Fabulous Blueberry Muffins! (no eggs needed)

My husband and kids looove these muffins.

Ingredients:
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp water
4 tbsp corn starch
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup Sugar in the Raw
8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cup frozen wild blueberries, thawed
cinnamon to taste

Topping:
1/4 cup sugar in the raw
1/3 cup plain flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
3 Tablespoons melted butter
cinnamon to taste
Mash together with a fork until the topping is crumbly.

Move rack to the middle level of the oven. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a muffin tin with alcohol-free cooking spray. In one bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, combine water and cornstarch. Whisk until blended. Add milk and sugar. Whisk in the butter and immediately pour liquid into the dry mixture, along with the blueberries. Pour the melted butter in with the wet ingredients just before you are ready to add the dry ingredients so it doesn't begin to harden before you are ready to mix everything together. A wooden spoon, is probably the best utensil to blend all ingredients gently,without overmixing your batter. Divide your batter in a muffin tin that makes twelve muffins. Sprinkle the topping mixture by Tablespoonful onto the top of each muffin before popping them into the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, when you can prick them with a toothpick and it comes out clean, they are done, or just take them out when the topping is a beautiful, crunchy brown color.

Hot Skillet! I actually vegan-ized them without ruining them!
Substitute organic unrefined coconut oil for the butter, and use non-dairy milk, like soy, hemp or almond milk instead of regular whole milk!!!! You can even use the coconut oil in the topping, instead of butter. You melt it before using it, just like you do butter, and you really don't taste coconut when you eat them.

Custard

3 1/2 cups whole milk
5 green cardamoms, husk removed

Heat the milk and cardamom seeds over medium heat until the milk is scalded. That means heat, do not boil, the milk until it gets a thin skin on the surface.

5 Tablespoons cornstarch
4 Tablespoons sugar
1 dash salt
1/2 cup milk

Combine cornstarch, sugar, salt and milk, whisk together very well. Whisk quickly and thoroughly into the scalded milk. Bring the mixture to a simmer, or slow boil until it thickens, whisking it constantly. When the custard is thick and smooth, remove it from the heat.

Add:
1 cup marshmallow cream
2 Tablespoons rosewater

Whisk the marshmallow cream and rosewater into the custard and immediately pour it into glass serving bowls. Cover the bowls tightly with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge until ready to serve.

Hint: may also serve warm, topped with thinly sliced fresh bananas.

Vegan Waffles

1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tablespoons brown rice flour
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/4 cup soy milk
1/2 cup applesauce

Mix all dry ingredients together very well, gently stir in the wet ingredients. Do not over mix, but don't leave it lumpy either. Just stop mixing as soon as all ingredients are well combined. Heat the waffle maker and cook according to the instructions that came with your waffle maker.

*Notice: you can also use this recipe to make pumpkin waffles. To do this, substitute pureed pumpkin instead of the applesauce, and pumkin pie spice instead of the cinnamon.

Fluffy Eggless Pancakes

1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons Sugar in the Raw
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3 tsp. baking powder
1 cup whole milk
1 Tablespoon canola oil
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Mix dry ingredients gently. Add wet ingredients and gently fold in. May be slightly lumpy. Let the batter rest for about 10 minutes before cooking. May add fresh blueberries or other fruit to the batter just before cooking. Serve with pure maple syrup.

Chicken Wings

3 pounds, about 30, chicken wings
olive oil
salt

Rinse the wings and pat them dry with a paper towel. Cut the hard tips off each wing and discard them, then section each wing by cutting through the elbow joint with a sharp knife. In a large bowl, drizzle them with olive oil, add a few shakes of salt and toss them around in the bowl. Place the wing sections in a single layer in a baking dish and pop them under the broiler. Broil them until they are golden brown, flip them once and broil the other side. When the wings look perfectly golden on each side, toss them into the pot with the sauce. Recipe below.

Non-Alcoholic Bloody Mary Wing Sauce

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 cup Worcestershire Sauce
3 cups V-8 juice
3 Tablespoons grated or ground horseradish
2 Tablespoons hot sauce
Cornstarch powder, if needed

Pour lemon juice, worcestershire sauce, and V-8 into a medium, heavy-bottom pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat so the liquid will just simmer, uncovered, maybe 30 minutes. After it reduces somewhat, add the hot sauce, save the horse radish until just before adding the chicken wings. If the sauce appears more runny than you like, at the time when you'd like to add the chicken wings, whisk in about a teaspoon full of cornstarch, if it's still too runny, then repeat the process. You can always add more if you need to, but once you've put it in your sauce, you can never take it away. You want it to be like a barbeque sauce you'd buy from a store. Lastly, add your pre-cooked chicken wings and roll them gently around in the sauce, with a long spoon and cover the pot. Leave the heat on the lowest possible setting to make the sauce bubble a little until each wing is thoroughly coated and spicy. Serve hot or cold.

Vegan Cornbread Muffins

My husband looooooves these! I'm impressed that he likes something so American.

2 Tablespoons ground flax seeds
6 Tablespoons boiling water
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup stone-ground, whole grain cornmeal
1/2 cup Sugar in the Raw
4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. sea salt
1 cup hemp milk
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Alcohol-free cooking spray, both Crisco and Mazola make it
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray

Place ground flax seed in a small glass dish, pour the boiling water into it, stir it a little and set it aside. Thouroughly mix your dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Mix the wet ingredients together in another bowl then, just before stirring the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, dump the flax seed paste into the wet ingredients and give it a good mix. Then gently mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Do not over-mix. Now let the batter rest about ten minutes. Spray your muffin tins with the alcohol-free cooking spray, either Crisco or Mazola. Use a large spoon and fill your muffin tins equally with the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until you can prick it with a toothpick and it comes out clean. When done, and still hot, spray each muffin with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray and cover tightly with foil until ready to serve. Great served with the Tempeh Chili, recipe below.

Simple Rosemary and Olive Oil Bread

1 1/2 cups room temperature water
2 packages flischmann's active dry yeast
1 Tablespoon honey
2 1/2 cups bread flour
salt to taste

2 tsp. crushed Rosemary from Spice Islands
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Pour the water into a large bowl, empty yeast packets into the water, then add the honey. Give it a little stir and let the yeast grow for about fifteen minutes. Add the flour and stir with a spoon until all the flour is mixed in, it will look like a lumpy, sticky mess at this point. Toss in the crushed Rosemary. Now coat your hands with the olive oil and knead the dough until you can shape it into a smooth, slightly sticky, elastic lump in your hands. You may need to re-coat your hands with olive oil once or twice, and just coat the inside of the bowl with olive oil too, to keep the dough from sticking to the inside of the bowl. Place the lump of dough in the center of the bowl, and cover it with a light tea towel, set it aside, in a warm place. When the dough doubles in size, coat your hands with olive oil again and punch the dough back down, at least one time, and let it grow back up again for the second time, then punch it down, shape it, and put it into your olive oil coated bread pan, let it rise to double its size again. Poke deep holes in the loaf with the tines of a large fork, score the surface of the loaf about three or four times with a sharp knife. Bake at 400 degrees until golden brown, about 45 minutes. Spread butter on the top while it's still hot, cover tightly with foil until ready to eat. Delicious served warm.

variation: Sprinkle regular or black sesame seeds on the loaf before it rises for the last time before you bake it.

Tempeh Chili

2 cups frozen speckled brown butter beans
1 8-0z package soy tempeh, crumbled
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 bulb of garlic, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can Hunt's fire roasted tomatoes
3 chipotle chilis in adobo sauce, chopped
1 Tablespoon dry oregano
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
1 Tablespoon ground coriander
salt to taste
2 Tablespoons chili powder
1 Tablespoon paprika
V-8 juice

Boil the butter beans in about 4 cups of water and some salt, approximately 10 - 15 minutes, drain them and save the water. Chop all the veggies then put the olive oil in the bottom of your favorite chilly pot, heat it, then toss in the veggies and sautee them a couple of minutes. Crumble the tempeh into the pot, add the beans and continue to sautee about 5 minutes. Then add the fire roasted tomatoes and the chipotles, (found in a can with the hispanic foods in the grocery store). Add the spices and then pour in about half V-8 and half cooking water (that you saved from cooking the brown speckled butter beans). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer over low heat for about an hour. This recipe is very good served with vegan cornbread muffins. I topped the chili with fresh, mashed avacado instead of sour cream, and pico di gallo on the side.