tap my glass

Its been a while since we’ve attempted anything of the sort, but i think the crusts prepared last night were likely the best ever made (by us). I’m selfishly noting this recipe more for myself as i’m likely to forget it the next time i need to make one.

This recipe borrowed technique and substance heavily from here and here. When i “adapt” recipes i tend to “round up” many different quantities because of ease of memory. I actually took some of my original memories and multiplied them by 1.5 in order to make enough pizza for 3 crusts last night, but i was off and the recipe below is only healthily good for 2.

Teff Gluten Free Pizza Crust

2 cups dark Teff flour
2 cups white rice flour
2 cups starch (i used corn and potato)
3 tbl xantham gum
3 tbl instant dry yeast
1 tbl salt
3 tbl oil (i used promiscuous olive oil)
3 tbl honey
1.5 cups white soy milk
1/2 cup water + 1/2 cup or more
extra white rice flour and corn meal for dusting
extra oil for rubbing

If you don’t know about Teff, its likely the our favorite and the most flavourful gluten free flour. I believe it comes in both dark and light, although we’ve only seen the dark. Bob’s Red Mill sells it, its what we use, and thats about the only place i’ve ever seen it.

Start by adding the flours, starch, xantham gum and salt to a large round bottomed bowl. Sift gently.
In a cup add the 1/2 cup of water and honey and mix. Ideally you heat it up for a better mixture, but i was too lazy. Then add the yeast and mix to coat all the yeast (this didn’t work well for me, but not a biggy in the end).
After a few minutes when the yeast has started to bubble, add it to the soy milk and oil. Then about 1/3 cup at a time add the wet mixture to the dry, stirring to soak as much of the dry as possible.
Once all the wet is in there, mix with your hands into a ball. If the mixture is too dry, add more water a tablespoon at a time, if it gets too wet add more flour. I kneaded heavily for about 5 minutes.
The target is to have the mixture in your hands slightly tacky to ensure a moist crust. When you’re just about done add a generous pinch of flour to your hands and coat the outside of the ball with the flour. Wrap in plastic wrap and set aside for as long as you can bear, 30 minutes is likely enough.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. When its about ready, unwrap the ball and cut in half with a sharp knife, reseal half for 2nd crust. Place uncut side down onto a lightly floured and corn mealed surface and roll out into as good a circle shape as possible to about 13″ or so, adding more flour as necessary. Then roll the likely cracked looking edges in to form a circle of about 11″ to 11.5″ in diameter. Gently coerce the dough with a spatula onto your cooking surface (we just have a metal pizza plate with little holes on it which works well). If a bit of it rips, don’t worry!!! Once you get it on, mush down the suffering parts and you’ll never know after the baking.

Add some oil to a small bowl and brush on the edges and middle of the pizza. Bake for 8 minutes on its own, then pull it out, add your sauce, toppings, etc., bake for another 10 minutes, then possibly broil for 1 or 2, and its ready to go.

Makes 2 hefty 11″ pizza crusts.

For pizza flavours the net has no end of sources, i suggest Stephen Cooks, he hasn’t been around much but his archives have some of the best bizza recipes ever, ie here and here.

I should also note that the plan was to make 3 pizzas. Well after i realized the first recipe was going to be good for only 2, i decided to make a different kind of crust. With light buckwheat flour and too late added zantham gum, i ended up with a crust that barely held together but ended up working in the end too, although clearly wasn’t as flavourful as that wonderful teff!!

Desperately low on substance in the fridge, i needed to eat something… and i needed it fast.

One of the beauties of having a house, and some yard, is the veggie garden. This year i planted a bunch of tomato plants, basil, red peppers, lettuce, and cilantro. The tomatos have been good allthough a little sparser than i would’ve expected (considering i planted 13 plants), the basil has been great, cilantro had its times (remember to pick flowers!!!), and the lettuce much the same as the cilantro. The peppers are just coming in full force now.

So back to lunch. I needed some, and had very little in the fridge. Some sundried tomatos was about all that was in there. So i went out to the garden, picked a bunch of basil, and the one tomato i could find. I came inside, pulled some shallots out, and sauted them down with some balsamic till tender. Then added sliced sundrieds and garlic. Of course s & p and oil al mucho. Once done, i took the whole bit along with the pile of washed basil, into the cuisinart with you!!! They had a bit of a pesto party in there they did. Cooked the de cecco pasta (the spooled fettuccine, best dried pasta money can buy), spooned directly into the original saute fry pan, added the pesto, and voila, lunch. Chopped my one tomato on top, some red pepper flakes, and now it is in my tummy, but not before taking this pic on top of my new filing cabinet. What a way to kick off what will likely be paradigm shiftastic weekend.

Not much has changed, not much is new. Life has been very good lately. As evidence of this, i will present this image, my lunch on this march 16th 2007.
- de cecco tagliatelle, comes in spools, best dried pasta you can buy
- 3 large mushrooms, sliced
- 8 cherry tomatos, halved
- a bunch green onions, 1.5 inch pieces
- 3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
- half red pepper – unnecessary
- pinches of hot peppers
- tons of s & p
- large bunch parsley, chopped
- a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil
- a bit of wine, a bit of broth, optional, unnecessary

1 Start water on high, start fry pan on med-high
2 add shrooms n pepper, cook for a few min
3 add pasta to water when boiling
4 add oil and s n p n hot peppers to pan
5 a few min later add rest of stuff to fry pan
6 keep on kookin!
7 when pasta done, spoon directly into pan, add a bit more oil, combine

Eat!!! This may not be everyones cup of tea, but a refreshing pasta lunch like this revitalizes me like nothing else.

I’m working from home today, it rules. Things of note:
- Apparently my blog is worth a little over 500 bux:
- Its getting warmer! Soon to start running in prep for 10 million K!!!
- House stuff mostly on hold, trying to find people to build a deck for you can be hard work.

The dip in the pic is something i’m getting very much addicted to. Click the pic and follow the link for more details… i’m in love with its semi-bland refreshing and massive room to improve characteristics.

I’ve been the worst blogger every lately. Can’t really clasify myself as one. Classification blows anyways.

I ate about 2/3 of:
- 1 cup organic white flour
- 1 cup vanilla soy milk
- 1 egg (1 yolk, then 1 folded egg white)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil (ya, its organic too)
- 2 tsp of baking powder (don’t know what this does)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- lots of grade a maple syrup
- some organic margerine
- banana

Banana waffles rule.

Checked out a new thai place last weekend, Sacred Garden. Its vegitarian, its on bank, ottawa south but before riverside. It was very tasty, as most ottawa thai is. The soup – the tom yum – not up to massive par, but tasty. The most striking part is everything had a frickin meat substitute “protein” in it!!! I think its ridiculous!!! Apparently there’s an art or something in coming up with things that look and taste like shrimp/beef/lamb/whatever that is made from plant, i’m not a buyer of it. Plus it all has wheat in it, and some people i know can’t eat that cause they’re celiac. So just substitute everything for tofu!!! Ok!!!! Which is good, but why not, i dunno, massively creative veggie/fruit dishes? Try some squash, eggplant, mangos, appples, hell roasted thai chillies!!! The food was good, the service was amazying, but holy crap, your special really isn’t “lamb protein” is it!!! Geez. Please correct me if you think i’m being unfair.

So i worked from home today. Lobsters were made last sunday, and the carcases have been sitting in a pot on the stove since then. I was home today, so i boiled the shit out of them, adding some other brothy items (onion, celery, carrot, salt). Eventually strained, and i had this kickass fishy broth… then i roasted a tomato, some garlic, and an onion, pureedished them, then added, and there you go. Some lobsteresque whatever soup. It’s pretty damn tasty. I had that round 4.

Stepping back a sec, i did have lunch too. I’m onto this silken tofu stuff for spread purposes. I had about half a block, mixed with minced pickle, tomato, shallot, and… was that it? O, and some kimchi, that stuff is awesome!!! Added a bit of rice vinager, s & p, mixed, and it works as a good filler. I had some tortilla shells, plopped it on top, rollled, consumed. Very good. Only prob is those tortilla shells are NOT good for you. 2 shells (and they were the small ones) had like 500 mg of sodium or something outragous. Hence, i took in a full days worth of sodium at lunch. And chances are, if you go to lone star, that fajita meal is enough for the day too.

This here is what i had for dinner. Of course i was hungry by 5 (little meat == little stay fulledness) so i went to that groc store on somerset near… shit i can’t remember, its the massive one whose name is a number i think? Its west of preston, just west of that city center bridge. Anyways, i got some tofu balls and veggies and stuff. And some vermicelli, the straight kind, its much better for saladish dishes. So i made that cut up some cuke, carrot, tomato, bok choyish, and got some sprouts. For the dressing i went vietai, into a little over 1/2 cup hot/warm watter dissolve 1 tbsp. sugar, add 1 tbsp. fish sauce, juice of about half a lime, and this up coming thai mixture – 4 chillis, 2 cloves garlic, a good tbsp of ginger, 2 inches of lemongrass, salt, all minced and mortle and pestles till you’re bored (which isn’t long enough, but who wants to work!!!). Mix it all together, and add a few tbsp. to the tofu balls, refrig the rest. Then fire up the q, and blacken the tofu balls for kicks. Once done, add vermicelli to a bowl, the tofu balls, then veggies of your choice, then drizzle with sauce. I like it, its got bite, and is very lite!!!!!

Yay for working from home!!!! But now i actually have to acomplish something… i think i’ll check the updates from the wsop.

I had nothing planned for dinner and 2 mangos in the fridge. So i used one of em to make this refreshing pasta salad:
- half a pack of farfalle (like 250g or something)
- 1 mango (and i still have one for bfast!!! coulda used both tho), cut however you can
- 1/3 green pepper, slimest chunks
- carrot, thinly sliced
- a leftover piece of corn on the cob, kernels knifed off
- a bit of tofu broken up
- 1/3 english cuke, super thin
- a bit of chopped cilantro
And the dressing:
- lemon juice +
- red wine vinager = about 1/4 or 1/3 cup, equalish portions
- bit of tamari
- s & p
- 1 tbl crushed coriander seed
- a bunch of that green tobasco (a real jalapeno woulda been better)

I mixed it all in a long shallow lasagna type dish, i figure the dressing would mix better. Then i set it in the fridge for a few minutes, had a smoke and openned a beer and sat in my hammoc. Then i couldn’t wait any longer and started eating it. It was pretty good. I’m still eating it.

And tomorrow is canada day. This is good. Plus its a long weekend. This is also good. Things are good. Have a super weekend!!!!!

Made this before my 10k race 2 weeks ago – dang, its been 2 weeks since my dang race. Anyways, if you want a light, easy, superb pasta meal, heres whatcha need:
- de cecco fettucine, its like 3 bux for a 500g ‘box’, when i say box its cause it comes in spools, its the cheapest, best, dry pasta money can buy, typically at nicastro type italian grocs – below recipe uses about half a box
- 3 or 4 cloves garlic, coarsly chopped
- 3 spring onions, chopped, 2mm at the oniony part, 2 cm at the green part (for flare!!)
- a can or a bunch of oil soaked artichokes
- 15 cherry tomatos, halved
- holy crap fresh sweet basil too!!!, roughly chopped
- olive oil!
Then do this:
- fill a big pot with water, a bit o salt, start it to boil (not if you’re lucky and have gas though, you could probably wait a bit)
- get your fry pan (large, or use a wok), put 2 tbl of oil in, heat it on medium
- toss in the chopped onions, saute for like 2 min
- then the garlic, in she goes
- saute for a bit, don’t burn or really cook the garlic too long!
- then toss in the rest, and bring the heat down so as not to overmassively cook
- put the pasta in when ready, cook 5 min or so (it doesn’t take al long to become dente)
- when its done, skoop it directly into the pan/wok, retaining some juices, but not too much
- mix up as best as can, add more oil if you want, serve immediatly with fresh parma and fresh pepper.
Yes, very tasty, my idea of a perfect meal really. This’ll serve 2 for lunch, or me before a 10k race (i had a bit left, but only cause i didn’t want to get over stuffed).

Working from home rules. For lunch i bbq’ed some sausages and tossed some onions shrooms and garlic some dried basil and rosemary and a bunch of organic olive oil in a pan. Once the veggies were good to go in went 2 cans of too salty but good unico chopped tomatos. And some pepper and hot red peppers. Eventually the sausages were charred n juicy so they came off, and cooled, and then sliced and into the sauce which was simmer super bubbly like. O ya. Boiled some water and tossed in some whole wheat spaghetti. Once complete and all done i topped my meal with some parma. O baby. All the while i had my laptop poised in the kitchen and answered msn’s and edited code wirelessly on the battery. Damn working from home rulez. Now its a long weekend and i’m feeling fine. Super kickass, time to get my framing on (tomorrow). But tonite, we drink and play cards and be merry!!!!!

Thats about all i can say (recipe here, flour used was brown rice though). New jobs rule too. They’re scary as fuck, but they do rule. Especially when you sit in a meeting where your director and lead dude babble for more than an hour about the feature you’re doing, and most of it flys over your head. Thats fun stuff. O, and day old pizza made fresh with a gluten free crust including teff, ya thats right TEFF flour, is used. Super kick ass. I also tried some gluten free gnocchi using rice flour, very different, must try the leftovers to know for sure. More to say, but little time to type amidst stuffing my face. I guess i can say the predictions i made here are coming to fuition, and that i probably will be working 9 to 10 hours a day for a long whiles.