Super Tasty Pizza

I have made pizza before (see here), but the one I made today (just in case my mac & cheese turned out bad - which it did, see "Attempted Mac 'n Cheese") was a step above those I've made in the past. The thing is, I'm not entirely sure what I did differently. I used the following recipe - adapted from the one on the Gluten Free Bisquick box.


Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups GF Bisquick
1 tsp italian seasoning
1/2 cup of water
1/3 cup of egg whites (or egg substitute)
1/6 cup of olive oil


Preheat the oven to 425º. I just put all the ingredients in the same bowl and then mixed them up until it all lumped together. I then covered a cookie sheet with tin foil - shiny side up (I was borrowing a pan - so it was more for contamination safety measures but I'm not sure if it played a role in how the pizza cooked) and sprayed it with dairy free butter flavored cooking spray. I then pressed the pizza crust out onto the pan, pinching up the sides to give it a crust. 


Once the oven was heated I baked it for 15 min. I took it out and added pizza sauce and my toppings (chopped spinach - the kind that comes frozen in a box, sliced black olives and mushrooms). 






I then topped it with "Toffuti" Mozzarella slices. I then put it back in the oven for 20 minutes. And then took it out and let it cool.






What I particularly liked about this pizza was that the crust was still soft - it wasn't crunchy and the spinach reminded me of "Gino's East" pizza. We used to get the deep dish spinach pizza from there and it was amazing it is one of the things I miss the most.

Attempted Mac 'n Cheese

After figuring out that my favorite soy cheese "Teese" had tapioca in it and was making me horribly sick, I have been on the search for a comparable alternative. This post is NOT an alternative, it is more of a "what to avoid" post. Some research I had done suggested that "Nutritional Yeast" could be substituted for cheese - in combination with other ingredients of course. 

So I got everything I needed, soy milk, powdered mustard (I thought this was a bit strange but having never made this before I thought it might be necessary - like potato salad has to have mustard or else it's not quite right), olive oil, flour (I used arrowroot). 

I followed the directions exactly, mixing the mustard and flour into the oil (picture at left) after it had heated then slowly mixing in the milk (next picture) - which took a painstakingly long time to do. By this point it wasn't smelling wonderful, but I thought well the yeast flakes are supposed to give it a cheesy sort of flavor. 

So I finally got it all mixed, cooked it the extra 2-4 minutes until it was a creamy texture (it did not look very appetizing - picture at left). I took it off the heat and added the flakes - upon first opening the flakes they seemed to smell kind of cheesy but the longer they were open the worse they smelled. 

But I added them any way, the product they made in combination with the milk mixture was a gooey yellow blob that smelled relatively awful and it looked gross (picture at left) - and the recipe said to mix it with the noodles (cooked while making "cheese" mixture) and bake it. 

But don't be fooled by the actually decent looking picture to the left of what appears to be tasty mac & cheese. I, however, thought sometimes baking changes the flavor of things so I decided to go ahead and mix the "cheese" stuff with the noodles and bake it. 

However, once it came out, I am very glad I had a glass of juice standing by because it was nearly inedible. I DO NOT recommend this as an alternative to cheese - there has to be something better out there. For now I will stick with pasta and sauce, having so many food allergies I try not to be too picky, if I can eat it I usually do, but this was absolutely disgusting. 

If anyone has an alternative, or knows what went wrong please post it below. I hope this post is helpful for those thinking about trying "Nutritional Yeast" - my vote is don't.

Jell-O

With so many allergies it is often difficult to find a desert that I can eat and others don't think tastes strange. I was at lunch with some of my boyfriends family the other day and his aunt had made Jell-O for dessert. For this recipe though I have adapted how my grandma makes it to make individual servings, perfect for taking on the go.

Ingredients:

2 boxes of Jell-O*

2 cups boiling water

12-16 ice cubes (this is for rapid set)

1 can fruit cocktail (I prefer the kind in either light syrup or fruit juice)

1 banana cut into small chunks (I cut each slice into quarters)

1 apple (cut into small pieces)

mini marshmallows

6 small tupperware (9.5 oz - the snack size)

Put the two cups of water in a small pan to boil. First cut up the apple and banana and put in a medium sized mixing bowl. Next open the can of fruit cocktail and drain the fruit, and add it to the apple and banana, mix well. Set out your containers - if they are new make sure you wash them first. Once the water has boiled pour into a separate bowl or you can leave it in the pan, add both Jell-O mixes and stir thoroughly, add the ice, mix until all ice is melted. The Jell-O will start to thicken some, make sure if you used the full sugar kind that it is well mixed and there is no sugar settled on the bottom of the bowl/pan.

Jell-O covered marshmallows

Using a ladle scoop the mix into the containers you set out - they should all b about half full of jello mix. Then put about 3 spoonfuls of the fruit mix in each container. After all the fruit is equally divided in all the containers, cover the top of each with marshmallows; then use the back of a spoon to press the marshmallows down so they all get covered with Jell-O mix.

Once all of the containers have marshmallows put the lids on and place in refrigerator. Let them chill until they set.

Set Jell-O ready to eat!

*I used the full sugar kind because I've been getting sick from something (usually after I have dark diet soda), and the sugar free kind uses a lot of artificial sweeteners and such and I haven't done enough research to know if that is what is causing it.