Cheesy Corn Muffins

I seem to have muffins on the brain, which is odd, because I rarely EVER bake. And - I just found the last of the 'Nacho Cheese-Teese Sauce' (from the great Teese recipe Challenge) stuck away in the freezer. Now, I have no idea if the fine Teese people recommend that you freeze the stuff or not, but it appeared to survive the Ice Age with no harm done.

Since I had cornbread muffins on the brain anyway, I simply melted the Teese and substituted it for part of the oil/milk. It really made the muffins moist, dense and just "cheesy" enough to compliment the other flavors.

Of course, you could substitute any "meltable" vegan cheese here.

Cheesy Corn Muffins

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup rice milk or soymilk
• 1/4 cup olive oil or melted margarine
• 1/2 a 'tube' 'Teese' Nacho-Cheese sauce (aprox 1 cup?) or equal amount other vegan cheese
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon maple or rice syrup, (or agave which I dislike, and it dislikes me as well)
• 1 jalapeño minced (or to taste)
• 2 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
• 1/2 cup corn kernels, patted dry (fresh raw, thawed from frozen or canned *gasp* yes indeed, I said canned!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Grease (fairly heavily with coconut oil or Earth Balance) a standard 12-muffin tin.
Combine the dry ingredients--cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Melt the Teese in the microwave or mix with margarine and melt on the stove if you're opposed to microwaves like I am. (The aliens and all... you know...).

Anyway.

Stir in the wet ingredients--soymilk, margarine/'Teese' mixture, vinegar, and maple syrup.
Gently fold in jalapeño, corn and cilantro.
Pour batter into muffin tins, slightly over 1/2 full.

Should make 12 muffins.

Bake for 18 minutes (more or less, depending on the type of muffin tins you have, your oven, the humidity and altitude and whatever other variables you can think of) until the sides begin brown and slightly pull away from the edge of the pan and wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Serve warm with margarine and honey (*gasp*) KIDDING or whatever you might use instead of honey...

Gingerbread Houses and 15th Birthdays

Once again, in keeping with our yearly tradition, we celebrated my middle "Sprout"s birthday with a delightfully messy, sugar-filled annual Gingerbread House-making Birthday party.


















Teen girls and lots of sugar. It gets crazier every year.

But every year the girls are older, they can do more of the prep work themselves, clean up more of their own mess, and their creations get prettier and more lavish.

Everyone loves it. I have Moms calling in September asking if we're making houses again this year.

I always have the house "parts" baked and cooled ahead of time, and after many years of doing this, we have it down to a science.

This year, however, I used the gingerbread recipe from Vegan Dad's blog, as I haven't really liked the texture of the other vegan gingerbread recipes I've used.

I'm not much of a recipe follower, which is why you'll rarely see links to other recipes here; there's millions of better recipes than mine, I just stubbornly prefer to muddle through until I've concocted my own creation (or disaster!).

However, with my daughter's time-honored Gingerbread party I didn't want to experiment. And happily, (as you'll see) the gingerbread turned out great.
(Here are some good cut-out-and-assembly instructions, we use slightly smaller measurements since we're making 6 houses...That equals a LOT of dough!

We DO use commercial Royal Icing however, just to "cement" the house parts together. Yes it has egg-whites. But any and all attempts I have made at decent vegan royal icing have ended up in collapsed houses that look somewhat like a Hurricane Katrina re-creation... Not the effect you're going for at a Holiday party!

However, once the houses are assembled and "set", we mix up some fairly decent vegan frosting for the final (and fun, messy, sticky, icky, sugar-coated) step of decorating...

And no, I am sure some of the candy isn't vegan. Bring on the vegan Police.

Here is my approximate icing recipe (and <-- here is what happens when big sisters get bored with Gingerbread houses); play with it according to the humidity in your kitchen and how much liquid your powdered sugar absorbs.

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"Almost" Royal Icing

7 Tablespoons water

4 Tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer (don't use another brand)

7 cups of powdered sugar (you can make non-bone-char powdered sugar with beet sugar and cornstarch in a coffee grinder, Whole Foods sells vegan powdered sugar too)

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mix dr ingredients together. Add to water. I don't usually add all the powdered sugar/cream of tarter, just keep mixing it in until the right consistency. It still takes longer to set up than royal icing

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And just in case you're thinking this is a worthless post with nothing but frosting, here are the amazing vegan chocolate-chip muffins that big sister Jessika made for everyone for breakfast. (She made the birthday cake too! )

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Pretty generous of her since she had to put up with a housefull of "younger" girls all night!

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Chocolate-Chip-Banana Muffins

3 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 cup sugar
2 cups sifted whole wheat pastry flour (or white, or whatever)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips, chopped to make them a bit smaller, and tossed with a bit of cornstarch so they don't "sink" in the batter

Pre-heat oven to 360 degrees.
In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork till mushy.

Add the oil and sugar and mix together until creamy.
In a separate bowl combine the dry stuff.

Combine with the banana mixture, stirring gently just to combine.
Grease (WELL!) or line a muffin pan, and fill each muffin about 2/3 full with batter. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Here's hoping your Holidays are sweet and memorable.