PRIMAL-ish PIZZA CRUST

Thought I would put this here, even if it is already on facebook.  Redundancy is a good thing when it comes to saving digital info, right?

I'm not gonna call this fully Primal, or grain free, but it is gluten free. I have tweaked the flours to go for more protein and fat and less carb, but there is a fair bit of carby carb left. SO, if you are going for a very low carb diet, you might not want to make this. However, if you want pizza as your 20% or as a cheat, or even on a carb re-feed day, this should fit the bill nicely! I have yeast in this because I like the taste. If you don't want it you could add some baking soda, or just rely on the eggs for lift. My goal with this pizza was to make a compromise between the purely paleo/primal purist crusts and your standard gluten free - but chock full of carbs- crust. I want to have my pizza and eat it, too!
125 grams blanched almond flour
100 grams coconut flour
100 grams sweet rice flour
100 grams tapioca starch
75 grams potato starch
2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp guar gum
1 Tbsp sea salt
4 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2-1 cup warm water
1 cup cheese (I like 1/2 parmesan and 1/2 mozzarella)
1 cup finely shredded zucchini/summer squash
3 eggs
1. Mix flours, starches, gums and salt in a big mixing bowl until well combined, with no lumps.
2. Add yeast to 1/2 cup warm water to proof.
3. Add cheese and zucchini to the flour mixture and mix and rub the ingredients together until fully mixed.
4. Beat eggs in a small bowl or measuring cup. Add yeast mixture and oil, then add this to the big bowl of flour. Mix well, adding more water if needed. It will be a moist dough, but it should hold it's shape well.
5. Let rest/rise for 1 hour. It won't rise like wheat dough, but those yeasties will be eating some of the sugars for ya! And making the yummy taste of pizza dough.
6. Divide dough into 2 or more lumps. Roll out between sheets of parchment paper to desired thickness. I like them thin because they will puff up in the oven by about double. When I get the circle I want, I take off the top parchment and fold over the edge of the dough to make a little crust - about a 1/2 inch wide or so. Then I put the parchment back on, put my hand under the bottom paper and flip the whole thing over. It makes a nice looking edge that imitates a wheat dough crust, if you care about that sort of thing. Take off the top paper and brush olive oil over the whole top of the crust.
7. Put in a 500 degree oven for five minutes, preferably on a pizza stone, leaving the parchment under the crust. If you don't have a stone, a cookie sheet is fine.
8. Take out of oven, top as you see fit and return to the oven for another 5-7 minutes, or until it is as bubbly and browned as you like. Enjoy!

Makes 2 pizzas, with about 25 grams of carbs per slice, if you cut 8 slices per pizza.  Not horrible, but a treat, for sure.  Good thing this is a very filling pizza.

Light and Love

There is beauty in chaos sometimes....

And there are always flaws in highly ordered systems...

W.T.F!?!???

If you were the judge of a painting contest for 9 and 10 year old kids, and these paintings were the entries, how would you rank them?

Well, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't put them in the order above, first place at the top, fourth at the bottom as I placed them here. But that is exactly how the judges at the Alice Show ranked these works of art. WTF? E's is the last one, if you couldn't guess. And I am one indignant mother.

I can see the cat painting getting first, as art is a very subjective thing to judge and it was well executed. But the horse on the green ground getting second? Are you kidding me? The one they put third is a much better piece of art. And E's painting? Am I too close to the artist to be an effective judge? I don't think so, but you tell me. Maybe they thought she did not really do the painting.

When I asked about the judging, you know what they said? They asked me to be the art judge for next year! Ha! They also gave E two free passes to the rides at the show, which were worth much more than the cash prizes for the contest. Not much consolation.

New Look

A decided to change her look up. She went from this: To this:

Who took my baby away and replaced her with this beautiful young woman? Hmmm???

Oh. Right. I did, since I was holding the scissors when the transformation occurred. Have to remember that next time.

Brilliant!

Look what we did last night: The results! One was bold: And the other subtle:

E got lots of compliments while out and about today. Even the lady at the MVR (like our DMV) when we were getting our driver's licences was impressed. Of course, her hair was purple, too!

A did not get much attention, but that is her style.

Happy Halloween

The girls and their friend M ready to head into town to join cousins and friends Trick-or-Treating. M as a little Dutch girl.

E as an anime school girl.

And A as a dragonfly.

I went as a 39 year old mother of two. C couldn't join us this year, so I skipped the costume in favor of warm clothes. Snow was in the forecast, but we were spared! Hope you all had a great day!

Day Six

Today, we went here: We tried to swim, but it was very cold. A was the only one to get all the way wet.

So we left and got ice cream instead. Back home, after some Rock Band, there was outside fun as the evening cooled off. Laying in hammocks:

Eating carrots and tomatoes out of the garden:

After pizza for dinner, the girls decided to go paint some chairs in the studio:

Finished chairs pictures tomorrow!

Day Five

Today, S caught Alice the rooster and loved on him. This was a long sought after thing, as she has been trying to catch him since she got here! The girls all gave Alice some love:

We went into town to do a little thrift shopping on the Commons where many a good bargain was found. There was some loving on statues, too:

Back home, the new zipline was enjoyed:

Beauty

I posted this picture over at my photo blog, but I like it so much I wanted to share it again, here.


It was taken this evening, when I went outside to put the chickens to bed. I noticed a storm rolling in to the north of us. The clouds were doing pretty things, so I ran for my camera. When I got back out, the sky started going all shades of eerie, purple and gray-blue, to the north, and the sunset got intense in the west. I am glad I took the time to get my camera! Enjoy!

Progress

I am making slow but good progress on the chicken coop. In case you hadn't noticed I could turn this blog into a chicken blog sooooo easily! ;-) I can't help it. I love my chickens.

Anyway. Here are some pictures of the progress:

The window, made with a piece of scrap plexiglass found in the basement.

Here, A demonstrates the function of the nest boxes. Now to get the girls to actually lay in the nest boxes and not in the straw on the floor of the coop! I think I need to make them more private, or something.This shows the nest boxes from the inside of the coop and the roosting bars. And the feeder. The door you see a sliver of on the left has a chicken sized door in it. I plan to keep the big door shut and the little door open, except when I need to get in the coop for some reason. The food and water will be moved to inside the run and the whole run is secure, so the girls can come and go as they please.

And here is the whole shebang! A little nicer than that drawing I made last time, huh? This is most definitely the biggest thing I have ever built by myself. Well, almost by myself. My father in law was a huge help getting me started. I am pretty happy with it. Yay, me!! It is not perfect, but the chickens like it and that is what counts!!

Now to get shingles up on the roof, siding on the two outer sides of the coop and paint everywhere else. Oh, and finish the planting around the edges.

Talent

I feel like I give E short shrift here. Her gifts sometimes take a back seat to her sister's. Not because they are less wonderful, but because I have a hard time pinning them down and talking about them here on the blog. You really have to be in her presence to get the full effect. As Amy Steinberg said to me, she is a Super Star.

However, I can share one of her gifts, with her permission. She is a budding artist, anime style. There is not much paper around here that is safe from her pencils and markers! She even drew a picture on a cloth baby diaper at the park last week, when no one had any paper for her and she wanted to draw. Our friends went home with an E original to cover the baby's bottom with!

Without further ado, E's art:

Five Things

This picture tells so many stories:

1. A cut her hair the other day. Actually, I did the cutting, but she requested it. The reason? The Gulf oil spill. What? Go here to see what the heck I am talking about. E also contributed a slight trimmings worth. Oh, and I will be chopping my locks off soon, too.

2. I sewed the skirts and headbands that the girls are modeling in the shot above. A is all about the skirts lately. She was happy to finally get to wear something made out of that lovely paisley we got, oh, forever ago. E had to get in on the action, too. That fabric was bought even more forever ago, like when I was just out of college.

3. The dirt they are standing on had just been delivered. It will go to many projects, first of which is to grade the ground in our patio area, now that the stones are moved to make a walkway from driveway to house (picture soon). Then it will fill more raised beds in the garden. Yes, I got impatient waiting for time to sift rocks out of our very rocky soil and for compost to be ready to amend the beds with. I might have to get more. It is very lovely dirt that is fun to stick your feet in and climb up on. And it will save me time.

4. Where are my babies? Who replaced them with long legged beauties who are waaaay too old to have come from my womb? Am I really old enough to have kids that big? Don't answer that.

5. I love that tree. When the afternoon sun comes streaming through it, as it does above, my heart about bursts with the beauty of it all and I have to pinch myself to see if I really do live here and get to look at that tree every day if I want to. Then the mosquitoes start biting and I wake up.

The end.

Le Poulet Chalet

Beatrice says, "What have we here?"

Thanks to my father in law, I now have a more than halfway completed house for the chickens! The in laws were in town and he and I had some time and inclination to take a crack at building this thing, so we did. I just have to frame out the run, roof the whole thing, install the window, build a nest box and attach it, put in some roosts and a chicken size door, wrap the run with hardware cloth and side the coop! Piece of cake after what we already did.

The run will extend out along the garage wall, past the window, and will have a special clear roof that faces south to let in the winter sun to keep them cozy in the winter. Like this:

Please excuse the rough drawing, it is not easy to draw with your finger on a laptop mouse pad! Anyway, the squiggly white lines are the clear roofing panels. I will be able to wrap the run with tarps in the winter and they will stay toasty in there due to the passive solar heating.

Other than needing more room for the new chickens, I have lots of reasons for wanting to build a coop. The tractor I built last year has been great and if I lived in a warmer climate, or had a barn to put it in for the winter and only had the few hens, I would be totally happy with it. But the prospect of having to figure out something different for the winter each year led me to wanting a permanent home. And on those days when I can't be around to watch out for the free ranging chickens, I wanted a place for them to have enough space to peck and scratch while still being contained and protected from predators. And while free range is great, sometimes you need to keep them out of your garden beds and away from a newly seeded patch of ground. I won't feel guilty leaving the girls in this coop even if it is for a few days.

I also like the idea of keeping them in one place long enough to actually collect their manure for the garden, instead of letting them deposit it all over the place on their own. I reckon nine chickens make at least three times as much poop as three chickens. ;-) And while I can handle a little gift left on the doorstep once in a while, I imagine several every day would get old fast. I plan to make cleaning the coop as easy as possible by doing a deep litter system. This means I will be adding straw and other bedding to the floor of the coop and run, which will both be dirt, on a regular basis. As the chickens poop and turn the bedding with their scratching, the worms will work on it from the bottom,and it will all basically compost in place. I can clean it out into the compost a couple of times a year and then use that precious resource to grow awesome food for us!

Another benefit of the coop is having access to the power from the garage. I can run a light to the coop and a heater for the water to keep it from freezing on very cold nights. That will keep me from having to get up early to bring them fresh water. I plan to make the entire coop and run predator secure so that the chicken sized door to the run can be left open all the time. That will give the chickens freedom of movement and I won't have to get up with the sun to let them out of their coop. My sister in law sent a link to a cool door idea though. My inner geek is eating that up! I don't need a door opener, but it would be pretty sweet, don't ya think?

On a Roll

Yeah, I can do pictures! We just did a little photo shoot with the girls and this one is my favorite. My baby, all grown up!

Beauty

Just a little beauty in my life. Had to share.

Novel Idea

Hey, I gotta brag on my kid for a second here. A has been writing a book for the past year or so and I think it is pretty darn good. Anyway, she just entered it into a novel writing contest for homeschoolers. This is it here. She is pretty darn excited about this. She does not even care about the money, all she wants is the critiques. She told me she wants to be on the NYT bestseller list someday. Wish her luck!


She gave me permission to post the first chapter here. I think she wants to put it up on her blog, too, sometime soon.

BLAZE

CHAPTER 1

The young rabbit hopped along, her blue pelt shining elegantly in the sunlight as she passed through patches. The octagon-shaped diamond swung on its silver chain around her neck. Her mind was focused on two things: harvesting whatever was edible, and not getting caught, unarmed, by a wolf – she had had far too much experience with the creatures and bore a scar to prove it. A long time ago she had been cornered by a young, although quite fierce, wolf; she had taken a leap to the side, but the wolf had turned in time to slash her hip before she could fully escape.

Blaze hurried forward as she spotted a large raspberry bush. A small leather pouch was attached to her shoulders and her back with straps, the pouch itself secured to her underbelly, enabling her to stand on her hind paws and pick fruit. She was lucky to have one – only few rabbit requested that their pelt be made into leather for family members to use. Studying her paws as she thought of her older brother, she occupied herself with filling the pouch to the brim with raspberries.


As she hopped off to the edge of the trees, she had the intention of visiting Fleur’s shop. The ferns and other forest foliage decreased as Blaze entered the vast meadow in which most of her kind dwelled. She passed various types of flowers – tall cosmos, mallow, phlox and many other late-summer plants. Her eyes surveyed the area, taking in the beautiful plants and lush grass that cushioned her paws. She drew nearer to Fleur’s burrow with the surrounding sunflowers that now stood at their full height; the wide variety of herbs that grew underneath them. Blaze finally reached the entrance to the shop. Before going in, she stood on her hind paws, but it was no use. She had wanted to see if the seeds on the sunflowers were ready to be harvested. Instead she let her front paws retreat to the ground as she sniffed at a little plant with many tiny green leaves. Closing her eyes, she murmured "Mmmmmm, mint…"

Entering the burrow, where she was not surprised, for she had been there many times before, to find that it the hole was rather steep. She skidded downwards until it flattened out and stopped before a small wood door, the perfect size for a rabbit. Blaze put a paw on the knocker, and then pulled it back. Something was there that she hadn’t noticed before. A rose carved into the center of the wooden knocker. The rabbit knocked, a sense of unease beginning to form inside of her; although there was no reason to be afraid of Fleur. She was friendly, wise, and the healer of all the wounded rabbits in the meadow.


"Come in."

Blaze slowly opened the door to spot Fleur sitting calmly at her table, her tortoiseshell fur as sleek as ever. She was wearing the silver rose charm on a chain around her neck. Like all rabbits, Blaze and Fleur always had a unique accessory about their bodies that described their names. Her full name was Diamond Blaze, but of course not all rabbits had full names.


"Ah, Blaze. How may I help you?" said Fleur in a soft and reassuring voice. Blaze guessed that this was the tone she used to calm hysterical patients. She carefully leapt out of her chair and took a step forward.

She blinked as she realized the herbalist was waiting for an answer. "Uh, I need – can I have some honeysuckle nectar, please?"


Without a word, Fleur set off for her cabinets, which held vials of strange things even Blaze could not name. She heard the quiet chime-like clank of glass against glass. Soon the sounds stopped; the padding of paws floated to her ears. The tortoiseshell doe hopped back into the room a few moments later. Holding up a clear vial, which at first seemed empty, she put it up to a small window that had bright sunlight flowing through it like water. Now it seemed to be filled with a soft yellow substance.

"There you are, the nectar. Now, are you trading or buying?" Fleur asked.

"Trading," she answered politely. She opened the flap of her pouch to reveal the raspberries and gestured towards them with a paw. Fleur nodded and said, "Very well. That will be fourteen berries, please. I worked hard for that little vial – it’s very hard to harvest honeysuckle nect –"


Fleur was interrupted by the sound of two pairs of paws as they scrambled frantically down the burrow and hurriedly to the door. Blaze half expected that the rabbits would knock, but instead the door was thrown open, and there stood Ruby and Stormsong.
**********
Voila! Want to read more, don't you?

Homemade Lotion

This is for Justine:

For years now I have been interested in making my own cosmetics and toiletries. I have hit upon a great recipe for lotion. I like it because it is light and does not separate. I can even use it on my face. OK, here it is:
2 Tbsp stearic acid powder
1/4 cup coconut oil (I have made this recently with half coconut oil and half cocoa butter and it is even nicer!)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup distilled water
Melt stearic acid and oil(s) together. I use a glass measuring cup set in a pan of water on the stove. Dissolve baking soda in distilled water and heat to almost boiling. Microwave works great for this. Stir the water solution into the oil. Mixture will foam up so be sure the container is big enough to handle at least twice the volume. Mix fully and let cool. Add any essential oils you desire for scent when cool. This gives you one cup of lotion.
Let me know if you try it and what you think! Oh, I should say that I got the recipe from the book Natural Beauty at Home by Janice Cox.

Winter Plans

Now that the ground is covered with snow and will probably stay that way for the next month and a half, it is time to focus inward. No, not metaphorically-although that is a nice thing to do this time of year-but inside the house! I have spent so much time and energy around here focused outside, on the gardens and the chickens and the woods. The house got lots of attention last winter, what with all the painting I did before I ran out of steam and the earth warmed up enough to work, and it is time to finish up those projects and work on new ones.

The biggest deal around here has been the new heating system and the weatherizing of the house to go along with it. You just can't spend that kind of money and not be sure that heat is staying in the house! We have plans for more work in that area, but not till next fall, when we get some more insulation in the attic. C is feeling sucked dry financially right now, so we are giving his savings account a chance to recover before laying out anymore major cash on insulation.

So, other than some cosmetic taping of seams on the insulation in the basement, the big thing left to do, related to the heating system, is to rip up the carpet in the dining room. What fun! My house is going to be an absolute wreck for a month. I have half the room emptied, and it is already a mess. I still have to take the books off the shelves-what? you don't have a library's worth of books in your dining room, too?-, pack them in boxes, move the shelves out, pull back the carpet, remove the tacking strips and staples for the pad, patch and sand the sub floor, paint it and seal it, and then put all the furniture back! Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it and my back is slowly backing away shaking it's head with a look of horror on it's face.

Why do all that and what does it have to do with radiant heating systems? Well, carpet acts as an insulator and if the R-value of your floor+pad+carpet is higher than the R-value of the insulation you have below the heat, the heat won't travel up into your floors and the room you are trying to heat. So, up must come the carpet. Who puts carpet in dining rooms anyway? Almost as bad as in a bathroom! We are only going to paint the floor as a temporary measure until I find the perfect oak flooring to match the rest of the house. I want it to be reclaimed and finished the same way, with linseed oil, not polyurethane, so finding it might take a while. Hence the paint plan.

Also, on my winter house list is to finish all the basement projects, which include sealing the floor with a waterproofing product (any recommendations or experience there?), painting over the sealer in certain areas like the studio, finish painting the walls, install shelves for the pantry goods and holiday decorations, organize the workshop tools and all the art/sewing supplies in the studio, move the (full!) freezer and design the root cellar.

Then, upstairs, I need to finish painting all the trim in the house, paint both bathrooms, make/buy and install window treatments on all the windows, design an actual style for my living room, instead of the hodge podge I have now, hang pictures, organize and accessorize the girls room, organize and rearrange the office, including file or dump a million random pieces of paper. A few more houseplants would be nice, too.

Not to mention the luge run in the yard that must be perfected, assuming we get enough snow to do so! Oh, and somewhere in there we need to finish building the igloo we started New Year's Eve. And if it is not too much to ask, can I have time to knit a few things, mostly just projects that need to be finished? You think I can get it all done before the spring comes and the dirt starts calling my name?

Who said winter was a time for rest?

New Design

Hey, be sure to come and check out the new pictures and colors over here, if you read from a feed. I thought the fall theme I had before was getting a little too incongruous with what it is looking like around here now, so....

What do you think?

Birthday Gifts

Ooops! I forgot to show you what I made for A for her birthday. Here she is with the hat I knitted:
And here is the bracelet I made for her: