Breakfast Corn Muffin recipe

As promised folks, here is the recipe for the Breakfast Corn Muffin picture I posted last week.

Breakfast Corn Muffins
Adapted from Robyn Ryberg

Makes 12 muffins

1 cup milk replacement of your choice
1 Tablespoon unsweetened applesauce, organic if possible
1/4 cup mild vegetable oil (corn, safflower, grapeseed, canola)
1/4 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup potato starch
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 cup dried cranberries or other small fruit such as raisins or blueberries (if using frozen fruit, be sure to drain all liquid and dry it)

2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a muffin pan with standard muffin baking cups.

In a medium bowl, mix milk, applesauce, oil and vinegar. Add dry ingredients, including fruit, and mix well to remove lumps.

Mix sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl for topping.

Pour batter into muffin cups, taking care not to overfill more than 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes, then sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top (if you do this too soon, the sugar sinks into the muffins and looks ugly!). Continue baking for 8-12 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Let muffins rest in muffin pan for a few minutes, then remove and serve!

Store in an airtight container, these dry out quickly. They also freeze well, you can rewarm in an oven or microwave for a few minutes.

NOTE: I have thought about (but not yet tried) a savory version of this. Reduce the sugar to 1/2 cup, and replace the dried fruit with corn and mild diced chilies. Top with cheese if you can have it. Mmmmm.

An IBS breakfast...start the day off right!

I know this is not a sexy title for a post, but it's sometimes key for when your stomach and digestive system just won't settle down. It makes good sense to start off the day with a breakfast high in soluble fiber to provide a stable base for the rest of the day, but of course it needs to be tasty! However, with my food allergy restrictions, some of the soluble fiber foods recommended for those with IBS (French bread, rice and oatmeal) are off the list. When combing through the cookbook Eating for IBS by Heather Van Vorous, which has been EXTREMELY helpful in figuring out how to reconfigure my diet, I found this recipe for Banana Cornmeal Pancakes. This is made in a blender so is fast and easy.

Banana Cornmeal Pancakes
4-6 Servings

3/4 c. soy or rice milk (I used almond milk)
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 ripe-black large bananas
1/2 c. plus 1 TBS all-purpose unbleached white flour (I used 1/4 c cornstarch, 1/4 c potato starch)
1 TBS baking powder (gluten-free if necessary)
2 TBS brown sugar
1/3 c. cornmeal
2 organic egg whites
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 TBS finely chopped nuts (optional)

In a bowl, add vinegar to soy milk and stir well. Let sit a few minutes (you're making sour milk) the pour into a blender and add all remaining ingredients except nuts (if using). Pour batter into a bowl or large measuring cup with a spout. Heat a non-stick frying pan or griddle over medium heat and spray with cooking oil. Pour about 1/4 c. of batter at a time onto griddle to form pancakes.

Cook until surface bubbles, about 1 minute, and flip pancakes over. Cook until undersides are golden brown and pancakes are cooked through, about 1 minute. Serve immediately with maple syrup.

The verdict? These were hearty and tasty, if a little heavy. I used a few of the leftover pancakes later to make a ham sandwich for lunch, but they were much better when served hot.

Kiss my grits :)

I am totally dating myself by using this title! But I couldn't resist, this catchphrase from the 70s-80s sitcom Alice still makes me laugh. It's been a little chilly in LA lately (I know, I know, it's not Minneapolis-cold, but it's chilly). I live by the beach so we also get dampness, and it's been raining, it's harder to get out of bed when it's chilly (this is a little bit of a whine)...so I've been craving something hot and rib-sticking in the mornings to start my day. Since I can't have oatmeal or cream of wheat because of my gluten allergy, I rely on grits for breakfast.

For those of you NOT from the south, grits are processed ground corn, which is cooked into hot cereal just like your old childhood favorites. In the south, grits are traditionally served hot at breakfast with butter and salt, or as a savory side dish with cheese added on top. (Or in the REALLY deep south, laced with hot shrimp paste which I love but my sister who actually lives in the south is completely disgusted by. But I digress.) You can buy either regular grits or instant grits. Regular grits are smoother, and taste better, but take about 20-30 minutes to cook. Who's got that kind of time every day? Instant grits take about 5 minutes, but even then you have to be careful to let them cook all the way through on low heat or they get a little crunchy! Whenever I can, I make the regular kind and make extra. Quaker Oats and Albers are some brands of grits that are available in grocery stores.

I'm posting a picture of my morning grits, and instead of butter I used maple syrup and it made for a very pretty picture. Honey would be great too, maybe nuts if you can have them.

Extra bonus -- if you make extra, you can pour the grits into a shallow pan and it will cool into a cake just like polenta. It's great fried -- I use this as a base for lunch or dinner sometimes...throw some meat or veggies on top and where I would ordinarily use mashed potatoes. So versatile!

Note to IBS sufferers... a nice bowl of hot grits with sliced banana and cinnamon sugar tasted like rice pudding and helped out my spastic stomach tonight since I overdid it with dinner (too much animal protein and insoluble fiber...d'oh!). It's a quick alternative to rice if you don't have any already cooked.

As you can tell, I think grits are great! But you don't have to kiss them. Unless you want to.

Blueberry pancake happiness!

I've always been a fan of Bob's Red Mill products, but only yesterday ran across their Gluten-Free pancake mix and got very excited. Just last week we drove by an IHOP and I sadly mentioned out loud that I hadn't had a blueberry pancake in years. They used to be my favorite as a kid, especially with the blueberry syrup (I believe an outrageously purple tongue is the right of every American kid).

Anyhow, the mix couldn't be easier to use: just add milk of choice (mine was almond milk) and a little cooking oil. This pancake mix is based on potato starch, sorghum flour, tapioca flour and corn flour -- and since most commercially-prepared gluten-free items are usually made with rice or flax, these alternative flours worked perfectly within my food allergy restrictions. I added in some fat blueberries, adjusted to add a little more milk than the recipe, and ended up with light fluffy, blueberry pancakes. Hooray! A little maple syrup, few strips of crisp bacon, a cup of coffee, and a strawberry-mango smoothie made for a perfect Sunday brunch. Ahh. Purple tongue, here I come!

CORRECTION: I'm sorry, this is NOT egg-free, you need to add one according to the instructions, but of course can try an egg substitute here. Just changed the tag.

The FAQ Egg McMuffin

Sometimes, I just need to face the ugly truth...I frequently eat in my car. I'm not as bad as those women who put on makeup while driving, but I always feel like SUCH a slug when I eat in my car because it just seems so...sloppy. Apparently, though, I'm not alone. I just read that 19% of American meals are eaten in the car. Wow. Almost 1 in 5 meals are eaten while moving. (I've been reading this and many other thought-provoking items about the origins of our meals in the BRILLIANT book The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. If you are even mildly curious how the food (even organic food) you eat gets to the table these days, and/or you want to know about how some allergens get into non-allergenic foods, you should take the time to read it. It's calm, intelligent, thoughtful and balanced observation. One of the more disturbing pieces is how the proliferation of cheap corn grown by American farmers is impacting the entire planet: obesity, increasing fossil fuel consumption and shifting the dynamics of global agriculture as a whole... I am not kidding when I say this is an important book.)

Essentially, I am just not a morning person and 75% of the time can't seem to get out of bed early enough to make it to work on time AND eat a decent breakfast. Add to the that the difficulties inherent in being the Food Allergy Queen, so what do I do? I plan ahead and try to be a little creative. I have a great gluten-free waffle recipe from Gluten-free Kitchen, by Roben Ryberg (of Miss Roben's gluten-free bakery), whose cookbook on which I frequently rely because she uses potato starch and cornstarch as her gluten-free substitutes. (Many other GF recipes are based on rice flour, which I am allergic to.) So when it's waffle time, I make the entire recipe, let them cool and store in the freezer in a Ziploc. While my coffee is brewing, I toss a waffle in the toaster oven, quickly fry up an egg, and ta da! An FAQ version of the Egg McMuffin...portable and delish when wrapped snugly in napkin so nothing escapes and can be eaten with one hand, while nibbled safely at stop lights only, of course. (I've also included a picture of a sit-down waffle breakfast too.)

Waffles
From Gluten-free Kitchen, by Roben Ryberg

1/4 c sugar
3/4 c cornstarch
3/4 c potato starch
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum (which can be made from soy or corn, be careful if you're allergic to either)
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 c light vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 c milk or dairy substitute of choice

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Gently stir wet ingredients into dry and mix slowly getting all the lumps out of the batter.

Preheat waffle iron, and spray with nonstick spray. When heated, pour about 2/3 c batter into iron until light brown and done. Respray in between each waffle for best results!

Makes about 4 7-inch diameter round waffles.