Kombucha

Raspberry Ginger Kombucha on the rocks

EDITED 01-25-2016 with an important medical note. Due to my own naive overconsumption of Kombucha, I was actually causing damage and stress to my liver, which was discovered with a standard blood test. Please be aware that this is a beverage with live organisms in it, and it should only be consumed in small quantities, as a "health tonic." At most 4 or 5 oz per day. I was actually drinking 12-16 oz per day, the way I might have regular ice tea in a big glass. My dear friend and "sister-in-law-once-removed", who is a nutritional therapist, did some extensive research and learned that people who have had toxic mold exposure should not drink kombucha at all, nor have raw vinegar with "the mother" in it.  That all rings a bell for me, because I was chronically exposed to toxic mold for 3 years in a rental house in the 1990s.  Furthermore, after discovering my off-kilter lab work, I told all my friends who drink kombucha to be cautious. One of my friends also decided to get bloodwork done and her liver enzymes were also elevated after regular kombucha drinking. So please use caution! As fun as it is to make this natural beverage, if you are in doubt at all, ask your doctor to run some bloodwork on you, especially if you feel more fatigued or lethargic, or start having any illness symptoms after consuming it. I am not a doctor. I am just sharing my own experience in the last 3 months, after six months of daily kombucha drinking.  As for myself, I'm afraid my kombucha drinking days are over. I'll miss it's tart, fizzy effervescence, but I only get one liver.

GF Pizza with Pumpkin-herb sauce, chicken, and caramelized onions

I can't make my own crust anymore.  Waaah.  Okay, at least not for another 6-8 weeks of this trial gluten-free diet that my doctor put me on.  So I decided to try a gluten-free pizza crust mix.  This particular mix is manufactured by Gluten Free Mama, (coincidentally in my old highschool-era hometown of Polson, Montana-- GOOOO PIRATES!!) and while I followed the directions closely, I'm not sure I hit the sweet spot exactly.  Maybe I let the dough sit for too long or not long enough or maybe my kitchen was too cool.  I did not get quite the pizza-crust texture I had hoped for, with springy, stretchy, and bready air pockets.  But it tasted quite good otherwise, so the flavor was very similar to a pizza dough-- and I'll experiment a little with it next time.  Or maybe it's just impossible to get that kind of puffy artisan yeasty-airiness in gluten-free flour mixes.  I'm still learning here.  Either way, my husband even thought it was good -- or at least a good stand-in for regular pizza dough.  I might experiment with rolling some garlic, and herbs into the dough next time, too.

I also was so busy trying to follow directions that there are no step-by-step photos of this process, but I did take a picture of the finished pizza.  Errrhm... I mean, a picture of the half-eaten finished pizza.

There are really only four components on the pizza-- the pumpkin-sauce, sauteed onions, and skillet-fried chicken, cut into chunks and grated mozzarella.  I tried to caramelize the onions but got impatient and forgot to babysit them so they ended up a little bit brown in some parts, and just had the consistency of regular-sauteed onion in general, so rest assured: I will admit my own mistakes when I make them!

For the sake of brevity, then, I'll just tell you what went into the sauce and you can fill in the gaps. I know you can do it.  You're smart readers.