Nothin' Like Some 9 AM Cornbread

This has been my favorite breakfast of late. I've been using a modified version of the Bob's Red Mill Cornbread recipe to make it dairy free, but you can swap the egg out to make it totally vegan.

NOTE: Some of you Northerners may want to put sugar or honey in your cornbread batter. This is incorrect. This is not cornbread. This is something else entirely. I went to a college that did this. This is the wrong way to make cornbread.

CORNBREAD

Nothing says autumn like cornbread on top of a cable-knit sweater. It practically bleeds friendship and negotiation. This couldn't look any more autumnal than if I had strapped a pilgrim under it and offered it to my neighbor in exchange for dyphtheria.

INGREDIENTS:

1 c. Medium-Ground cornmeal

1 c. Millet Flour (Note: Do not use Garbanzo Bean Flour. I just did this, and I haven't eaten it yet, but it smells crazy.)

1/2 tsp. salt

4 tsp. baking powder

If you put 1 tbsp of sugar in here, throw out the mix. Congratulations, you've just ruined your cornbread.

1 egg or egg substitute if you're rich and idealistic

1 c. soy milk (Note: I've done rice milk here and haven't noticed a huge difference, but soy just has a heartier texture, and cornbread is a Man's Food)

1/4 c. vegan margarine, slightly melted in the microwave.

Mix it all in a bowl. It really doesn't taste any different this way, and you save on dishes. Once it's been in the oven (preheated to 425) for about 20 minutes, take it out, and melt about 2 tbsp of butter on the top of the cornbread loaf. Let it cook another 5-10 minutes, until the butter forms a thick crispy crust. And by butter, of course I mean margarine.

Remove from oven. Butter again. Next time, try adding jalopenos and cheddar cheese!

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

...And the Egg Dilemma.

So I've been a little more lax about my veganism following several major health crises that arose from the fact that:

a) I live in Boston, therefore
b) My diet has the nutritional depth and variety of sawdust.

I eat about 1 tbsp. of dairy/egg every couple of days now, so that if I'm caught out for dinner, I don't totally starve. Have I noticed an impact on my health? Absolutely. My sinuses have had a major cave-in, the likes of which I haven't had all year, including when I had the flu last year. The dairy makes me puffy, stuffy, and congested. I'm trying to keep it at/under the 1 tbsp mark every day. This is part of me working on "moderation," which I've been hearing good things about. I've decided that the anxiety of being broke and vegan is not worth the pain of poor health because I'm prevented from eating good food due to minute amounts of dairy.

So this week's recipes are not entirely vegan. They can, however, be made vegan by using vegan egg-substitute. I just find that the puffy egginess of them is totally delicious.

This week's recipe is a modification of the one on the back of the Arrowhead Mills bag. I've modified it to reduce the amount of sugar, and to alkalinize the batter a little bit using Kuzu Root.

LEMON BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

2 c Arrowhead Mills GF Baking Mix
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 c Agave (I cut mine with about 1/3 of the amount being honey, but that's pretty minute)
1/4 c COLD water
1 tsp. powdered kuzu root dissolved in 1-2 tsp. COLD water. This is important. Anything warmer than this, and the fragile powdered kuzu will cook and thicken prematurely.
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg/ egg substitute
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 tbsp. zested lemon rind
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 c. avocado, grapeseed, or safflower oil

Cook at 350 for 20 minutes. The consistency of the batter should be dry and crumbly. Today I made the mistake of trying to loosen it up with more water, but the water stays trapped in the dough, making it doughy and falling-aparty. The frozen blueberries give more moisture as the thing bakes, so you want the dough to start out pretty dry.

GLAZE

1/4 c. brown rice syrup

1 tbsp. maple syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tbsp. lemon juice
pinch of salt

Mix and pour generously over the muffin. The dough soaks it in, and it becomes lemony and delightful!