Gluten and Dairy free Pizza

When you're both gluten and dairy free, pizza is something that you really miss and you morn never eating it again. Unless you decide to make the best of it and come up with something just as delicious and satisfying that you don't miss the cheese and wheat.

I have tried recipe after recipe and finally have found a crust that is deceivingly close to wheat crust. We top the pizza with a yummy garlic tomato sauce, all kinds of veggies and than I make a garlic dipping sauce, comparable to the dipping sauce you can get at Papa John's.

Liam, my picky eater, ate soooo much, his little tummy was round and he laid on the floor, full and happy!



Gluten Free Pizza Crust (adapted from "The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook")
2 TBSP active dry yeast
1 & 1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 cup tapioca flour
4 tsps xanthan gum
2 tsp italian seasoning
2 tsp agave nectar
1 tsp sea salt
1 & 1/2 cup luke warm water
1 TBSP
2 tsp cider vinegar
Rice flour for coating hands and dough

Preheat oven 425 degrees. Grease a large cookie sheet or two round pizza pans with olive oil. In a stand mixer, mix dry ingredients with the wire whisk attachment, add liquid ingredients and beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Dough should be like very soft bread dough. Coat hands and dough with rice flour and put dough on pan. Pat and work dough onto pan and into corners. Dough should be fairly thin on pan. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 400 degrees. Top crust with desired toppings and bake another 20 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and veggies are crisp. Cut and serve with Garlic Sauce.

Garlic Dipping Sauce for Pizza
1/4 cup crushed garlic
1/4 cup margarine, ghee or olive oil

Heat in small pan over medium heat stirring constantly until bubbling. You can double this recipe as needed. Serve either in small bowls for dipping or pour over the top of pizza after pizza is cooked.

Doesn't it look yummy?

You can tell it's a hit when it disappears all except for crumbs!

Gluten and Dairy Free, Vegetarian Oat Patties and Oven Roasted Herb Potatoes

My husband is mostly vegetarian and I myself only like to eat meat a couple times a week, so I'm always looking for vegetarian food that is gluten and dairy free and that my kids (especially my picky eater) will eat. Oat patties are another favorite around here. Pretty easy to make and you can put a variety of different things in them. I usually make them for dinner one night and than we use them to make sandwiches the next day.

Vegetarian, gluten and dairy free oat patties
2 cups gluten free oats
1 cup boiling water
1 medium sweet onion
3 eggs
1 - 2 tsp salt, depending on how salty you like your food
Fresh or dried herbs, tonight I used fresh oregano, thyme and rosemary
1 TBSP crushed garlic
Optional - you can add grated carrot, potato, chopped celery, green onions, etc
Olive oil for cooking

Put oats in a bowl and add boiling water. Let stand till oats soak up water. Add onion, eggs, garlic and seasonings, stir thoroughly. Heat olive oil in a well seasoned cast iron skillet (or frying pan if you prefer). Drop spoonfuls of oat mixture in hot oil and cook over medium heat until golden and crispy, flip and repeat. Serve hot with gravy or ketchup or use as meat substitute in sandwiches.

I like to serve oat patties with potatoes of some kind. Oven roasted potatoes are super easy and can bake without my attention while I am cooking the patties. Tonight I added a bunch of chopped fresh herbs, as my window herb pot was trying to take over my kitchen sink.




Oven Roasted Herb Potatoes
Red Potatoes cut into bite sized pieces
Fresh or dried herbs chopped or crushed
Olive oil
Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Toss potatoes with herbs, olive oil and salt. Spread out on cookie sheet and put in hot oven. Bake approximately 20 - 30 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Here it is all put together with peas and refrigerator pickles

It still amazes me how she can eat so much!

Can't get enough!

Getting a Head Start on Our Garden

Weekends are our time to tackle bigger projects as a family. We were so fortunant to find a house with a half acre back yard already full of fruit trees and a large sunny area perfect for a garden. And yes, we live in the middle of a big city. Portland is the only city I know of that still has whole neighborhoods with large yards. We've been planning this years garden since we moved in almost 4 months ago.

So this weekend is dedicated to getting a start on our garden. We picked up some free fill dirt this morning and we are planning on mixing it with manure, compost and yard waste and letting it cook the rest of winter. We started our garden boxes and will finish them tomorrow. I built a compost pile area out of scrap lumber we got for almost free at home depot. So far so good! We'll finish up tomorrow.

This is a really great shot of my husband's derirer as he is hard at work.

My compost pile containment area.

Another great shot of my husband's better side.


Even Baldur enjoyed himself!

Starting My Stash

Hitting the 20 week mark in my pregnancy yesterday, got me thinking about diapers for this new babe! I decided I better get to making some or I'm never going to get them done. I really got busy today and now have 2 fitteds and 6 prefolds done. I also have 2 wool soakers made from repurposed sweaters. I had all of the fabric laying around, some of it I've had for years. I used a couple of Freya's old recieving blankets for some of the prefolds. I still have 4 prefolds all cut out, just need to sew them up!

My homemade stash so far

Repurposed wool sweaters make the best diaper soakers!
The fitteds are the cutest. Unfortunantly, they take the longest!
My prefolds made out of organic hemp knit and Freya's recieving blankets.
The prefolds folded

A very yummy GF/CF/sugar free dinner... including cranberry scones to die for!!!

Another, easy to get the kids to eat, meal that I make often is pasta primavera made with rice pasta and whatever veggies I have on hand. Tonight I made it with De Boles Gluten Free Rice Angel Hair pasta and when I started eating it I had to go and get the box out of the trash to really make sure it was gluten free. This pasta was just as good as any wheat pasta I've had!
The recipe is simple.

Gluten Free Pasta Primavera
2-3 cups chopped veggies (asparagus, sweet peppers, onions, mushrooms, green beans, broccolli, peas, etc)
1TBSP crushed garlic
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
8 oz rice pasta, boiled until tender and rinsed with cold water

Heat olive oil in a skillet or wok. Add garlic and cook 1-2 minutes. Add other veggies and sautee over medium heat until veggies are tender but not soggy. Add prepared pasta and cook until pasta is warm throughout. Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

The veggies before adding pasta.

The finished product!

I usually make muffins or cornbread to go with a main dish like this. Today I was looking for a muffin recipe when I stumbled across these scones. I decided to take my own spin on them since we are not only gluten free, but casein and processed sugar free.

This is what I did and it turned out fabulous!!!

Gluten, Casein, Sugar Free Cranberry Scones

1 & 1/4 cup brown rice flour

3 & 1/2 TBSP tapioca flour

2 tsp aluminum free baking powder

3 tsp guar gum

1 tsp sea salt

3 TBSP raw agave nectar

1/4 cup ghee

1/4 cup olive oil

2 eggs

1 tsp gf vanilla extract

1 tsp gf orange extract

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup dry cranberries

1 egg beaten for egg wash

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl (I put it all in my stand mixer). Mix liquids in a separate bowl and add to the dry ingredients. Mix on medium speed until well blended. Fold in cranberries. Lay dough out on counter floured with rice flour. Pat out into a circle shape about an inch thick. Cut in 8 wedges and paint wedges with egg wash. Put wedges on a rice floured cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Serve with ghee or margarine and jam.

They even look beautiful!

And put it together for the perfect meal!

Today...20 Weeks and Counting

Am I really already halfway through this pregnancy? I can't believe how fast time flies. I have had a hard time adjusting to the idea of having another baby so soon after Freya, but as time goes by I am getting more and more excited and feeling more and more prepared. I am actually feeling more organized than I have since Liam was born. Despite Liam's sensory processing issues and Freya's increasing independence coupled with her physical fragility, I am feeling ready for this new little spirit to take her place in our family. I do really feel that our family will be complete after this one is born. It's an exciting thought to realize that soon everyone will be here and we can move to the next stage in our family's development!

Keeping Track of 2010

As anyone who has known me for any amount of time, knows, I am not an extremely organized person. Actually you might consider me to be extremely disorganized, but I very badly want to be organized. I've been working towards it the more kids I have and I'm proud to say that I'm quite a bit more organized than I was when I was a teenager, ha!

This week, the first week of a new year, has found me a bit less organized than usual because I have nothing to keep track of what is happening for 3 kids, my husband and myself. I went to an appointment a whole day late, thinking I was on the right day, because I calculated in my head from my 2009 calendar what day I was supposed to go! (Another thing that most people who know me, are aware of, is that I am terrible at calculating things in my head!)

So today I again set out to use what I had to make what I need. I have a ton of paper craft supplies that my avid scrapbooking mother has given me over the years. Something that I have learned is that it takes an organized person to really do any scrapbooking, and we have already established that my mother did not pass me the organization gene. I grabbed some large, stiff pieces of paper, pens of varieties of colors, stickers and a ruler and came up with my own calendar. I even went on line to look at a 2010 calendar to make sure I got the dates right. I only had time to get January and Febuary done, but it will work for now, and I will at least have the day and date of events to come right, it's up to me to figure out what day it actually is!


I even hung it up where I will be sure to notice it!

Gluten free, dairy free, very yummy chicken tacos!

We eat a clean gluten/casein (the protein found in dairy products) and no refined sugar diet. At first it was hard to find meals that my kids would eat. We've since gotten more used to eating this way. This meal is cheap, easy and has become a favorite for the whole family!

I give credit to the recipe idea to my friend Valerie, although I've done my own thing with it.
I took a package of boneless skinless chicken thighs, although you can use chicken breast too, and I put them in a 4 quart slow cooker with a can of organic diced tomatoes, aproximately 2 tsp cumin, 1 tsp sea salt, 1 tsp cardamom, and 2 garlic cloves chopped finally. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-8 hours. Serve with corn tortillas, lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, salsa, ketchup or whatever else catches your fancy.

My picky eater cleans his plate every time I serve this.

Freya eats so much for such a tiny girl!

And of course, I stuff my face with several... after all I am eating for two, right?

I also make cumin pinto beans for Michael as he doesn't eat meat as often as us.

"Mama, I need slippers!"

This morning on our way to school (an in-home montessori childcare), Liam informed me that he needed slippers for "work". I've been meaning to get him some, but I never think about it when I'm around somewhere that I could actually find slippers. But today he was adamant about getting slippers and wanted to go the store "right now!" Michael and I have decided to really try to buy only a couple pre-chosen things (like new shoes for Michael's new job in the OR) new. We want to really try to get what we need used or repurpose old items into what we need. So I told Liam that I would try and make him some slippers. I dropped him off and came home and looked through my stash. I found a piece of leather from a repurposed leather jacket and some wool sweater scraps.

I used one of Liam's snow boot inserts for sizing and made up a pattern in my head. The first slipper took me quite a bit longer than the second as it took me a while to figure out the logistics of how it would fit.


They looked pretty cute by themselves, but I couldn't wait to get Liam from school so I could try them on him!


I had a hard time getting Liam to stand still for a picture... he loved them so much he was dancing around! He calls them his "lizard" shoes (thats how he says wizard). They are a little big, but that just means he can wear them for a long time!

Simple Does it

In a culture where more is better and everyones lifetime goal is to leave a mark on the world, it can be disorienting to live a simple life. At least it is disorienting for those on the outside looking in. For me it is refreshing, relieving and essential for happiness. The more simple my life, the more in tune I am with real living. When I eat simple food I am more aware of how my body feels and I eat when I am hungry, not to escape or to not feel what I'm feeling, etc. When I surround myself with simple, handmade things, instead of the constant clutter of stuff our culture supports, I can hear my thoughts and am aware of my true feelings and where they are coming from. When I spend my time playing with my family, reading good books and listening to positive music... same thing. I am here, present, able to really take part in life.

Our dream has been to live way out, in the country, off grid, away from the distractions of our culture. Instead of this dream becoming a reality when we thought we were so close, we have been led back to a big city. But we are realizing that we can live this simple life we so crave even here amidst the chaos. We don't believe in perfection, but we do whole-heartedly believe that we can make a lasting difference for our mother earth, our sanity and our children. One choice at a time we can make a new world!