SOC from last week the colors were candy apple red and yellow. I was so busy I didn't get a chance to post last week. My daughter had her friend over we went to the river and they went roller skating while I went to Hobby Lobby. I drew these zentangles, added some watercolor pencil for shading in the flowers and the quote that says "You are braver than you believe and stronger than you seem and smarter than think." - Christopher Robin (My husband was named after him hehe) I thought this was a great quote for my daughter. 

I hope your day is swell!

Chandra

Happy Fourth of July

I had fun making this collage out of my gelli prints.

Have a fun one! Hope your all safe and your celebrations are grand!

Chandra