Crackers

Mom, I keep meaning to direct you to this post on homemade spelt crackers. I want you to make some once your life gets back to normal and tell me how they are.

"There's a Hole in My Pizza, Dear Eva, Dear Eva. . ."

There's a hole in my pizza because it has a spelt crust, and when I jerked it off the pan onto the pizza stone, it didn't hang together. I want to say that it was incoherent, but that's not quite the right word, either.

It was delicious, and I'm looking forward to a leftover piece for lunch. First there's a layer of pesto; then various cheeses left in the cheese drawer (mostly fresh Parmesan, but also a little goat cheese); thinly sliced onions; diced tomatoes; anchovies; fresh jalapenos; and Kalamata olives. Yum.

If this pizza had been more perfect, I would have named it the "Colin Powell Endorsement Memorial Pizza" to show my enthusiasm.

Spelt Stuff

I've had good results lately with substituting 3 parts spelt flour and 1 part gluten-free flour for the regular wheat flour in my baked goods. I made excellent chocolate chip cookies--I think the secret there is to use lots of chocolate chips and nuts. Yesterday I made some nice banana bread with a modified Joy of Cooking recipe:

Spelt Banana Bread

5 1/2 tablespoons butter

2/3 cup sugar

Cream these together, then add:

1 cup spelt flour

1/3 cup gluten-free flour mix

3/4 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Mix until the mixture is grainy. Add:

2 eggs

Beat well. Add

2 mashed ripe bananas

1/2 cup nuts

Combine gently. Pour in greased 8"x4" loaf pan and bake 50 or 60 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing.

Since there's less gluten, this doesn't toughen with overmixing, so I mixed it in the food processor.

Spelt Pizza

This was tasty. I made pizza my old regular way, which I had been craving since Dad gave up wheat. I used whole spelt flour, yeast, a little olive oil, salt, 1/4 teaspoon sugar. At the last minute I decided to use 2/3 cup "gluten-free flour"--next time I'll use all spelt, because the dough wasn't quite elastic enough.

This pizza had fresh tomato, basil, chicken chorizo, olives, canned jalapeno slices, yellow bell peppers, and mixed Italian grated cheese.