52 Pick-Up Challenge: Week #3

*This series of Friday posts is inspired by the blog entry--52 Pick-Up Paleo Style by Amy Kubal via robbwolf.com. Each post is based on this premise that Dietary Ruts = Kitchen Boredom -> Healthy Eating FAIL! So each week, I plan to share with you one meal from the previous week that I tried and enjoyed to help me stave off the boredom in my weekly meal plan.

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I have come across some weird food-stories this week. Soil Soup was the one the piqued my interest the most. Did you know a Tokyo chef, Toshio Tanabe, has a whole tasting menu that features soil as an ingredient? I suppose I shouldn’t judge it before I’ve tried it, but I don’t think it will be featured here any time soon.

And who missed the story of horse meat in IKEA’s meatballs? But I digress…

This past week was full of new recipes, so I had a hard time narrowing my choice down for this week’s 52 Pick-Up post. But I finally decided to share a semi-“paleo,” grain-free, & gluten-free recipe that our family is bound to repeat for special occasions. And since it is my wife’s birthday tomorrow, I figured I would share her requested meal for our Family Movie Night tonight. 

This recipe comes from one of my favorite blogs, The Domestic Man. His food photography is wonderfully mouth-watering. Please visit his blog & realize that he receives all the credit for this recipe. I just followed directions.

Recipe #3 of 52: Cast Iron Skillet Grain and Gluten Free Pizza (Modified Recipe)

Ingredients (makes a cookie-sheet sized pizza)

Dough

• 3 cups tapioca starch
• 1 cup each heavy cream and water (or ½ cup milk instead of cream & water)
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 2 egg, beaten
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• pinch of white pepper (black pepper will work too if you are being frugal)
• 1 ½ cup parmesan cheese (or any hard cheese), grated

Toppings

• 1 cup sugar-free marinara sauce or pizza sauce
• 1 ½ cup mozzarella or other soft cheese
• Toppings—anything that floats your boat

Instructions

1.    In a saucepan, combine the cream, water, butter, and salt and bring to a simmer on med/low heat.You want to get it to the point that it’s starting to bubble, but not boiling.

2. In a large bowl, add the tapioca starch. When the cream/water mixture is heated, add it to the starch and stir it all together. It will start to clump together, which is fine.
3. Let the mixture cool for five minutes. As it cools, preheat your oven to 500 degrees.
4. Add the beaten egg to the mixture, and knead together with your hands. Add the cheese, white pepper, and oregano, and mix together until it’s dough-like. *If it is not dough-like, begin adding and kneading in more tapioca starch until it reaches that consistency.
5. Stretch the dough out into the thinnest layer possible on your cookie sheet or pizza pan. It will likely tear if you stretch it too far, so just pull it as far as you can. Spread it to the edges with your fingers. Try to get it as thin as possible.
6. With a fork, poke some holes through the dough to let air pass through.
7. Bake in the middle of your oven for six minutes, then take it out and put it on your stove (keep the oven on!). The dough may bubble up a little while cooking, which is fine – it’ll go back down once you take it out of the oven. The dough will have a more bread-like consistency at this point. *This step is important because it gives the dough time to cook through without burning the toppings.
8. Add the sauce, cheese, and toppings, whatever you’d like.
9. Throw it back in the oven and cook for another 8 - 10 minutes, until the cheese starts to brown. *For extra crispy toppings, broil it for the last minute of cooking.
10. Enjoy!

*These instructions are a modified version of those found on The Domestic Man blog. I have very few original ideas, so thank you Russ Crandall! @onionsaregross