Miracle pizza

Today's adventure: gluten and dairy free pizza.  Insane, right? ...Since gluten and dairy are what make pizza so gosh darn delicious.  I was expecting a humongo taste bud explosion-- and not the fun firework kind; more like the Fukushima meltdown kind-- but, surprisingly, it was FANTASTIC.  Let's recap, shall we?

Step 1: Make the dough.
I made the dough from a mix, but it was like no mix I'd ever seen.  For starters, I had to add like 20 separate ingredients (I was expecting the equivalent to a brownie mix-- egg, oil, and water: BOOM, DESSERT).  And then the baking directions were cryptic and it was like one of those "choose your own adventure" books because they kept sending me to the middle of different paragraphs.  Get your shit together, mix-makers!

And then I carried that bucket of dough around with me for an hour, waiting for it to rise.  Looking back, I could've left it on the counter, but it ended up coming with me to the grocery store, a thrift store, and the bank.  Me n' ma bread baby.  D'aww.

Step 2: Roll out the dough.  

Yeah, see, this sounds a lot easier than it actually is.  The dough was so sticky, there was no way I was going to be able to roll it out without the help of flour, which is definitely not gluten free.  Instead, I found some parchment paper and put it between the dough and the rolling pin.  Voila!  It looked like shit!  As you can see in the picture above.

Step 3: Dump some crap on it.

Once the dough looked sufficiently stupid, I poured all my ingredients on top.  The only dairy free cheese I could find at Hannaford was Daiyea brand pepperjack.  Pepperjack cheese is not the greatest pizza cheese, but for a desperate dairy-free gal, it was sufficient.  

Step 4: Leave pizza in the oven for twice as long as the riddle box tells you.

After the suggested 15 minutes of bake time, the middle of the pizza was still as doughy as my stomach after Thanksgiving.  Another 15 minutes in there and then I said fuck it and just ate some.  Life's too short to burn the edges of your pizza just to cook the middle.

Step 5: Go back for seconds.  And then thirds.  And then congratulate you and your food baby with a well-deserved nap.

Overall, the pizza was darn good.  It may have been 2 inches thick with not enough sauce and the wrong kind of cheese, but hey!  It was my first attempt and it wasn't a complete disaster, so that's kind of encouraging.  I'm on an upswing, ladies and gentlemen.  For the first time in Demars household history, I have made food that was edible and delicious and didn't make me want to throw up.  Me and my food baby are gonna go take another nap now.