Mexican Pie

I get a newsletter from VegNews, which always has an interesting vegan recipe. A recent one included tamale pie and while I couldn’t get all the ingredients here (in a small city in the UK without a Mexican population) and others weren’t to our taste, I adapted the idea and made a Mexican-style pie.

Ingredients:

 

pastry

1 vegetable stock cube

2 cups boiling water

2 cups fine cornmeal

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ cup vegetable oil

2 tsp mint

1 dash lemon juice

 

filling

2 red onions

3 garlic cloves

oil

1 tsp honey

5 mushrooms

1 pepper

2 cups spinach

1 tin/package black beans

½ cup frozen or tinned corn

1 tin peeled tomatoes

1 tsp salt

2 tsp smoked paprika

1 tbsp parsley

1 tsp chilli flakes, if desired

 

Instructions:

1. Put the stock cube in the water.

2. Mix all the other pastry ingredients and then add the vegetable stock. Stir well.

3. Press half of the pastry mixture into the bottom and sides of an oven-safe dish and bake for 10 minutes at 180 C.

4. Peel and dice the onions and garlic. Fry lightly in the oil and honey.

5. Brush and slice the mushrooms. Wash and chop the pepper. Add them and the spinach to the frying pan.

6. Drain the beans and add them, the corn, the tomatoes (not drained, so add the juice too), and the spices.

7. Stir and warm through for a few minutes.

8. Pour the filling over the pastry. Spoon the rest of the pastry over it and smooth out.

9. Bake for 20-30 minutes at 180 C.

Cornbread Muffins

This makes 6 muffins, but the recipe can easily be doubled. I like to serve them warm with salad. It’s nice for guests to have these muffins when they’re over for dinner, as it’s a rather unusual sort of bread (at least where I live).

Ingredients:
¾ cup cornmeal
¼ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
30 g butter, softened
2 tbsp honey
1 cup yogurt

Instructions:
1. Mix the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
2. Add the butter, honey, and yogurt. Mix well.
3. Pour the batter into muffin cases or tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 190 C.
4. Serve with butter.

Aubergine Quiche

I like to play around with different quiches/pies/tarts. I like how you make one large one and then have enough food for several days. Since I first wrote this recipe, we’ve stopped using dairy at home because it seems that M feels better without it. So we’ve been trying out various soy “cheeses”. I’m not keen on them all, but many work pretty well in dishes such as quiches or omelettes. Do experiment and see what you like.

Ingredients:
1 portion cornmeal pastry (see previous recipe)
1 aubergine
1 handful cherry tomatoes
50 g spinach
1 tsp parsley
oil
1 tbsp honey
100 g cheese (you can use any type – I used up leftover blue cheese and cheddar)
3 eggs
200 ml milk or cream
pepper

Instructions:
1. Roll out the dough into an oven-safe dish.
2. Wash and dice the aubergine. Wash and halve the tomatoes. Fry the aubergine, tomatoes, spinach, and parsley in oil. After a few minutes, add the honey. Fry another 10 or so minutes.
3. Crumble or chop the cheese. Mix it with the eggs and milk or cream and season with pepper.
4. Put the vegetables on the pastry. Top with the egg mixture.
5. Bake at 180 C for 30-40 minutes.

Cornmeal Pastry

When making a pie/tart/quiche, you can change the flavour of the pastry by adding cornmeal (also known as polenta). This gives it a richer taste and grainier consistency.

Ingredients:
150 g butter
¾ cup flour
½ cup cornmeal
3 tbsp water

Instructions:
1. Cube the butter and blend it with the flour and cornmeal either by hand or in a food processor. Add the water.
2. Either put the pastry in the pan/dish and then in the refrigerator or else just wrap it in cling film and then put it in the fridge. Let rest for 20 or so minutes.

Corn Fritters

This is a savoury sort of pancakes that can be served for a light lunch or dinner. I served it with a tangle of watercress and the yellow of the fritters and the green of the watercress combined to make a nice summery look on the plate.

I’ve also sometimes added a tablespoonful of milled seeds (pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, etc) to the batter, because they’re healthy and add a nice full, nutty undertone.

When I served them, I accidentally called them critters. Let me tell you that critters are not appetising; if they were, I wouldn’t be a vegetarian, I guess. So make sure you get the name right when you serve them or you’ll end up with surprised and disgusted dinner guests.

Ingredients:
½ cup flour (I used whole wheat)
¼ cup cornmeal (polenta)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1 pinch salt
1 pinch black pepper
1 pinch smoked paprika
1/3 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tin corn
oil

Instructions:
1. Mix the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, sugar, salt, pepper, and paprika.
2. Blend in the milk and eggs, stirring to get rid of any lumps.
3. Mix in the corn.
4. Warm the oil in a frying pan and fry fritters a few at a time. Keep them warm in the oven until serving.

Cornbread

This is a rather rich-tasting cornbread, so it could just as well be called corn cake. Eat it warm with some butter while having tea or coffee or serve it alongside soup or stew.

Ingredients:
½ cup butter (about 115 g), plus extra for the tin
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup yogurt
2 eggs

Instructions:
1. Melt the butter.
2. Mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and vanilla together.
3. Mix the dry ingredients with the butter and yogurt. Beat the eggs and add them.
4. Grease a loaf tin or other oven-safe dish and pour the batter in.
5. Bake at 175 C for around 35 minutes.

Gluten-Free Cornmeal Pancakes

I really do like making pancakes on weekend mornings, even though M isn’t always that keen on a heavy breakfast. Still, it’s important that she put some food in her belly before she goes off to her karate class. So in our attempt to lower our gluten intake, I’ve been remaking many of my old pancake recipes. Here is my newly gluten-free recipe for cornmeal pancakes.

Ingredients:
1 cup polenta/cornmeal
1 cup hot water
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup gluten-free flour
½ tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 egg
1¼ cups milk (you can also use cream or soy milk)
oil or butter for frying
fruit to serve with the pancakes
maple syrup or agave to serve with the pancakes

Instructions:

1. Put the polenta/cornmeal (what you call it depends on where you’re from) in a bowl and add the water. Leave this to sit for 10-15 minutes, until the water is all absorbed.
2. Meanwhile, mix the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the cornmeal and mix.
4. Beat the egg and add it. Then add the milk.
5. Melt butter or warm oil in a frying pan.
6. Spoon the batter into the pan. It will be thick. You might want to press out any larger lumps. Fry on both sides until golden brown and a bit crispy. This takes just a couple of minutes.
7. Serve with fruit and syrup or agave.

Lemon Cornmeal Cake

I originally saw a version of this recipe on Epicurious. I love cornmeal, so I wanted to try it out, but adjusted to the ingredients available (I couldn’t get buttermilk at the time I was making this) and the way I like things (i.e. more cornmeal and easy on the sugar, which also means no glaze). This was tasty both served warm with the blueberry sauce (see the next recipe) and the next day served cool without.

Ingredients:
115 g butter
½ cup cornmeal
1½ cups flour
½ cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup yogurt
2 eggs
peel from 1 lemon
juice from ½ lemon

Instructions:
1. Melt the butter, then cool.
2. Blend the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Mix the yogurt, eggs, lemon peel, and lemon juice together.
4. Mix the cornmeal mixture with the wet ingredients, then mix in the butter.
5. Bake at 180 C for 30 minutes. Serve with blueberry sauce (see next recipe) or butter, as desired.

Cornmeal Pancakes

One of my favourite memories from childhood is eating my mother’s cornmeal pancakes. She would make these on Sunday morning and serve a thick stack each to me and my father. We’d cover them in maple syrup, and my parents would have bacon too, so we could just feel this heavy meal settling in our tummies and weighing us down. You want to sleep after eating these pancakes, not get up and do something active.

Which is why I decided to make them on a recent Friday night, after M and I had been to the gym. We’d both worked full days and we’d done our exercise, and now we just wanted to relax, have dinner, and hang out a little before bed. I made my pancakes a bit thinner than my mother’s and served fewer of them, and I served them with raspberries and slices of banana, so at least we were getting some fruit too. We covered them with agave, rather than maple syrup, which I find too sweet. M liked them so much that I made them again a few days later, served with raspberries and slices of pear.

Ingredients:
1 cup polenta/cornmeal
1 cup hot water
1 Tbs sugar
1 cup flour (use a bit less to make them thinner or a bit more to make them thicker)
.5 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 egg
.5 cup milk (you can also use cream or soy milk)
oil or butter for frying
fruit to serve with the pancakes
maple syrup or agave to serve with the pancakes

Instructions:

1. Put the polenta/cornmeal (what you call it depends on where you’re from) in a bowl and add the water. Leave this to sit for 10-15 minutes, until the water is all absorbed.
2. Meanwhile, mix the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the cornmeal and mix.
4. Beat the egg and add it. Then add the milk.
5. Melt butter or warm oil in a frying pan.
6. Spoon the batter into the pan. It will be thick. You might want to press out any larger lumps. Fry on both sides until golden brown and a bit crispy. This takes just a couple of minutes.
7. Serve with fruit and syrup or agave.