Socca "pizza" here we come!

My dear friend Meagan introduced me to Socca- I had never heard of it before she mentioned it. I can be an adventurous recipe maker (as long as it's vegetarian), so I dove head first into this recipe!! The original recipe can be found HERE

It's made with chickpea/garbanzo bean flour so it's gluten free and had some protein too. 

The ingredients make 1 pizza crust so if you're making it for more than yourself you'll have to increase the quantity. :) Annnnd if you're anything like me the first one will turn out horribly and you'll have to make the "crust" again!

1/2 cup of chickpea/garbanzo bean flour.

add 1/4 cup water (or more if you want a thinner pancake/crust) I find that I do 1/4 cup of water and add 1tsp extra. Add your seasonings. I add Italian seasonings, garlic powder and salt. You want to add the seasonings to taste,  so I won't give measurements, as they are different each and every time. Make a batter similar to pancake batter. 

heat a skillet and add 1-3 tablespoons of olive oil. add batter and spread with a fork. I personally like to keep my crust thin, as I find that if it's too thick it gets chewy. Heat until bubbles form, edges are crispy and the pancake is firm enough to flip. Crisp the other side. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425 degrees

Now for toppings!!

My toppings this time around. I change them frequently. You could do literally whatever you want!!!  I used, kalamata olives, yellow bell pepper, mushrooms and little mozzarella balls torn up and spread over the veggies. 

Voila! And it's done!

No Bakin' Required!

Vegan Gluten Free No Bake Peanut Butter "cookies" (that really ended up being a brittle/toffee)

Here's a recipe that I altered to make vegan and gluten free. For the original recipe check it out here: Suzie The Foodie.

I have quite a few people on my holiday goodie list that have food restrictions (specifically vegan or gluten free, or both!) so I am always up for the challenge of finding recipes that look good to me that can be altered to meet my needs. This recipe is one such recipe. The original is full of glutens and corn syrup- I did my best to take that all out without sacrificing any of the yummy taste. So here's what I did.

Ingredients:

1 cup Brown Rice Syrup (**** here's the reason why the ended up crunchy like brittle. apparently brown rice syrup hardens like in candy making. So stick to the corn syrup if you want them to be like the original recipe. I'm going to play around with this and add some coconut oil and see if I can keep them from being hard and crunchy)

1 Cup sugar ( I actually substituted some of the sugar with Maple Sugar- which is a little *less* bad for you)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

pinch of sea salt

1 1/3 cup peanut butter

4 cups of gluten free flake cereal ( I used Arrowhead Mills Sweetened Rice Flakes)

handful of non-dairy semi sweet chocolate chips (I used Trader Joes Brand)

In a large saucepan heat the brown rice syrup, sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat. Simmer for 2 minutes. Carefully add the peanut butter- I do mean carefully, the previous mixture will be very hot and you don't want to splash yourself with it while you add the peanut butter. Stir to melt into mixture.

Add 4 cups of cereal to mixture. Stir to combine. Add a handful of chocolate chips (optional). Stir until melted. Using a greased ice cream scoop ( I "greased" mine with earth balance vegan "butter") scoop cookies onto parchment paper. Let cool. YUM!! *see my note below the photo for an accidental variation I found!
* These actually turned into more of a peanut brittle type consistency. Next time I make them I will spread them out into a thin later and break them up like brittle. These scoops were too hard to eat and I had to break them up. So this recipe needs to go back to the drawing board.