Inexplicably, I decided I needed to, had to, use my cornmeal tonight in whatever I made. Perhaps it was my lengthy examination of Amy's products as I stood in the frozen food aisle at Whole Foods today trying to pick out something for lunch since I haven't gone to the grocery store in forever and don't have many ingredients to cook with. Amy's makes a tamale pie dish that has a cornmeal topping. Inspirational...
I wanted to use the ailing cauliflower in my fridge in a somewhat new way, even though "mashed" cauliflower is one of my favorite things. And I needed some nuts/beans/seeds so I went with my favorite standby- lentils. Back to the cornmeal. I was searching around the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen blog, one of my favorites, and stumbled upon a fun Tamale Bites recipe that looked intriguing despite knowing full well that I have no Twinkie pan or anything remotely MacGyverable. But I did have what I (mistakenly) remembered being a giant silicone muffin pan. My plan was to carve out the inside of a cornbread muffin and stuff with my strange concoction. It worked, I guess. But instead of the cornbread bowl I envisioned, it was like a thimble.
Simultaneously, I cooked 12 cornbread muffins with this recipe from Vegweb, except I used applesauce instead of the oil. I estimate the entire batch has 1200 calories. I also steamed a head of cauliflower and blended it with .25 cup water and about a TB of frozen chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. And, miraculous, I cooked .5 cup of lentils with 1 small onion until they were done but not mushy and added the last maybe TB of tomato paste I found cowering in my freezer, cumin, chili powder, and a little salt.
The cauliflower turned a nice shade of orange and was delicious on its own, but extrordinarily spicy (yum). I'm going to start eating lentils like this way more often- they were simply delicious. The cornbread didn't seem to burn and despite sticking my finger almost all the way through one of them to check for doneness (evidently premature on my part), the muffins came out fine. I'm not sure I'd ever serve just those because they were a little bland. I might add some corn and, yup, chipotle. But maybe powder instead of the actual pepper.
I somehow expertly carved out the insides of the muffins, scooped the tiniest scoop of cauliflower in it, and added a tad of the lentil mix atop. Originally I envisioned the cauliflower as more of a soup and the lentils as something that sits in the middle of the soup, both in a cornbread bowl.
The cornbread bowls came out cute, yet too small for me to eat soup out of. Now, I'd definitely hollow these out again and put something in them- maybe lentil dip or refried beans or something. Or maybe I'd get a bigger pan.
I'm really proud of this meal- it was really good and really fun.
What about the leftover cornbread muffins? I crumbled up 2 of them in a bowl with cinnamon and 8th Continent Light Vanilla Soy Milk for breakfast the next day. Better than my Cheerios.
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