latethink's Open Salon Blog

Absolutely Delicious Gluten-Free Pizza

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:10:37 -0400

Today is my birthday, and I made myself the best pizza ever. I have not had any since going gluten-free. So first of all, here is a recipe for all-purpose flour that will make your gluten-free life so much easier. I've found on the internet lots of gluten-free recipes but they all call for different kinds of flour. My patience is limited with all the exotic ingredients that people can use because some are vegans, some are intolerant to dairy, and so anyway here goes. Buy all this junk, and it will make you a lot of all-purpose gluten-free flour and then you can use it with your old recipes. I have made pumpkin bread with it and apple cobbler. Both were just great. But this pizza is my masterpiece so I thought I would share it.

This is so much cheaper and better than the gluten-free pizza you can get at Whole Foods (where I hate to spend my money because of that big-mouthed CEO), it's worth a try.

All purpose flour:

2-1/2 cups brown rice flour
2 cups white rice flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp potato starch
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp tapioca flour
3 tablespoons xanthan gum

That sounds like a lot of stuff but if you double it, it makes quite a bit of flour. Sorry, but I do not make the gluten-free rules. Now for the pizza.

Pizza dough:

2-1/4 cups GF APF (above)
1/2 cup corn meal
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup (or a little more) butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup buttermilk (tbsp vinegar and milk)

You can also add some italian seasonings if you want, garlic powder and oregano, stuff like that.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Sift together dry ingredients (you know the drill), cut in butter and oil till soft crumbs. Make a well and add buttermilk all at once. Stir with fork and form into a ball. Turn out onto floured surface. Knead it for about 30 seconds and roll into a ball. Use the baking dish of your choice. I used a 14-inch deep skillet, not cast iron, but I guess you could; you can also use a pizza pan or a 9 x 14 cake pan. This makes quite a bit of dough. So press the dough into the pan, starting in the middle and spreading to the edge of the pan, making a small ridge. all the way around. Bake in 450-degree oven for about 5 minutes. Then remove the pizza dough from the oven, and turn heat down to 425. You can top it with your favorite toppings, but since this is my recipe I'm sharing, here's how I made my topping.

Topping:

2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, sliced bite size
1 tbsp minced garlic (mine's from a jar)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1 small can of tomato paste
mushrooms
red pepper
3 slices fontina cheese
3 slices provolone
Some Frank's Redhot

brown the chicken in the olive oil, add garlic, mushrooms, peppers, cook till soften. The chicken should be cut small enough to cook fairly quickly. Add the tomato paste and tomatoes with the Redhot, heat through. Top the pizza with the chicken sauce and then the cheese. Bake for about 20-25 minutes in 425-degree oven until cheese is bubbly. It's very good.

So today I'm 51. I really need to do a mid-life kind of post, about how little work there is to do when you are not fixing breakfasts for little or adolescent people or getting them off to school, or buying them clothes or doing their laundry. It's kind of amazing and I am just starting to enjoy it. Two of the kids still come around quite often and are so independent I can barely believe it.

My birthday was nice. I work at home so I am lucky that my shift starts at noon and I can lie in bed and do my favorite thing in the world--pet my dog's silky soft head with my feet. It's heaven, as is this pizza.

I have neglected many people on OS, and I'm sorry. I try to keep up, but I'll now try harder.

AND I still DON'T have a camera. I suck.

Open Call Happy Love Song: Here We Go Again

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:09:54 -0400

No entertaining video, but you can read the lyrics which to me are very happy because they're not completely happy, but it sounds like a happy way to spend some time, on a mattress in a basement watching dirty movies with a guy with a shady past who is dumb, rock-hard and good to go. let's not forget the chinese food.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

You know I like to watch you sleep
No I don't want to touch you, you'll get mad at me
No I don't want to think about the bad times
Oh anyone can have a bad year.

Now I don't want you to show me
Do not want you to know me the way I used to be
All these good things we have would not mean a damn to me
And I dont want to hear those words you feel you have to say
When you find out how I used to be back in the day.

You know I like the way you slide
Yes I like it when you do that slow glide
Now please don't bad-talk all those good times
Don't ask for answers baby that you do not want to hear

Now I don't want you to make me
Do not need you to break me of all my childish ways
I'm still the same you know--dumb, rock-hard and good to go
I still hear them voices calling me from back in the day

Oh baby can't you see there ain't no place I'd rather be
Than watching dirty movies in that happy room with you
Sleepin on a mattress in the corner eating Chinese food
I hear that voice in my head say here we go again
Now here we go again

I know you like the way I rock
Sometimes I just need to drown out all that bad talk
Yeah, I could not care less what your friends say
Someone's always talkin shit about the old days

You do not need to remind me
That I left it all behind, those things I used to do
No I don't want that other life cause I am so in love with you
I can barely hear it calling me from back in the day

Yeah here we go again
Oh baby here we go again
I know here we go

Baby, baby can't you see

Yes I know you got some doubts
I know you don't believe
I know you think I'm crazy but I know you're just like me
When I hear that voice inside me
Makes me wanna jump right in
Sayin here we go
Here we go
Here we go again

Let's go watch some dirty movies
In that nasty little room
Sleepin on the mattress while we eat that greasy Chinese food
I hear that voice in my head say
Here we go again

Baby here we go again.

I Do Not Like That Baby

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:09:09 -0400

I did not want to get up this morning. I wanted to lie in bed and look at my cat and dog sleeping at the foot of my bed and pet them with my feet. I did not want to take a shower or type or dust the furniture or sweep the floor or make breakfast or walk the dog--and don't worry I have not yet done any of those things. Never overdo, that is my motto. I let my cat out, fed my dog some wet food, had some chocolate for breakfast and came over to the computer. I skimmed a few newspapers and then discovered that 19-pound baby. It was dislike at first sight. 19 pounds, baby? You don't think that's overdoing it just a bit and yet you lie there and cry and want to be cared for like a regular infant? Talk about presumptious, just outrageous. You know 19 pounds is heavy, not to mention the very obvious discomfort you caused your mother. You know talk about oblivious, baby. You wanted to be big, you came out big. You should get a paper route, not lie there crying helplessly.

You know lately I've been feeling like I just do not connect with people anymore, that it's just too difficult and blah, blah, blah who cares about me or what I think. But when I saw this baby, I was just more disgusted and perturbed than usual. Some empathetic people are probably reading this thinking that it's not the infant's fault at all. "Maybe the mother ate too much, maybe the father is huge. You know, who's to say but you can't blame the baby." Oh but I can. There's the picture of the giant baby and no photo of the mother or father. Also I know a thing or two about big babies. My first child weighed 9 pounds, 10 ounces. This was 33 years ago before epidurals had caught on where I lived, and I was awake through the whole labor but drugged for the actual delivery. It was hell, so in my imagination I tack on 10 pounds to this ordeal and I cannot help but dislike this newborn infant. It's just too much. He/she overdid it.

It may not be logical and it may not be right but I am going to nurse a dislike for this baby for a few hours to come, while I'm sweeping, typing, washing dishes. This baby has done me a favor by becoming a focus of my irritation.

Making Your Displeasure Known

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 21:09:29 -0400

Let me just state from the outset that I was raised in a family of yellers. I grew up in central New York and as Rachel Ray said on David Letterman the other day, she and her husband are excitable and they yell, and she never realized how bad it was until she had to stop talking for a week or whatever--I blanked out after that and realized this was an interview I had no interest in. Dave might just as well have been talking to Barney the Dinosaur as far as I was concerned.

So this is the way we solved problems in our family, by letting your displeasure be known by making the source of your displeasure feel as small and as worthless as possible. I never questioned that, unfortuately, until I moved to Oregon where people are a lot more laid back. I also met a good friend of mine who I will call Serena. With people on the TV crying and carrying on and name-calling and all kinds of stuff, and only our president being noticeably civil and silent, I felt this was a timely story.

We were checking out our groceries at Fred Meyer (back before it became Philip Morris) and she had quite a few. FM has lots of sales and items on sale and 2-for-1s but often they would not ring up as such and you would be overcharged. Serena was extremely wary about this as most shoppers are. Sure enough, at around 4:00 p.m., when the store was busiest and there was a long line behind us, and I had checked out my groceries, Serena spotted a mistake in the ring up and called it to the cashier's attention. He stopped what he was doing, rolled his eyes, called someone to come and check on the price. We waited and the people behind us waited and after the cashier did not acknowledge his mistake or even make eye contact with Serena, just kept looking put out and shrugging at the other customers as if to say: You see what I have to put up with?

Once the mistake was corrected he finished ringing up her order, handed her the receipt and said sarcastically, "Is that okay, NOW?" Serena said yes thanks and started to walk away, but then she turned around and did a wonderful thing. She said clearly and calmly: "You make it seem as if this was my fault."

Checker: "No, no. It's not your fault."

Serena: "Well you behave as if I am inconveniencing you and you seem so annoyed when actually it was your mistake."

Checker: "I didn't mean to."

He was becoming uncomfortable now because she was making a good case without getting upset or yelling, so he did not have the option of treating her like she was crazy and just dismissing her as you could see he would have liked to. Also, he could not exactly do his job while she engaged him in conversation. It was making me uncomfortable and at first I wished she would just drop it. But she didn't, nor did she ever raise her voice. She said: "When I come here and spend my money in good faith I don't like to be made to feel I'm a nuisance. I know your job is hard but you might want to think about how you treat people. I also think you owe me an apology." He did apologize and we left. She never threatened to call the manager or get him fired. She just made him aware of something he was doing that was not right and I just thought I would share that with all of my OS friends.

Lucky, Lucky, Lucky Me (and kind of unlucky me)

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:08:09 -0400

Why am I so lucky you ask? Well let me enlighten you. The other night it was dark and I was taking my garbage to the dumpster as I often do, and I took my dog with me. The dumpsters here are kept behind wooden enclosures and there sitting leaning up against the enclosure was a wrought iron head board, with an arc and 7 parallel curlicues encircling the arched rod. Should I take it? Looks light, feels heavy. I did take it. It's about 4 inches off from the size of my bed but it has holes for screws and I figure if I drill holes in a board and attach them to the holes in the headboard, then I can drill holes that line up to my bed frame into the board and attach the bed frame, and voila. Judge if you will, but I was going to buy a similar bed at Ikea for 150.00 and now I don't have to. May get a new mattress though, but not yet. I do not want to ruin the free-ness of the headboard found in the garbage by now going out to buy a new bed. It really dresses up my now one-person bedroom. Read on.

Lucky me number 2. Now I love my 22-year-old daughter Minnie, and she loved me. But she is a packrat and had so much stuff at my house and was rarely there between work, school and her boyfriend's house that I had to tell her I was moving a bunch of boxes with her stuff over to my cousin's house. She found this totally unacceptable and moved all of her stuff out, including her bed, clothing and tons of drawered containers, paper, backpacks, whatever and is no longer living here but is dividing her time between her boyfriend's house and Odie's house, my oldest daughter who doesn't speak to me. That I did not think was a great idea but I think there might have been a little manipulating behind that decision and I will leave it at that.

Lucky me number 3. I decided I was having no luck at Powell's finding books I loved. you know sometimes you go through a dry spell, so I decided to start trying Goodwill and I have a whole new favorite short-story author: Helen Simpson. She is the best. She is not the same as Alice Munro (we only need one), but she is fabulous. Some of her stories are so short but are the kind with lovely turns of phrase with prose and feeling that like a good deodorant stays with you all day. I adore her. I also bought another good book at GW called Dogs of God by Benedict Pinckney, which seems promising. From now on, Goodwill is where I shall get all my books.

Lucky me number 4: Again walking my dog during the early evening I saw a little pine TV stand in perfect shape, no dirt, no bubbles or cracks, just looking brand new. I do not have a flat screen TV and what I was keeping my TV on before was an ikea table that now serves as my nightstand. It's an understated neat-looking little TV stand and looks better than what I did have. I am a little embarrassed about taking stuff out of the garbage but I figure I leave more there than I take, having once months ago taken a box of books left by the dumpster to Powell's where I sold them for $15.00 with which I bought, juice, milk, eggs, triscuit and gardenburgers. And BTW I have a skilled job full-time with health and dental benefits. I just enjoy saving money if I can.

Lucky me number 5: I bought a round trip ticket to go to Denver in September for my nephew's wedding today for 170.00, not bad.

Unlucky me: The dumpster gives and the garbage takes back. Today when I was again walking my dog, I had her leash in one hand and my keys and her poop bag in the other. I threw both the poop bag and the keys into the dumpster. I did climb up to look inside but it was hopeless. Lucky me, my office replaced them no charge.

TV Comment section: I enjoyed last night's Madmen more than any episode I have seen for a long time. I loved Pete's and his wife's dancing. They remind me of the kind of couple who would be able to do something like that. maybe they went to Arthur Murray or something. I was reminded how great even imperfect grandparents can be. I was also reminded, when I see how cold Betty is to her children, that that was nothing compared to how our parents treated us when we were little. And, by seeing how miserable Don Draper is, I can also see that he finally realizes how much his family needs him and I thnk he may be determined to find some happiness or some kind of stability in that. I also like Peggy a little more than I used to. What I am not comfortable with is the redhead and her husband. Something not right about that guy, got a little hint of it from his colleagues. As usual, I love the hats.