PICA PICA!

So last week a customer came into the bakery and told us about a restaurant in San Francisco called Pica Pica Maize. It's a sort cross between fast food and traditional venezuelan food. I went on the website and one of the first things that comes up is a captions saying that everything in their restaurant is completely gluten free. What the heck?!How have I never been here before?! Luckily, I was going to the city that very night so I convinced Dan that we HAD to go there. Immedietly. And so we did! We went there for lunch over the weekend and it was really cool! Everything is corn based and it's quite delicious. The way the system works is that you choose your filling: various combinations of meats and veggies and cheese. Then you choose your bread out of three options: A corn pancake (Cachapas), maizewich (looks like an english muffin), or an arepa. So there are lots of delicious combos. I ended up getting a Cachapa filled with pulled pork, avocados, and tomatoes.

We also ordered a side of beef empanadas, which were alright but not as good as traditional chilean empanadas. In my opinion. So anyway, the moral of the story is: Pica Pica is delicious! I want to go there everyday!

XOXO

Natalie

New Pizza Crusts

So this post is not so much a recipe as a product review/recreation. I've recently fallen in love with Kinnikinnick gluten free foods. It used to be that Kinnikinnick had nuts in all their products, but recently they've done a complete overhaul of their production lines and now all of their products are nut free! They have the most amazing frozen pizza crusts I've ever experienced. They're small, individual sizes and they always come out perfectly. Soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, with a delicious sprinkling of corn meal on the bottom for extra crunch.

And now for the recreation part of this post: Some of you may have seen my ecstatic ranting about an amazing gluten free pizza place called Zpizza. We had pizza for dinner the other night and, with Zpizza in mind, I tried to recreate their mexican pizza; with a few twists of course. I used the frozen pizza crusts and topped it with: tomato basil sauce, shredded mexican cheese, red and green onion, and corn. Then I sprinkled on a bit of garlic powder, cumin, and ground oregano.

After baking, I added a couple slices of avocado. What I intended to do, but forgot in my rush to eat the entire pizza, was to put a bit of sour cream on as well.

Try this pizza out! This would also be really tasty with some leftover meat on top. I didn't have any, but chicken or gorund beef would have been really tasty.

XOXO

Natalie