GF Blue Corn Sage Muffins

I'm not a vegetarian.  Never have been, though I was sort of a de-facto vegetarian in college.  And, Spouse 1.0 has a horror of the word "vegetarian".  It brings back memories of when he was a teenager and his parents abruptly went vegetarian and force fed him eggplant in 101 guises.

So, we won't tell him that this recipe came from a vegetarian e-zine.  He still has a hard time understanding that a vegetarian recipe that doesn't contain eggplant can be a yummy supplement to a carnivorous diet.  It's probably a PTSD thing.

Sort of like me & my mom's attempt to force feed me hillbilly delicacies. And, due to your delicate sensibilities, I won't tell you what those were.

But, back to the corn muffins.

They looked really good, especially with the adorable corn husk treatment.  I have corn husks.  Leftover from when I decided I was going to make tamales. (I never have, obviously.)

Problem is, the recipe was glutenacious and used cow products. But really, that's not a problem.  It was fairly easy to convert to GF and to sub in some lovely goat products we had on hand.

So, with special thanks to Vegetarian Times, we have this GF adaptation:

GF Blue Corn Sage Muffins

 Ingredients

• Several dried corn husks, soaked in warm water until pliable, lightly dried with paper towels.  I also oiled my hands with avocado oil and lightly rubbed them.
• 6 ounces organic butter
• 50 grams organic cane sugar
• 8.9 ounces of home-grown egg from kind friends, lightly beaten. (About 5 almost medium-large eggs.)
• 4 ounces goat milk
• 3.5 oz. goat gouda, grated
• 3.5 oz. raw goat ricotta - or generic goat cheese crumbles
• 120 grams GF all-purpose flour (e.g., Trader Joe's)
• 124 grams blue cornmeal (I like Los Chileros)
• 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp xanthan gum
• About 1 TBSP fresh sage, finely minced

 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Grease 12-muffin tin with avocado oil.  Tear corn husks lengthwise into strips about an inch wide at widest point. Lay two strips overlapping in an ‘X’ in each muffin cup, with long ends jutting out above pan. In addition, line a custard cup with 1 muffin liner, and spray with olive oil. 
2. Whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, and sage.
3. Cream butter and sugar with mixer. Add eggs, milk and cheeses, mixing well after each addition.
4. Spoon dry mixture into batter about one-third at a time, mixing just until combined after each addition.
5. Scoop most of the batter into prepared muffin tin.  This is tricky with corn husks sticking up all over the place. They don't really want to form muffin cups. But, it's worth the effort.  Trim off the tops of the husks that stick up too much.  Wet fingers and smooth the tops of the muffins, adjusting the amount of goo in each muffin cup until they're more or less equivalent.  Place extra batter in prepared custard cup.
6. Bake for 20 to 24 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and muffin springs back when lightly touched.

Almost as pretty as the ones from Vegetarian Times

Pesto and Goat Cheese Muffins

I don't usually buy mixes.   But, when a local discount store had Hodgson Mill GF pancake mix with flaxseed for an astoundingly good price... well... there are some bargains one just can't resist.

So, I took the mix on a recent trip and made Spouse 1.0 some pancakes in the hotel's kitchenette. They were good. He liked them.

Fast forward a month, and it's a busy weekday morning. I'm out of paleo bread and don't have much time. I open the cupboard, and there's the mix. Yeah.  I'll make him pancakes. But, pancakes require more babysitting than muffins. Well, why not use pancake mix to make muffins?  After all, that's what Bisquick was: Pancake mix that could be used for anything.

Hmmm. What to put in them?  I open the fridge, and there's some pesto that needs to be used up.  And,  there's some of that lovely roasted red pepper goat cheese that's getting really close to its use by date.

Yeah. Pesto and Goat Cheese Muffins.

Ingredients

160 grams GF pancake mix with flaxseed. (Or any other GF cake mix)
2 medium eggs (about 1.9 ounces each)
8 ounces goat milk
1-2 tsp sugar (to taste)
1 ounce avocado oil or olive oil
A big spoonful of extra thick pesto (maybe ~2 Tbsp?)
Leftover goat cheese crumbles (maybe about 1.5 ounces?)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 (f)
2. Prepare 9 muffin cups by lining with baking papers then spraying with olive oil.
3. Mix all ingredients together.   
4. Fill the prepared muffin cups to about 2/3 full. 
5. If desired, sprinkle the tops of a few of the muffins with a little extra pesto.
6. Bake until they smell good and a toothpick tests done. Probably about 12-20 minutes.

They weren't really this golden.  I'm not sure what my camera was thinking.

Tips

• Due to variations in egg weight or moisture content of the pesto or cheese, you may have to adjust the batter. Add a drizzle of goat milk if it looks too thick or a bit more mix if it seems too thin.
• Use a 6 cup muffin tin and 3 custard cups.  If you have too much batter, grab another custard cup.  The muffins made in the custard cups aren't as pretty as those made in the muffin tins, but they get the job done.
• I don't bake by time.  No matter how long a recipe says to bake, it's never ever that for me.  It's always a bit less or quite a bit more. So, mostly, I bake by smell and by toothpick.  When baked goods smell good, they're probably done or close to it. 
• To make extra thick pesto: Take about 1.5 to 2 cups of basil leaves and coarsely chop.  Put them in a mini-food processor and add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup pecorino romano cheese, 1/4 to 1/2 cup pine nuts, a few cloves of garlic, and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Maybe a little sea salt if desired. Lightly pulse until all ingredients are finely chopped but not emulsified.  Add more oil as need, but keep the mixture thick, like streusel.

Adventures in Leftover Relish, Part 2

Having mostly gotten rid of the cran-apple-orange relish, I was still faced with a tub of the yummy but soon-to-be-fermenting cranberry salsa.

No tips online for using that up.

And, oh, by the way, the avocados I'd bought to use on the Thanksgiving salad but forgot to use were sitting on the counter, turning very, very ripe.

avocado. cranberry salsa. avocado. cranberry salsa.  hmm...

Spouse 1.0 used to love the cranberry salsa at La Salsa.  He'd eat it on food that had avocado in it.  The food might be soft tacos, which were made with corn masa, which is kinda like cornmeal, which is kinda like blue cornmeal.

Sounds like blue cornbread to me!

Except, with green avocado, blue-gray cornmeal, and cranberry-red salsa, what color would it really be?

Was I insane? Desperate? I don't know. But, Spouse ate it and liked it. And, coworker Nick said, "Yummm" when he ate it. So, maybe it's not quite as weird as it looks.

Nah, it's pretty weird.  I think I'll need to keep thinking about ways to use up leftover cranberry salsa.

Ack. Bad lighting.  It actually looked a lot rosier than this.

Adventures in Leftover Relish, Part 1

I won't speak of the half turkey Spouse 1.0 and I were left with after our Thanksgiving guests had departed.  That's another story.

Instead, let's talk about cranberry relish.

There are probably at least 100 ideas for using leftover cranberry sauce out there. Many of them say something like, "Pour relish over goat cheese for a lovely appetizer."

Sorry, cranberry sauce over goat cheese is one of the myriad leftovers I'm trying to use up.

Or, "Use it in muffins". Did that. Last year. Didn't like it.

And, all the recipes talk about ways to use up normal cranberry relish.  Well, one of the tubs of leftover relish is kinda normal: Raw cran-apple-orange relish. 

But.

None of the 100 ways to use up leftover cranberry sauce talk about what to do with a tub of leftover cranberry salsa.  Yummy, yummy stuff. But, even Spouse 1.0's love of cranberry salsa can't get it used up before it rots.

So, I was on my own for what to do with my two tubs of leftover relish.

I decided to make jam bars with the tub of cran-apple-orange relish. 

Funny thing about jam bar recipes: When I had absolutely no interest in making jam bars, it seemed like every GF cookbook, magazine, and blog had a GF jam bar recipe.  But, when I went to look through my dozens of cookbooks & mags, and hundreds of printouts from blogs, no jam bar recipe. Except for dear old Roben Ryberg's cookie cookbook.  But, her recipe didn't use oats.  I wanted a jam bar recipe that used oats.

So, I pulled out my trusty, albeit glutenacious, Better Homes cookbook. And, there it was: A nice, oaty bar cookie recipe that was exactly what I was looking for.  Started converting that bad boy to GF. Yeah.

And. I couldn't find the GF oats.  I'd kind of re-arranged and tidied and generally hidden things for Thanksgiving. My GF oats were somewhere underneath and behind who-knows-what. Luckily, the quinoa flakes were handy. So, Quinoa Flake Cran-Apple-Orange Doncha-Just-Relish-Them Jam Bars it is.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cup leftover cran-apple-orange relish
About 1-2 tsp potato starch
100 grams GF blend flour of choice (about 3/4 cup)
28 grams cashew meal or blanched almond meal (about 1/4 cup)
110 grams quinoa flakes (1 cup)
160 grams organic cane sugar (2/3 cup)
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp baking soda
4 oz butter, softened (1/2 cup)
Optional: 1/4 to 1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and lightly spritz a 9" square pan with coconut oil spray.
2. Heat relish in a small saucepan until it starts to boil a little. Remove from heat, let partially cool, and sprinkle on the potato starch. Stir and let cool while you do everything else.
3. Make crust by mixing dry ingredients, then working in the butter with your fingertips. 
4. Reserve 1/2 cup lightly packed of the crust mixture.
5. Press remaining crust mixture into the pan.
6. Spread the relish mixture over the crust mixture.
7. Add nuts to the reserved crust mixture, then sprinkle over everything.
8. Bake about 1/2 hour until the top is golden. Cool, cut into bars, and enjoy.

Heavily adapted from the Fruit-filled Oatmeal Bars recipe in Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 10th edition.
 

They went fast.

Applesauce Blue Cornbread (Gluten Free, of course)

The cornbread obsession continues.  Today it's Applesauce Blue Cornbread. Sorry, no pictures.  But then, we're talking blue cornmeal.  Not exactly the most photogenic member of the cornmeal family.

The starting point for today's recipe came from one of Carol Fenster's books.  But, by the time you turn yellow meal to blue, sugar to maple syrup, canola oil to grapeseed, milk to applesauce, and measures to weights -- and said weights might not round trip to Fenster's original measurements.... (Let's not get into the whole your-mileage-may-vary nature of measuring!)  Then, you throw in stuff like cranberries, pecans, walnuts, and vanilla....  I guess at some point I get to call it my own thing, don't I?

So, here it is:  Applesauce Blue Cornbread with Cranberries and Nuts.  My own thing, sort of. Changes from Fenster's ingredients in blue.

Dry stuff:

·         1 ¼ cups blue cornmeal (120 g)

·         1 cup GF Flour Blend of choice (~124 g)

·         2 teaspoons baking powder

·         1.5 teaspoons xanthan gum

·         1 teaspoon salt

Wet stuff:

·         ⅓ cup maple syrup

·         2 large eggs, lightly beaten

·         5.5 oz applesauce

·         3.5 oz milk of choice

·         ⅓ cup grapeseed oil

·         ¼ tsp vanilla

Add-ins:

·         1/3 cup nuts (pecans and walnuts)

·         1/3 cup chopped dried cranberries

·         Extra nuts for topping (opt.)

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 350˚F. Generously spray an 8- or 9-inch square pan. Set aside.

2.     In small bowl, whisk dry ingredients together until well blended.

3.     In medium bowl, whisk wet ingredients until blended.

4.     Mix dry stuff into wet stuff and whisk until blended. Stir in the nuts and cranberries.

5.     Pour into prepared pan and top with nuts, if desired.

6.     Bake until top is firm and edges are lightly browned, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in the pan on a wire rack before cutting. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature. Serves 12 - 16.

Applecado Bread (Gluten free, of course)

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Roben Ryberg's books, especially You Won't Believe It's Gluten-Free.  And, a sane person might wonder, "Well, if you love Ryberg's recipes so much, why do you keep changing them???"

Good question.  All I can say is, there's something in me that must explore. Experiment. Try new (aka, "weird") things.  I just must.

Ask my sister. She's the one who was traumatized by a chocolate mint birthday cake when she was a child.  She recalls it being very minty.  It might explain why neither of us is much of a fan of mint these days.  It was not a successful experiment.

But, some experiments are.  Take, for instance, applecado bread.  This one is based heavily on a Ryberg recipe, so you know I'm starting with something good. And, I'm including avocado.  Also something good. And goat milk, ginger, cloves, bourbon vanilla, and more cinnamon.  All very good things.  As my sister-in-law says, "When you put good things together, you get a good thing."

Applecado bread: It's a good thing.

Wet ingredients:

• 6 ounces organic, unsweetened applesauce
• 100 grams organic sugar
• 2.6 ounces avocado (a little less than one small one)
• 1 ounce goat milk
• 2 organic eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla

Dry ingredients:

• 150 grams brown rice flour
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp xanthan gum
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon plus an extra shake or two
• 1/8 tsp ginger, slightly rounded
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Topping:

• 1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1. Spray an 8" baking pan with coconut oil spray, then sprinkle a little almond meal on the bottom.  Or, line the pan with parchment paper.  Preheat oven to 350 (f)
2. Mix the wet ingredients in a medium mixing bowl until everything is nice and fluffy and uniformly green. I used my stick blender.
3. Whisk dry ingredients together thoroughly in a small mixing bowl.
4. Gently fold the dry into the wet until everything is nicely incorporated.  The batter will be fluffy and beautiful -- in a green sort of way.
5. Pour batter into the baking pan, smooth out a little, and top with pecans.  Gently press the pecans in so they'll stay put.  
6. Bake at 350 (f) for about 30 minutes, until the house smells lovely and a toothpick test tells you the bread done.

Orange and Black Cornbread

Today's cornbread obsession is brought to you by the colors orange and black.

I've been wanting to do a sweet potato cornbread. And, heaven knows there are plenty of recipes for sweet potato cornbread out there. Problem is, most of them are... sweet. And, sweet won't work with black beans. Because the other thing I've been wanting to do is a cornbread that celebrates the impending month of October.

Beautiful, glorious October. Month of changing leaves, mercurial weather, the return of pie pumpkins, and just about everyone's birthday. Oh, yeah... and that other holiday.

So... this calls for an unapologetically orange cornbread, speckled with black beans, topped with creepy black sesame seeds.  And, just like October in Southern Cal, a touch of heat.

It's too bad Spouse would rather die than eat sweet potato.  But, sometimes a girl's just gotta bake what a girl's gotta bake. Today, I had to bake sweet potato and black bean cornbread. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 C. rinsed and drained black beans
2 ounces oil
280 grams organic yellow cornmeal (2 C.)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp chipotle pepper
Dash or two of smoked paprika
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
9 ounces goat milk
7 ounces sweet potato puree
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. agave syrup
Black sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Put oil in 8" square baking pan. Turn toaster oven or real oven to 425 degrees. Place pan in oven while oven preheats. Pay a little attention to the oven as you're mixing up the cornbread. Oil left unattended at high heat: Bad things could happen. 
2. Mix cornmeal, salt, baking powder & soda, chipotle, paprika, and xanthan together.
3. Mix goat, potato, eggs, and agave together.
4. Mix dry and wet stuff together.
5. Take the pan out of the oven, swirl the oil around a bit, then pour it into the batter. Mix well.
6. GENTLY fold in the black beans.  If you're too vigorous, the black beans will smoosh and discolor the cornbread. Which could also be nice and disgustingly Halloweenish. But really, it's not what we're going for here. So, do be gentle.
7. Sprinkle black sesame seeds on top, then bake for about 20 - 25 minutes until the cornbread tests done.

Serve with organic butter. Just don't serve it to Spouse 1.0.