Chowder, Cobbler, Cornbread and Beans

Sunday: Corn Chowder and Peach Cobbler

During my search I didn’t find much info on Corn Chowder, so I wont share a history with you.

Basically, chowder is a thick, creamy soup with stuff in it. In corn chowder, the stuff is corn and potatoes. I used the recipe for Chipotle Corn Chowder from  Vegan YumYum, although I didn’t make mine Chipotle-ish. I added a little bit of Tofutti Sour cream (which I am using in everything lately, as it has become a staple), and left out the chilli.

It was creamy, corny, and filling, although I have to say it don’t got nothing on my mumma’s cream of corn soup. Sorry, just saying. Even though it isn’t as good as my mum’s, it was pretty fab, and we both had seconds, so it was doing something right!

The corn chowder looked like this:

Corn Chowder (crap photo taken by hungry person)

The Peach cobbler was made with a recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. I made two individual cobbles instead one big one, cos the last thing we need in the house after all this American food is left-over desserts!

Peach cobbler in a ramekin

I only had tinned peaches, and buckwheat flour,

but decided to make do. Mine turned out tasty, but the buckwheat flour didn’t harden the way I had hoped, do the topping was a little spongy. It wasn’t a bad dessert, but probably not one I’ll make again.

Monday: Beans and Cornbread

Corn meal was used by the Native Americans, from whom the Europeans took the idea. Cornbread is a quick bread made from cornmeal, eaten mostly in the South and Southwest of the USA, where it became popular because wheat bread was very expensive. Why was wheat bread expensive? I don’t know.

I had my cornbread with beans, which seems to be the way to have it. I made my usual beans, recipe below including secret ingredients, and used this recipe for cornbread, from the PPK. I used 1/2 polenta and 1/2 cornmeal (finer than what they use in the US, bought from BAS Foods on Victoria street.) According to the internets, this is Yankee Cornbread, not the Southern style. This is because I didn’t add pork products or make it in a skillet.

I may have over cooked it a little, as mine was certainly not what I would call moist. On its own it was dry and not very flavourful, and was beginning to get disappointed. But then I tried it with the beans. It. Was. So. Good! I couldn’t believe the transformation that occurred just by dipping it in some beans. It went into the beans as a boring and bland caterpillar (stay with me now), and came out the other side a beautiful butterfly of yumminess.

Conrbread and Beans

I ate mine at work last night, so excuse the left-overs-in-plastic-ware picture.

I get why its such a staple now. I suggest everyone give it a try, next time you plan to make boring old beans and rice. The recipe takes about 5 minutes to prepare, and 35 minutes in the oven, which is only a little longer than brown rice.

Keira’s Beans Recipe

serves 3-4

• 1 onion
  

  Cornbread and beans is ready for its close up

• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 cans barlotti beans (or any other smallish, redish bean)
• 1 can chopped or crushed tomatoes
• 2 tsp Massel gravy powder (secret ingredient #1)
• 1 tbs organo
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbs cocoa powder (Secret ingredient #2)
• 2 tsp pomegranate syrup (Secret ingredient #3)
• 2 tsp Massel beef flavoured stock powder

1. Separately, chop the onion and garlic finely.
2. In a large saucepan, cook the onion until it becomes transparent. It can take about 10 minutes, don’t skimp! Never undercook your onion.
3. Add garlic and fry a little longer (about 2 minutes).
4. Drain the bean juice off, then add beans to the pan, along with a little water (about 3 tbs) and the gravy powder. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add the tomatoes, oregano, cumin and cayenne pepper. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat to simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Return to a low heat. Add the pomegranate and cocoa. stir through.
7. Taste test. If it tastes great, stop here. If it isn’t salty enough, add the beef flavoured stock. You could use the vegie sock, but not the chicken stuff, as it is to sweet for this dish. The saltiness will depend on what was in your tin of tomatoes, I use unflavoured tomatoes, so they need a little extra.
8. Leave over low heat for a further 5-10 minutes, and serve with the cornbread, or brown rice.

Baking with pumpkin

Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Cookies, Pumpkin Muffins…the list goes on. Americans like to bake with pumpkin.

Its not something we do here very often, we usually turn our pumpkins into soup (or curry), or eat them roasted, so I have been intrigued.

The first time I baked with pumpkin was for my cookbook, and I made a chocolate pumpkin pie. It was sweet, creamy and a little odd to my taste-buds, being used to having pumpkin with gravy, not chocolate. It was pretty good though, and a very unusual dessert by Australian standards.

Now that I am cooking the USA, vegan style, I figure I should probably get on the baking with pumpkin bandwagon.

I chopped, seeded, skinned and baked one of my whole pumpkins. I let it cool, and gave it a good mash. Great…now what?

Scouring the internet, and my cookbook shelf, for recipes with pumpkin, I found some interesting looking recipes for pumpkin bread, and a recipe for pumpkin cookies (biscuits!) from my Lickin’ The Beaters cookbook, which looked promising.

So, off to work. I made the pumpkin read first, by combining a few recipes I found around the traps, including this one from IVU, and this one from gluten free goddess. Mine used white sugar and maple syrup as sweeteners, white and buckwheat flours, canola oil and sour cream as fats/wet ingredients, and I added walnuts. I didn’t use an egg replacer, and it didn’t matter.

Pumpkin Bread: My favourite!

As it turns out, pumpkin bread would be better described as pumpkin cake. It was awesome! I made two loaves, cutting the recipes by a third, and after two days (now) we have already run out (and there are only two of us). It was moist and sweet and spicy and just generally scrumptious. Definitely a winner, and something I plan to make again and again. In fact I might have another crack next week, with the remaining mashed pumpkin, which is sitting in my freezer.

Next were the Pumpkin Maple Cookies. I followed the recipe for these, uncharacteristically adding no changes or substitutions. They looked promising, but turned out a little underwhelming.

Maple Pumpkin Cookies: Not my favourite

They were spongy in a way I wasn’t keen on, and had a strong earthy flavour, which I just don’t think should be found in sweets. I think this recipe would be a good fit for some people, especially those who are less sugar-addicted than me, but it just wasn’t right for our house. To prove it, we have a biscuit jar full of them, hardly touched by either Mr or myself.

Today, I also made pumpkin muffins. I ditched the US theme temporarily, and made them savoury, as I just didn’t feel like any more of the maple syrup/mixed spice/pumpkin combination this week. We ate them with pumpkin soup, of course!

So my muffins are falvoured with nutritional yeast, tomato paste, salt and sage, and I used vegan sour cream as the moisture/egg replacer. The recipe for my savoury, not at all American pumpkin muffins is below.

Savoury pumpkin muffins and pumpkin soup

Savoury Pumpkin Muffins

makes 9

• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 1 tbs dried sage
• 2 tbs nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp salt
  

  Mmmm, muffins

• 1 cup pureed pumpkin
• 2 tbs sour cream
• 1/6 cup canola oil
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 3/4 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup wholemeal flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp soy milk

1. pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees, oil a muffin tray
2. In a large bowl mix herbs, yeast, salt, and all wet ingredients together (except milk).
3. Sift in flour and baking powder, and beat well.
4. Add milk now if the mixture is a little dry.
5. Spoon mixture evenly into muffin tray, filling each cup about 2/3rds full. It make 9 muffins in my tray.
6. Bake at 170 for 15-20 minutes, or until a knife poked in the center comes out clean.
7. Cool in tray for 10 minutes, then turn onto rack to cool further. Serve warm with margarine.