Cornbread

I made this cornbread the other day, and the next morning when my kids said "I wish I could have cornbread every day so we can have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner" I knew I had to share it with you.
This is a sweet cornbread, perfect with salty, melted butter. The only ingredient you may not keep on hand is flax meal...

A Word on Flax: A lot of people swear by flax because of all the health benefits that I wont go into right now, but I like it for baking. Flax meal (or ground flax) can replace eggs 1TB flax meal & 3TB water, boiled until thick and egg like. It's the best thing, i've found, to replace an egg when baking, so I try to keep some on hand. The best way to keep it is to buy the whole seed and grind it as necessary and stored in the freezer. But I'm lazy and don't own a grinder so I buy the flax meal in the refrigerated health section at my grocery store. I've probably had mine longer than I should, but it smells fine and still works well.

Cornbread
2 TB Ground Flax
6 TB Water
1 Cup Flour
1 Cup Cornmeal
1/4 Cup Sugar
4 te Baking Powder
3/4 te Salt
1 Cup Soy Milk
1/4 Cup Canola Oil

• Preheat the oven to 425º
• Bring water to a boil
• Add flax meal to the boiling water then reduce the heat to simmer for 3-5 min or until thick
• Mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt
• Add in the soy milk, oil, and flax/water mixture
• Mix until smooth, don't over work it.
• Lightly oil an 8x8 glass, metal, or cast-iron pan
• Bake for 20-25 min. Let cool for 10 min.

Tips: 

- I replace 1 tablespoon of flour with vital wheat gluten to cut down on the crumbling.

- After 20 min, I rub the cornbread with some butter and let it melt over the top, then cook it an additional 5 mins. to make the top a golden brown.

- A single batch turned out perfect, no crumbling, but when I doubled the batch in a 9x13 casserole dish, it was good, but fell apart easier than I would like.

My Husband's Favorite Meal: Philly Cheese Steak

The cheese steak starts with the bun, I hit up the bakery/deli part of my grocery store and find a hardy bun. I try to get hot dog/sub type buns, but I've used hamburger style in a pinch.

1 LB Bulk seitan

2 Bell peppers (red is best but get whatever's in season)

1 Sweet onion

6 buns

1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (I use Daiya)

Mustard

Mayonaise

1TB Oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

• Butterfly the buns (or cut in half if you get hamburger style) 
• Spread mayo on one side and mustard on the other.
• Thinly slice your bulk meat so it's roughly 3in long and 1in wide.
• Cut peppers and onion into thick strips
• Heat a pan with oil on med-high then add meat, peppers, and onion. Cook until seitan starts to brown and veggies just start to soften.
• Add the salt and pepper last so the salt wont draw out the water from the veg and the pepper wont burn.
• Add the meat and veggie mix to your buns, top with cheese, then place on foil under the broiler just until the cheese melts and starts to brown

*ALWAYS keep an eye on the broiler, your bread will blacken in a matter of seconds if you're not careful. The broiler needs to warm up, just like when you normally use the stove, don't be like me and start with a cold stove then base my cooking times off that 1st sandwich ;)

Pair the sandwich with a side of hot wings and ranch and there you'll have, My Husband's Favorite Meal.

Out of the Darkness Community Walk

A good friend of mine for a long time recently lost her brother to suicide. She is participating in the Out of the Darkness Community Walks to help raise money for awareness and prevention. This is something that is very important to her and I wanted to help by putting the link to her American Foundation of Suicide Prevention donation page on my blog. At the very least, I ask that you check out her page and read her story. Thank you for your help and support.

Click here if you wish to help

Husband's Favorite Meal: Hot Wings

The meal: Hot wings, Philly cheese steaks, and Ranch
Of everything I make, one meal has my husband saying "I would eat this everyday and never get tired of it" and "I would order this at a restaurant and gladly pay the high price they would charge for it". Now, this meal can be time consuming if you don't already have bulk seitan on hand (which I rarely do) so all this hot air from my husband could just be his way of getting me to make one of his favorite dishes.

First up, hot wings (or Buffalo wings). At restaurants I'm usually served soft and tangy tofu hot wings, which are good, but this recipe is more of a savory, chewy seitan recipe. Baked a little less will yield softer wings and a little more will give you chewier wings, either way, cold leftovers out of the refrigerator the next day is my favorite way to eat them.

Hot Wings
1/2 cup Hot Sauce 
2 Batches bulk seitan
1/2 cup Butter
Heavy dose of Sriracha (optional)

• Put the butter in a 9x13 casserole dish and put it in your oven as you preheat it to 350º
• Make your seitan and cut into wing size strips
• Pull the butter out of the oven once it has melted and add your hot sauce/s. Mix
• Dredge each chunk of seitan through the butter/hot sauce mix on both sides then lay them in the casserole dish, they will be tightly packed, just make sure you only have one layer.
• Bake uncovered for 20 min, then use a fork to flip the wings, cook an additional 20 min.
• Finally, use a spatula to toss the wings in what ever sauce may remain in your pan and they're ready to eat. Depending on your oven and preferance, you can continue to cook your wings to get an even chewier result.

Tips: 
- Any brand of hot sauce will do, but check the label 'cause sauces advertised as being for hot wings tend to have butter in them
- If you're making the seitan from scratch for this recipe, try adding fake chicken powder for flavor
- Sriracha is an asian chili sauce found in most grocery stores (or cheaper at any asian market). It's a very spicy but flavorful addition that I like because sometimes I find the hot sauce from the bottle to taste a little flat on it's own.

Accidentally Vegan: Pantry Staples

Bread Crumbs- This is the brand I use because they're under $2 a box and I can find them in most store's baking aisle (usually the top shelf). Alone, they have little flavor so I...

1. have one bowl bread crumbs, one bowl mayonnaise mixed with enough soy milk to create a yogurt consistency, and one bowl of flour mixed with ranch seasoning or any combo of spices you have...or even just lightly salted. I dip seitan or tofu pieces in milk, flour, milk, bread crumbs and deep fry, bake, or pan fry. My husband and I like a little more crunch and flavor so we do an extra round of the milk, flour, milk, bread crumbs.

2. melt a tablespoon butter, add about 1 cup bread crumbs, pinch of salt, and maybe some italian seasoning, then sprinkle on top of your favorite casserole recipe before you bake it. The bread crumbs will turn a golden color and add a yummy crunch, a little something extra to your casserole.

Uncle Dan's Classic Ranch- I grew up on Uncle Dan's (as a non-vegan) So when I happened to read the back of the packet and saw it was vegan, I freaked out. You can follow the directions for ranch dip using vegan mayo and sour cream, and I'm not joking when I say you could serve this with veggies to any non-vegan and they would have NO idea it was vegan. It also has directions to make ranch salad dressing. My family likes a zesty ranch with hot wings, so I use the ranch dip directions then add apple cider vinegar until it reaches the flavor we prefer. I use it a lot to flavor breading on seitan. Make sure you check your package because the un-vegan "creamy" ranch is sold right next to the vegan "classic". The price seems a tiny bit high when you look at this small packet, but a little goes a LONG way, one packet lasts me many recipes.

Chocolate Pudding- Many of the Jello brand instant pudding mixes are vegan, but for some reason I find that the chocolate is the only one that thickens up the way I like (it does say right on the box that soy milk wont let it thicken). I use to make a chocolate peanut butter silk pie, but I would have to have the right kind of tofu on hand and clean my food processor, so I came up with a cheaper (less healthy) version that I can always have on hand incase a pie emergency happened.

Add the larger (5oz) box of Jello chocolate pudding with 1 1/2 cups soy milk. Add a cup of peanut butter (we like chunky) to the pot and cook med-high until the peanut butter is melted and everything is well mixed. You can add more peanut butter to taste or soy milk for a silkier consistency. Pour into a ready made graham cracker pie shell and chill for a few hours so it sets up.

Keebler pie shells- I've never tried the chocolate but the ingredients listed online are vegan and I've yet to run into a honey graham shells (we don't believe honey is vegan). The mini pie shells are awesome and sort of fancy up a simple dessert if you serve it to friends (I like the portion control aspect). The pudding and shells are both under $2, so for about $3 I can have a backup dessert ready to go in my pantry all the time.

Chicken Nuggets

This chicken nugget recipe is my new favorite recipe, it's so yummy, the whole family love them, I always have the ingredients on hand, and they're quick. I worked off of the "Souther Fried Vegetarian Chicken" recipe I found at vegetarian.about.com. I use the chicken patty recipe for the seitan in this, and most other breaded and fried recipes because they're drier than the bulk seitan recipe and coat better. I made the addetion of bread crumbs because I always have them on hand and it really added a nice crunch to the nuggets, but that's completely optional.

Chicken Nuggets

• 1 ts salt or seasoned salt
• 1 ts onion powder
• 1 ts garlic powder
• 1 ts black pepper
• dash cayenne (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/4 cup prepared mustard
• 2 TB baking powder
• 1/3 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 lb seitan or other chicken substitute, cut into strips or 1-2" square pieces
• oil for frying

Preparation:

In a medium to large bowl, mix together the salt, onion powder, garlic powder, flour, black pepper, cayenne and nutritional yeast.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the mustard and water. Add 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to the mustard mixture and combine well.

Add baking powder and bread crumbs to the flour mixture and combine well.

Coat pieces of seitan or mock chicken with the mustard batter, then coat each piece with the dry flour mixture.

Fry chunks of "chicken" in the oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet for 3-5 minutes, turning once until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel, serve with ketchup or barbeque sauce and enjoy!

Tip: If your chunks are turning brown or black rather than a crispy golden brown, your oil is probably too hot! Reduce the heat a small amount and try again.

Despite making larger batches every time I cook these up, there's never any leftover. I would love to freeze some and just be able to toss them in the oven like the carnivores get to do. I would also like to take some leftovers and toss them in buffalo wing sauce and attempt hot wings. If I ever have leftovers, I'll let you know how my experiments turn out.

Accidentally Vegan: Junk Food

My vegan son came home from school and told me when they did a good job and answered questions right in front of the class, they would get rewarded with a treat. He said "I did a good job and answered a question right, but I didn't take a treat because it wasn't vegan". I felt proud that he showed self controle and didn't eat a treat that he had earned, but felt bad that he missed out and stood out as being different or weird to his fellow 1st graders. So I searched the snack aisle for some vegan treats I could send to school with him, I was looking for something sealed, small proportions, and something that would show his classmates and teachers that vegans don't only snack on carrots and celery. 

I found this Nabisco multi pack of cookies. The animal crackers weren't much of a surprise, but chocolate grahams that didn't contain honey or milk? Well that was surprise, as was the mini shortbread cookies which are traditionally made with a ton of butter. Are they healthy? No, but that's why I titled this post "junk food" because my kids eat pounds of fresh fruits and veggies every week, and deserve little treats every now and then, especially when everyone else in their class or soccer team is enjoying a snack.

Swedish Fish are one of the rare gummy treats that are vegan (along with sour patch kids and Dots). I get the kids a bag after they've tolerated a day long trip to my favorite maze, Ikea.

Skittles weren't always vegan in the US, but have recently adopted a new, gelatin free recipe. I still check the bags for the clearly marked "no gelatin" label on them incase any old bags remained in storage and found their way to the shelf.

Oreos are the more well known vegan treats, I tend to get the much cheaper store brand cookies that also tend to be vegan (always check your labels) but knowing Oreos are vegan is always nice when you're on a road trip and only have gas stations and vending machines at your disposal.

I saved the best for last, the most amazing thing I've discovered to be vegan is not only very tasty, a rare find, but super inexpensive, it's a

VEGAN CHOCOLATE BAR!!!

This is the dark chocolate bar from Ikea, and it's only $.99 (although it's always been on sale when we shop). I don't even like dark chocolate but these are delicious. I even have a non-vegan friend who uses this chocolate over others to melt into molds and make chocolate pops out of.