Pizza and Wings, Anyone?

Well, we finally took a break from wedding-related planning to sit back and watch a Yankees/Red Sox game. Itching to try out some of the cool new toys I received at my bridal shower last weekend like this awesome deep fryer, I decided to make cheese pizza and hot wings.

Now, I know there's a saying out there that there's no such thing as bad pizza or bad sex, but before going gluten free we had the advantage of living very close to an amazing pizza place that we took advantage of at least once per week. The first time I made gluten-free pizza at home, it was such a huge letdown. As a complete beginner, I tried Orgran's Pizza and Pastry Multimix with extremely disappointing results. To be fair, the second time I tried their mix I added yeast (an optional step) but it just wasn't like the pizzeria-style pizza that we've come to know and love. I'll be the first to admit slight perfectionistic tendencies, and I've been determined to make high-quality pizza.

After I got a little more comfortable in the kitchen (and amassed a larger stockpile of specialty flours) I grew bolder and started to experiment with dough recipes from scratch. The last recipe I had tried was featured on Epicurious.com, and while it was quite good... there was still something missing.

Well, this evening I found myself in a slightly less-than-fully-stocked kitchen, craving pizza and limited to a rather creative selection of flours. Running low on finely ground white rice flour and almost completely out of tapioca flour, I experimented with some of the more unusual flours populating my cupboard and refrigerator. I came up with a very interesting dough that included amaranth and potato flour, and while I have yet to perfect the perfectly round "pizza pie" shape when I make dough, the crust was thin with just the right amount of crispiness and cheese. It was amazing - this recipe is definitely a keeper!

While I was baking pizza crust, Vince was preparing chicken wings for the deep fryer. We made a hot sauce mostly based with Frank's Red Hot sauce, and since we (well, mostly I) like a little kick in our wings added freshly chopped jalapeño pepper. We fried the wings and tossed them in our sauce, and they came out looking and tasting exactly like you'd find in a restaurant! I think this recipe is definitely a keeper!

That said - this summer during track season, we're looking forward to checking out Nunzio's pizza in Saratoga. Because even though this pizza was unbelievably good there's still something nice about going to a restaurant and being served good pizza. :-)

By the way, a sweet end to the evening? The Yankees beat the Red Sox. Go Pinstripes!