Chickpea Crepes/Tortillas

I found out I'm completely intolerant of potatoes, which includes a lot of other starchy things, like tapioca, artichokes, jicama and all the potato derivatives. So here I am back at the drawing board! I am, however, very tolerant of chickpeas/garbanzos. And the bonus is they are so good for you, way higher in protein than grain flours.

So I went looking for some recipes and found some good ones, but the mice started racing around the wheel in my brain and I came up with this recipe.

Chickpea Crepes/Tortillas

1 cup chickpea flour

1 cup water, plus more as needed

1/4 teaspoon salt

Whisk all three together. Walk away and let it sit for 1/2 hour to an hour. This gives the chickpea a chance to absorb the water. Heat a 10" skillet up and add a little oil. Make sure the skillet is hot! Stir batter, it should be as thin as crepe batter, add water a tablespoon at a time until it's as thin as you like. Pour about a half cup over medium high heat until bottom is lightly brown. If it's not done it won't release easily from the skillet. Work the spatula around the sides and then the center. Flip and cook until it releases from the pan and is lightly brown. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, should keep about a week. Makes about six nice sized crepes.

Yummy with a cream cheese filling for breakfast!

Crackers! (Gluten Free)

I finally more or less perfected my cracker recipe after months of fooling around with ingredients. The recipe was originally for tortilla chips, but they were a boatload of work and super messy, so I set out to make it my own.

Chickpea Crackers

1 cup tapioca starch
1 cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tablespoons cooking oil
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons ground flax seed
1/4 cup cold water
Extra tapioca starch

Beat egg together with oil, flax and water, set aside.  Stir dry ingredients together, stir in egg mixture. The mixture will be pretty soft. Turn out on a surface generously covered with tapioca starch. Knead a bit.

Don't be afraid to load on the tapioca starch.

Roll out in small batches. Try to get the dough as thin as you can. It's pretty sticky so just keep dusting with starch.

Cut out with a dusted cookie cutter. I use a small round cutter but you can cut them bigger if you like, adjust cooking time for the size. I've also used a pizza cutter and made squares, much faster but the round cracker is more uniform.  Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and prick with a fork. You can put them pretty close together, they don't spread.

Sprinkle a little salt over (don't skip this, it really makes a difference in the flavor). Bake at 375°. Start with 10 minutes and add time, a minute at a time until crackers are brown on the edges.  A good way to tell if they're done is when they loosen from the pan. Recipe makes about 100 small

I had a hard time keeping them from cracking in two, so I added the egg, switched from butter to oil, and added the flax.

It's so nice to have a good snack alternative. I've done just cheese, but my favorite is a smear of cream cheese and a dab of homemade pepper jelly. Yep, I eat pretty well for being an allergic chick!

My Mom's Ginger Cookies (Gluten-Free)

After the success using chickpea flour for the chocolate chip cookies, I moved on to the ginger cookies my mom used to make.  Stan and I have both made the recipe and people just go nuts over them.  So now the challenge-would they still drive people nuts if there was no wheat in them?  That would be a big affirmative!  We were coffee hosts at church this morning and we heard comments like, "These cookies are so good!" and "You're kidding me-these aren't gluten-free!"  Yay!

So here is my recipe:

My Mom's Ginger Cookies

1 cup softened butter

1 2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup molasses

2 eggs

2 cups chickpea flour

1 1/3 cup tapioca flour

2/3 cup potato starch

4 tsp soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp salt

Of course use safe-for-you ingredients.  Preheat oven to 375.  Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and molasses.  Beat til fluffy.  Stir together the rest of the ingredients and stir into butter mixture.  Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment.  (Don't skip the parchment, makes all the difference)  Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.  Check, if cookies need a bit more browning turn pan and give it one more minute.  Remove from pans and cool.  Makes about four dozen.