GF Fridays: How we do Gluten-Free in the E's Kitchen

I know that Friday is halfway over and I am finally getting this post out.  So sue me.  We have a lot of stuff going on over here.  My foodie partner-in-crime has her sweet brown sugar behind in the hospital again so I get to take over all of her stuff.  Seriously...the girl has a lot of stuff.  And she is SO FLIPPIN' BOSSY! From the hospital bed she will text me. "E, I need you to do this. E, don't forget to do that. E, how come your pictures always look like crap?" Damn.

So, pray for her okay? And pray for me because she is going to max out my phone text limit and my sweet Mr. Incredible is going to be hella pissed. 

But I have gotten off topic. IT IS GLUTEN-FREE FRIDAY! Hooray. (mild sarcasm).  Over here in the E's Delights kitchen, I like to tell you about making GF things are delicious, but not necessarily nutritious or practical.  I mean, everyone can tell you how to make a GF Chicken Pot Pie, but that is B-O-R-I-N-G. You know what we are making? GF Pop-Tarts. Word.

The first thing I need to say is that this recipe is not mine.  I did not come up with it on my own.  I was trolling Pinterest as I do every day and found it. I saved it on one of my boards.  I forgot about it for about 5 weeks.  Then one day I took Captain Underpants and The Hulk to the grocery store with me.  This is usually a huge no-no, but it was spring break and I had no choice unless I wanted to go at 9:30 at night when Mr. Incredible finally got home. So I did what any sane mother would do: I bribed them.  If they were good and did not whine, I would let them buy one junk food item each. JUST ONE. 

Well, Captain Underpants chose strawberry Pop-Tarts which made The Hulk cry. Why? Because strawberry Pop-Tarts have Red 40 in them and The Hulk cannot have this food dye. (how do you think he got this nickname?) The lightbulb came on over my head and I told him that I could MAKE some homemade Pop-Tarts. This caused joy. But, they would have to be GF because of Fancy Pants (my daughter) not being able to have gluten right now.  This did not stop The Hulk's dance of joy.  So, I bought some strawberry preserves (which I am really allergic to, btw) and off we went. 

You can find the recipe here: Momables Pop Tarts. I'm not going to re-type it because I am lazy.

Here are all of the ingredients I used. Aren't they pretty? I used Rice Flour as the GF flour of choice.  I ground it myself in my coffee grinder, but more on that later.

Here is the dough ball.  The recipe said to mix everything by hand, but I don't have that kind of time. I really don't. I used my food processor with my dough blade and went to town. ALSO, I mis-read the directions and added too much water, so I had to keep adding flour so that the dough ball would hold it's shape. I'm a dumb ass. Please read directions.

Here are the Pop-Tarts rolled out and with the strawberry preserves inside. This leads me to another opportunity where I get to point out how I screwed up. This recipe says that it can make 8 tarts. Um...yeah. No. I ended up making 5 full-size tarts and then running out of dough for the top layers. So I had to improvise and fold over the last three and make a couple of "mini" tarts. This actually worked out very well and they ended up being the perfect size for lunch boxes, so at least it wasn't a waste.  

Here they are in the oven.  The kids were becoming increasingly hungry at this point though I reminded Captain Underpants that he had already HAD his chemical laden Pop-Tarts earlier so he needed to calm down.

This is the (mostly) final product. I did top each one with a lemon glaze I had leftover from some muffins I made awhile back. 

The verdict: The Hulk and Fancy Pants ate these things like there was a coming alien apocalypse and these were the last food items available.  Captain Underpants ate his, told me they were delicious, but when I asked for his honest opinion, told me that they were only so-so and then looked as though he might cry for fear of hurting my feelings.  Two things I want to note: 1) I did not grind the rice flour finely enough, so the end product was a bit gritty and this is what was making them only so-so for my kid who is texture-sensitive 2) I added some nutmeg  and next time I will replace some of the white sugar with brown sugar. Everyone here knows how I feel about the brown vs. white thing. (ref: Brown Rice post)

Since I couldn't have any (strawberries +  E = death) I had....c'mon, do I have to say it?

A nice cool glass of Savignon Blanc. Ahhh