Sunday, January 21, 2007

Tortillas

I meant to mention this last week. I bought a tortilla press. I thought if 10 million Mexican women can do it, so can I, so I did. However I think I made my dough a little too stiff. My tortillas turned out, but had a real chew factor to them. So I turned them into an enchilada casserole along with some shredded charcoal grilled chicken and some wonderful NM red chile. I am low on medium, so had to use mostly hot red chile. The chicken was grilled whole which gives it a wonderful smoked flavor and turns it light pink on the outside under the skin. Normally this only takes about 45 min on a hot grill in summer, but it is January and it is Michigan and it is finally snowy out, so this one took about an hour and 15 minutes. Good thing we had lots of wine to drink!

To the chicken part of the enchiladas I added roasted poblano peppers (from the garden) and raw onions. I love the crunch factor of some slightly cooked onions in my enchiladas. Layer it up with tortillas, chix mix and cheese and pour on a wonderful NM red chile sauce. I have to make some version of these every two weeks on average.

The reason I started this tortilla blog was to inform you that I have found GF tortillas. Now for the longest time I thought, what the heck do I ever need a flour tortilla for? But I have come to recognize that corn tortillas will never get as large as the flour ones and can't really be used to make wraps. In my local health food store, lying in the freezer I spotted them. Really I was looking to see if any new frozen pizza crusts had been developed. Earlier in the day I had been reading my EveryDay Food Mag (I know, the books are still waiting, but the food mags get immediate attention) and in there was a recipe for an extra thin, crispy pizza crust with asiago cheese, red onions and mushrooms. I thought, hum, I have wanted to attempt something similar for a while, but there are no GF flourlike tortillas in my neck of the world.

And there they were. Not very many of them, maybe 6 for about $2.79. But I gladly paid for the chance to make a wrap as my homemade GF bread (with the exception of a couple of loaves) doesn't really hold up well for sandwiches. I am on the road for my job a lot and it would be nice to have some hand held food.

I will update you on the tortillas once I taste them. They are made with brown rice flour and rice bran.

Time to knit.

i'm out

Yet another pizza crust trial....

So, I am always on the search for the perfect Gluten Free pizza crust, the one that makes me say, yum, I would eat that with no toppings. I tried a new recipe this eve, one I found on Silly Yaks (must learn how to make those little links someday) and well, it doesn't have the wow factor. Yes, I can eat it, but...once again I would rather just eat the delish toppings. This one has artichoke hearts, roasted red and yellow peppers (from Trader Joes), calamata olives, loads of onions, spinach and pepperoni (Hormel is GF by the way), oh, mozz and parm too of course. I make my own tomato sauce from last summer's canned garden tomatoes.

Once I have found or created my perfect bread and pizza recipes, I hope to have more time to blog. I don't know how all those bloggers do it, between cooking, working, knitting and experimenting with the Kitchen aid and 14 different flours. I have a pile of books weeping in the corner from being ignored. It has been all about the kitchen. Ok, I do get in the occasional movie, but even my Food Network watching is down, but that might be because they seem to have a lack of true cooking shows anymore. Unless that is, you don't work during the day and can catch them then.

It is time for a Gluten Free cooking show. Sadly, Food Network didn't like the DVD I sent them last year. I wasn't diagnosed with Celiac yet anyway, but was and am a gardener and there is a lack of vegetable gardening and using and preserving your own produce in the kitchen shows.

On a totally different subject: Drogging, ie Drunk Blogging can lead to extreme headaches the next day, as if you didn't know that already.

I have had some successes and I will try to post them soon. Some great knitting projects, some great food creations that I used to make and haven't attempted the GF version.

Between now and Mid Feb I plan to continue to bake the ultimate loaf of bread and will begin working on homemade pasta so that I can have ravioli again! Along with that, wonton dough, egg rolls (for frying) and samosa dough. In March, once I have assembled the ingredients, I plan to brew some gluten free beer, a nice hoppy IPA style and a nice dark porter style. I have 4 ongoing knitting projects in the works to finish too.

Before I sign out, I have been working my way through what I am calling the GF brownie challenge from Gluten Free Goddess's website http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/index.html
and have to agree, the GF Pantry Truffle brownie mix wins, by a large margin.


i'm out