A Cornbread and Chili Kind Of Day

vegan cornbread and chili

Recently my parents have gone on a canning spree. Anything that can be canned, has been, from raspberry preserves (fresh picked off mountain roads by my mother), to tomatoes grown in their backyard vegetable garden, to barley and potato soup, and of course, chili. Since I don't have the set up my parents do for canning, I usually just borrow (read: take) a few jars of whatever they have around when I go home and visit. This last visit I left my parents' house with fresh homemade rye and plain bagels and two jars of barley and potato soup. And the time before that I got a jar of chili, a small jar of pickled green chiles, a jar of raspberry preserves, and a jar of apple butter. It's nice living relatively close to my parents.

The last couple days here in Virginia have been cold and rainy, i.e., perfect weather to break out my dad's chili...which is something that really deserves a post of it's own, but I'll leave that for later...and of course I had to bake some cornbread to go along with it. This was actually my first attempt at cornbread, with a recipe I adapted from Better Homes and Garden. It wasn't too shabby for my first try, if I do say so myself.

vegan corn bread

Vegan Corn Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4  teaspoon  salt
1 tablespoon  vegan butter (I use Earth Balance)
1 cup non-dairy milk (rice, soy, or almond work well)
2 eggs worth of egg substitutes (such as Ener-G Egg Replacer, or my egg replacer)
1/4  cup cooking oil or melted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a medium bowl stir together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

Add the 1 tablespoon butter to a 10-inch cast-iron skillet, a 9x1 1/2-inch round baking pan, or an 8x8x2-inch square baking pan.

Place in the preheated oven about 3 minutes or until butter melts. Remove pan from oven; swirl butter in pan to coat bottom and sides of pan.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl combine tapioca mixture, non-dairy milk, "egg" mixture, and 1/4 cup oil and mix. Add all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened. Pour batter into hot skillet or pan.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

Cut into wedges or squares. Serve warm.

Makes 8 to 10 pieces.