Gluten Free Pizza Crust

Gluten Free Pizza Crust

1½ cups almond flour

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 egg

1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning (oregano, parsley and basil)

2 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese

Mix all ingredients together.  Press into the bottom of a baking sheet. If the dough sticks to your hands, moisten your fingertips with water.

Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes. Then add you favorite toppings and bake for another 10 or 15 minutes, until the cheese is melted. We like our pizza with spaghetti sauce, mushrooms, onions, and sausage, covered in Cheddar or Provolone cheese. 

Hint: To reheat left over pizza put it in a frying pan and cover with a lid, heat on low until the cheese it melted. The crust will come out crunchy and delicious   

Gluten-Free Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Biscuits and gravy were a special treat in my home growing up. We only had it when my Aunt Doris came to visit about once or twice a year. When I was older, before I discovered the joy of cooking real food, I use to make them with refrigerator biscuits, powdered gravy and precooked sausage. Yuck! That just won't do anymore. This recipe is proof that you can still enjoy your favorite foods even if you do go gluten-free.

1. Start by baking your biscuits. You can make the gravy while they are baking. Click here for a great biscuit recipe form Elana's Pantry or try the one below. I am still working on making my own recipe.

Drop Biscuit Recipe

2 ½ cups almond flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup butter

2 eggs

1 tablespoon honey

Combine the dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Combine both together and mix well. Use a spoon to scoop the dough onto a cookie sheet. Adjust the size according to how big or small you want your biscuits. Bake them (at 450 degrees F) for about 15 minutes or until brown.

2. Cook your sausage.

Homemade Sausage

We usually buy our ground pork in bulk at Costco and then make a large batch of the below recipe and freeze them in individual packages. 

1 lb ground pork

1/2 tablespoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sage

2/3 teaspoon marjoram

1/3 teaspoon savory

1/3 teaspoon black pepper

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon fennel seed, grounded

Place pork into a large bowl. Add all the spices. Combine together well. I usually use my hands to make sure that it is combined well.

Place sausage into frying pan. Cook until it is brown and crumbly.

3. Create Gluten-Free Gravy

Gluten-Free Gravy

1 lb cooked sausage

2 tablespoons white rice flour

2 cups of milk

When your sausage is cooked check how much oil you have in the pan. If you have less than 2 tablespoons add enough butter to make up for it. Add white rice flour and cook until the flour absorbs the oil. Add the milk 1/4 a cup at a time until it is the consistency that you want it.

4. Combining all items into biscuits and gravy

Place a crumbled biscuit in each bowl, top with sausage and then the gravy mixture.

Stuffed Mushrooms

These were so delicious that they felt sinful. We wanted to make them again right away but it is hard to find the larger portobello mushrooms here in Korea. We often find them in the supermarket already sliced.

5-6 large portobello mushroom caps

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 tablespoon garlic, minced 1/2 lb Italian sausage, ground

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese,softened

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Wash mushrooms. Remove stems.

Cook sausage and garlic in oil until the sausage is cooked. Stir in cream cheese, Parmesan, pepper, onion powder and cayenne pepper. Fill each mushroom with the stuffing. Bake for 20 minutes.

You can make these ahead of time and freeze them. They don't last long enough in my house to make it to the freezer. Just pull them out of the freezer and bake for 20 minutes.

These recipe was inspired and modified from this website.

Oriental Pork

Oriental Pork

4-6 tablespoons oil

2 lbs boneless pork, cut in 1 inch cubes

salt and pepper

1 small onions, chopped

2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic (or to taste)

1 teaspoon dried chili flakes (or to taste)

1 (20 ounce) cans pineapple chunks in juice (undrained)

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/4 tablespoon ketchup

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 red pepper, diced

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 tablespoons cold water

hot cooked rice (any amount)

Directions

In a large skillet, heat oil over med-high heat.

Season the pork with salt and pepper, then brown on all sides.

Add in onions and garlic, stir for 2 minutes.

Add pineapple with juice, vinegar, ketchup, soy sauce; bring to a boil reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally (about 25-30 minutes) or until pork is tender.

Add in chopped red pepper; cook for about 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with water; stir into pork mixture; bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, over medium heat; boil for 1 minute.

Serve with hot cooked rice.

Indonesian Rice

Chris and I recently found this recipe when we were looking for something that is just different. I love the colors in this dish. The original recipe does not include meat. We added meat so that we could have it as a main dish instead of a side dish. 

Indonesian Rice

Ingredients

1 tbsp. butter

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 1/2 tsp. curry powder

1 cup rice

2 cups chicken broth + 1 cup water

1/4 cup honey

Salted peanuts

Currants

Minced scallions

Cut up pork or chicken pieces (optional)

Instructions

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add the onion and curry powder. Cook and stir until onion is softened. Add the rice, stir for 5 minutes and add the chicken broth and honey. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Sprinkle with peanuts, currants and chopped scallions. Makes 6 servings.

Skillet Ramen Noodles with Pork

2 packages of instant Ramen noodles of your choice
1 package paper thin sliced pork

1 package of mushrooms, chopped

1 egg

2 Tbs of butter

1.     Add the ramen noodles to a pot of water and the mushrooms, bring the water to the boil.

2.     After the noodles have cooked for about 5 minutes, drop in the pork.

3.     Cook for another two minutes.

4.     Drop the egg into the water and stir it.

5.     Drain the water.

6.     Add butter and the seasoning packets to the noodles.

7.     Serve warm. 

Crockpot Ham Sauté with Cranberry Orange Barley Pilaf

Chris and I love food. We have tried dieting off and on for the last three years since we got married but nothing seems to take the weight off. We have decided to take a different method to dieting. Instead of depriving ourselves of the things we love, which we would only be able to do for a limited amount of time, we have decided to add healthy things to our diet instead of taking bad things away. Our theory is that if we had enough healthy items we wont have as much room for the bad stuff, but can still enjoy them once in a while. We are not going to diet we are just adding good things to our menus.

A few months ago, I was reading an article in the Kids Times about how healthy barley is. I had never cooked with it before, but decided to give it a try. Koreans really like barley and drink lots of barley tea. Chris tried the tea when he was sick, but said it tasted too grainy. So I decided to look up some recipes. I found several. The next step was to find barley. Most American recipes calls for Pearl Barley. I could not find it. Instead in Korea I am using Sweet Barley.

This recipe is a combination of two recipes that I found and combined together. Most of the barley recipes that I am going to try I found at www.barleyfoods.org

Start with the Pilaf, it takes some time to cook.

Cranberry Orange Barley

1 TBS olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 cup pearl or sweet barley
1-1/2 cups cranberry apple juice
3/4 cup fat-free chicken broth
1 cup dried cranberries
2/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted

In a frying pan heat the oil. Add the garlic and sauté  for 1 minute. Add the barley and cook for 2 minutes. Add the cranberry juice, broth and grated orange peel. I grated the orange right over the pan. Bring it to a boil. The next step it is lower the heat and let it simmer for 45 minutes. I don't have the space or proper pan to do this so I throw the mixture into my Crockpot on low for 45 minutes and the barley comes out just right.  This also leaves the frying pan available to make the ham saute. When the 45 minutes are up add the cranberries, almonds and orange slices to the pot and cover and cook for 10 more minutes.

Start chopping all the vegetables for the Ham Sauté as soon as you are done with the Pilaf. It takes a lot of time to chop all the vegetables.
Ham Sauté

1 TBS Olive oil
1/2 cup onion chopped
1/2 cup celery sliced
1 cup carrots sliced
1 cup mushrooms sliced
1 cup chicken broth or water
1 tsp gingerroot minced
1 TBS cornstarch
3 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS rice wine vinegar
2 TBS honey
2 Tsp sesame oil
1 cup cooked ham or pork tenderloin

Sauté the onions, celery, carrots and mushrooms for 1 to 2 minutes in olive oil.  Add the chicken broth and bring it to a boil for 3 minutes. 


In another bowl combine the cornstarch with the remaining ingredients minus the ham.  Add it to the pan of vegetables. Cook until thick about 3 minutes. Add the ham and stir until the ham is warm. 


Serve over the Barley Pilaf. 

Crockpot Pork Roast

3lb Pork Roast

Salt or Season Salt to taste
2 whole cloves of garlic chopped into quarters
2 tablespoons of olive oil
4 potatoes chopped in bite sized pieces
1 whole carrot cut into sticks
1 cup of chopped or sliced Mushrooms
1 cup Broth or Water

1. Make little slits in the roast and insert the pieces of garlic.

2. Rub with salt and any other seasonings that you want to add.

3. Heat oil in a frying pan.

4. Brown roast for about 2 minutes on each side. (to save time you can omit the browning process, but it adds to the flavor of the roast. I didn’t brown my first one because I was in a hurry)

5. Place roast in Crockpot

6. Add veggies

7. Cover with liquid. I used the left over BBQ sauce from my ribs earlier in the week. It gave it a good flavor but the BBQ sauce flavor wasn’t too strong. It was very good. You could use water or broth from other meats such as chicken or beef. If you make a lot of veggies you can also save the water that you boiled them in.

8. Cook for 8 to 10 hours on low.