Fresh Home-grown Basil Tops Home-made Wheatless Pizza

Home-grown basil grows beside tomatoes and petunias in thriving urban garden

Home-grown herbs and vegetables in your balcony garden

My fresh basil plant grew indoors for awhile, until I could tell it was time to put it outside. So I created a combined herb and vegetable garden in one of my long balcony planters this year, planting basil beside a tomato plant, and even planting a hanging petunia plant beside them for color. Everything grew together comfortably and each species seemed to thrive without killing off any of the other. A truly model ethos for an  urban garden!

Home-made gluten-free pizza with fresh red pepper, cheese, and fresh herbs

Home-made gluten-free pizza made with brown rice flour

Home-made gluten-free pizza, made without wheat, is made with about 2 cups of a combination of brown rice flour, potato flour, and sorghum flour; then 1 package of yeast, 1 tsp of sea salt, and 1 tsp of xantham gum - and that's pretty much it. You just add 2 eggs (or 2 egg-replacements, as I did), 1 1/2 cup warm water, 2 tbsp olive oil to the yeast, stir, and then mix it all together with the different flours and other dry products. Mix it well. Roll the dough into 2 balls, cover and let stand in a warm place for 1/2 hour to let it rise. 

Afterwards, flatten each into greased pizza pans, and cook just the pizza dough for 5 to 7 minutes. Then bring it out of the oven, spread tomato spread for pizza on the dough, cut red peppers, cheese, fresh sage and basil, and put on top. Bake the pizza for another 20 minutes. Makes two 12-inch pizzas.

Wellness and Wheat

Anyone concerned with wellness is now concerned with wheat

There are many ways that wheat affects wellness - from weight gain, to raised blood sugar and many other adverse health effects including heart disease.

One-third of my family are celiac, or disturbed by eating gluten, or allergic to wheat - that's 6 out of a group of 18 counting my mother, my three sisters, my two brothers, and our combined 11 children.

But none of us were remotely affected by wheat over thirty years ago when we used to gather at family celebrations and eat a wheat-based delicacy called "kutia". Most of our family's symptoms have since included stomach problems and breathing problems (kind of like hay fever).


Ways that wheat affect wellness are:

• increased appetite
• formation of small LDL particles, which combined with increased appetite, creates belly fat
• belly fat causes inflammation, higher blood sugar/higher blood pressure = risk of heart disease
• mood swings
• depression
• joint pain and swelling
• acid reflux
• irritated bowel
• peripheral neuropathy (numbness in hands and legs)

Eating fresh food, or real food that has not been processed in any way, is the best way to stay healthy. But for those days when I feel like making dough, I have a good supply of brown rice flour and soy flour. Home-made pizza was a hit at our house when I made this gluten-free home-made pizza.