Dynise over at Urban Vegan posted Cranberry Cornbread Squares that she'd made and it looked so delicious, I had to give it a go.
Mine didn't look quite as nice as Dynise's, but the taste made up for it. Just a touch sweet, these are great for breakfast, a snack or even dessert.
If you'd like to make these, the recipe is here.
Did you know that Gwyneth Paltrow wrote a cookbook? I saw it at the library and decided to check it out. Although there are quite a few meat dishes in it, there are still a lot that are vegetarian or can be converted to "veg."
The first thing I flipped to was a recipe for Spiced Apple Crumb Muffins and as a huge plus, I had all of the ingredients on hand.
There was a glaring omission in the recipe. It tells you to make the crumb mixture, but then never tells you what to do with it. I assumed that the crumbly mix got sprinkled on top before baking, so that's what I did. It seemed to work out OK.
Made with spelt flour, soy milk, no refined sugar and lots of cinnamon, these tasted really good, but were extremely crumbly. When I tried to cut one in half to show the inside, it just fell apart. One also disintegrated when I was taking it out of the pan. These are not the thing of elegant snacking.
I then tried Banana Walnut Muffins also made with spelt flour, barley flour, maple syrup and brown rice syrup.
These were supposed to have raisins in them, but I opted for just the nuts. These seemed a little bit dry, but held together much better than the other ones. These are not a sweet muffin, but perhaps if I'd added the raisins... I've had better, but may try to tweak this to my liking because it is a bit on the healthier side.
I'm willing to try a recipe or two that are not baked goods since the above two didn't impress me a whole lot. Dynise's cornbread is much better than Gwyneth's muffins.
This is a tried and true recipe for oatmeal cookies. It never disappoints. It's from my old Betty Crocker cookbook (copyright 1978). The pictures in it are so '60's, and the recipes may seem a bit dated, but it is hands down, one of my favourite cookbooks. It's full of the kind of comfort dishes I grew up on. The cookie recipe, as written contains no eggs. There is buttermilk, but that is easily substituted. The original doesn't call for chocolate chips, but I just went a little wild and threw some in. The recipe makes a huge batch, but is easily halved.
FARM-STYLE OATMEAL COOKIES
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup shortening (1/2 margarine and 1/2 shortening is nice)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla
4 cups quick-cooking oats
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I did part whole wheat)
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
Heat oven to 375F. Mix brown sugar, shortening, buttermilk and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients.
Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten cookies with the bottom of a glass dipped in water. Bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Immediately remove from cookie sheet.
Makes about 7 dozen cookies
