I hope this isn't too corny.....

I decided this weekend would be a good time to make another vegetable based baked good.  At first, I had settled with sweet potato bread- however, this entailed the use of my bread machine.  I have a theory that the arctic climate of my house is not conducive of happy yeast ( meaning my product would likely resemble a dense brick), so I decided to go with a quick bread that requires none of that rising nonsense. Though I'm pretty sure sweet potato quick bread does exist, I decided I may want to actually eat the sweet potatoes in non-bread form at some point this week, so I decided on corn bread.  Although there is much debate about whether corn is actually a vegetable, for the purposes of this blog (so I can continue this whole vegetable based baked products) CORN IS A VEGETABLE.

Every piece of cornbread/corn muffin I have ever had comes in one of two categories:

Type 1: The corn muffins at the Dining Commons is a quintessential example of this category of corn "bread"/"muffin".  These corn muffins tread the thin line between muffins (sounds healthy, right?) and cupcakes (not so healthy..duh).    Actually, I have always been a believer that there is actually not a thin line between muffins and cupcakes, but instead a big, fat, sketchy, undefined imaginary boundary that is easily up to the eater's discretion.  For instance, take a moist blue berry muffin complete with a sugary, buttery streusel topping.  Take note to the appropriate use of the word muffin.  However, take this same product and put frosting on it; Buh-Bam!! it is now a cupcake.  Therefore, streusel topping vs frosting is one characteristic that some (myself guilty) use to distinguish between the two words.
Time of day is another potential defining character; If it is morning, I would like to consider the product I am eating a muffin- because who eats cupcakes in the morning? But if I had that same product in the evening after dinner, I would like to consider it a cupcake- because who eats muffins for dessert? Thus, assuming that streusel topping and frosting are considered nutritionally equivalent, whether I call something a muffin or cupcake has nothing to do with its fat or sugar content, but instead, what type of sugary and fatty topping I have on it and/or what time of day I am eating it. One more potential distinguishing factor between muffins and cupcakes is the nature of the foods they accompany- which leads me back to the corn "muffins" at the DC.  The corn products are placed in a nice little bowl not by the dessert section, but by the chili.  This stealthy placement contributes to their perceived identity of muffins.    Have you ever heard of anyone dipping cupcakes in chili? I sure haven't.  People OBVIOUSLY dip corn muffins in chili.  Alas, even though these products are rich, sugary and moist- just like many cakes I enjoy-they are considered type I corn MUFFINS.

Type 2: Dry, crumbly and bland corn bread/muffins.  There is no cake/bread ambiguity with this type of corn BREAD.  Usually this type of bread needs copious amounts of honey, butter or chili to make it  moist enough to swallow. I'm not saying that this lack of cake-ness is necessarily a bad thing, because corn bread should be just that: corn bread.

So when I decided to make corn bread, I needed to decide on a "type" I was going to attempt.  I decided with type II, just because I wanted an actual bread product that I didn't feel guilty about consuming.  I was happy to know I had all the ingredients on hand except cornmeal.  There is a grocery store near me that has an awesome bulk section so if there is some obscure product you need, you can just get a small amount of it.  I'm not saying cornmeal is a super "obscure" ingredient, but I didn't feel like buying a whole box of it, so I decided to go to this store to buy my cornmeal.    When I was being rung up, I almost had a heart attack when the cashier told me the cost of my approximately one cup of cornmeal cost $8.25- had I accidentally picked up hand-ground organic cornmeal? No... apparently my handwriting on little white twisty ties sucks and they thought I was purchasing grade-B maple syrup.  Woops. I got that whole issue resolved quickly.   Anyways, the healthy recipe I used:


1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
 1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup applesauce
Directions:

1.Mix dry ingredients.
2.Mix wet ingredients
3.Sift in dry into wet and mix until combined (I didn't have a sifter so I just used an egg beater!)
4.Bake for 400 degrees in a prepared 8x8 pan for 20 minutes
5. Serve with butter or honey and enjoy!

This bread has a surprisingly rich texture for something with applesauce and egg whites instead of oil and full eggs.  A little more sugar and it would be approaching type I cornbread status!! A little bit of honey on top is all it needed.    Anyways, I would say this was a fairly successful endeavor- maybe I should have bought more than 99 cents worth of cornmeal!

Cauliflower Cooking Catastrophe

Gertrude and I have been reunited... order is restored is the universe.  Unfortunately I had sort of a cooking fail today... andddd Gertrude had nothing to do with it.  Whose fault was it? This ones right here. 

I decided to stay true to my promise to transition to a more healthy food blog.  Sorry folks, there will be no more chocolate peanut butter deliciousness for quite a while. So, I decided to go pretty much all out on the health food scale- I made pizza! Healthiest food around.  Well, it is when you put cauliflower in it.  Actually, I did not just put cauliflower in it.  The crust is pretty made ENTIRELY of cauliflower.  Who needs flour when you have cauliFLOWER? My roommates were very skeptical of my escapades in the kitchen this evening, and they had every right to be.  I mean, pizza and cauliflower are two things that seemingly should never collide..... or should they?  Here is the first step of this whole dealio.

Yum... rice, right? Guess again.  This is cauliflower... very deceptive ninja cauliflower that doesn't even look like cauliflower. I honestly must say I have never bought cauliflower until today... not exactly one of my top foods.  However, I quickly became acquainted with this majestic vegetable and  I somehow managed to chop it up a bit and throw it in my little food processor to make this cauliflower rice. Anyways, you need a full head of cauliflower to make about two cups of "rice".  

Here is where I made my fatal mistake (that didn't actually turn out to be that fatal, but I'm trying to make this dramatic).  I was just so excited how "rice-like" this looked that I jumped the gun and quickly added my 1 egg, 1 cup low-moisture mozzarella cheese,  2 clove garlic, 1 tsp of basil,  and 1 tsp of oregano to make the pizza "dough".  But oh wait... I completely forgot I was supposed to cook the cauliflower for eight minutes in the microwave BEFORE I mixed everything up.  So, I basically have this raw cauliflower goop instead of cooked cauliflower goop.  What do I do? Well, the only logical thing to do would be to put it in the microwave for 8 minutes, just like the recipe said. So I hesitantly start it in the microwave, just waiting for it to go up in smoke and flames.  The suspense was killing me as I waited 8 long minutes... I distracted myself by trying to buy a textbook online, which actually worked since I spent about 5 minutes trying to access the $90 e-book I had just purchased.  Anyways, when 8 minutes was up, I nervously took the bowl out... and it looked pretty much exactly the same as it did before.  I took that as a good sign.  Proceed as normal. The next step was to shape the dough.  I was still feeling a bit pessimistic about my major blunder, so I decided not to put much effort into making a perfect circle and decided to go with the whole "rough around the edges look"..... literally. 

Even though Gertrude was not exactly preheated yet, I was getting a bit antsy to get this show on the road so I just put it in the oven.  I did make a miraculous discovery that led to a major breakthrough in Gertrude and my relationship.  If I put my food on parchment paper, Gertrude will just burn the parchment paper and not my actually food item (or, not so much at least).  I'm glad to know that Gertrude can selectively channel her anger towards unimportant accessories in baking process.  So, after baking the crust for thirty minutes I was happy to see the very edges nice and brown... and nothing more than brown.  Now it was time to put stuff on the pizza.  

The first step was to spread my delicious pesto sauce on the crust.  On new years eve I went out for italian food and I really wanted some pesto on my calzone.... so, I ordered a side of pesto.  Let me repeat, a SIDE of pesto.  Did they give me a SIDE of pesto?? Oh no, I got a whole nice soup bowl full of pesto.  But hey, for $3.50, I am not complaining... I love pesto! It is the best-o!  So I spread my pesto on my pizza, followed by a sprinkle a cheese (a sprinkle opposed to a handfull since the crust already had cheese in it).  Next I grilled up some chicken with the latest member of my kitchen appliances.. my indoor grill.  I lightly marinated the chicken for about 1 hr before hand in italian dressing and it turned out fairly delicious.  I chopped it up, put some on the pizza, along with some cherry tomatos I halved.  I put the whole pie back in the oven, and let it cook for about five more minutes. The toppings were definitely a bit too heavy for the pizza, but that did not stop me from enjoying half of the pizza (its healthy, remember!).  And the crust was actually pretty good.  If someone told me that the crust was thin crust pizza, a might... let my repeat, MIGHT, believe them. Anyways, I was very happy with the result, despite by major screw-up.  Therefore, I am sort of tempted to try this the right way.  Later though.  I don't know how much cauliflower I feel like scraping off my food processor in a week.  So, until next time... next week I will choose a new vegetable to make into one of america's favorites.... or maybe I will just stick with cauliflower.  Cauliflower cookies? I think yes.