Enchilada Casserole from Cooking Light

This is a recipe I’ve had saved from forever ago. The printed date on the copied recipe is 2007 and I’ve never once attempted to make it! I know I’m not the only one that does that, or am I? I knew this past weekend would be the perfect time to make this dish. It has been very cold in Las Vegas and I’m looking for a meal to warm me right up.

What I love about this recipe is the use of corn bread as the topping! I don’t know if you know but I love corn bread. I could eat it everyday if I could. Which in reality I can ;). I used my favorite gluten free mix from Bob’s Red Mill.

I made a minor mistake of not reading the directions because once I started I noticed this is suppose to be done in the SLOW COOKER!! Doh! So I improvised and cooked it on 375 degrees for about 35 minutes. I’m sure it be real tasty from the slow cooker because the corn bread would be a lot more crumbly and moist. Other then that the flavors were spot on and this dish had a good kick. I added pepper jack cheese to the top along with cheddar and mozzarella. I didn’t miss the fact that there was no beef or chicken in this dish. It was a really hearty meal with the black beans and roasted corn.

When I make this again I’m going to try the slow cooker method and see how it turns out. I’m usually really good about following directions.

To get the recipe for Enchilada Casserole please visit Cooking Light.

  

Enjoy,
Fallon

Vegan Skillet Cornbread

I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wanting to make cornbread. I just want it to be simple and quick. Lazy me didn’t want to go into the garage to fetch some eggs from the other fridge, so this became a vegan recipe. I subbed in 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tablespoons of water. I had inspiration from several cookbooks and ended up adding my own mixture/amounts of ingredients instead. I didn’t want it too greasy and I didn’t want it to be too heavy. Light and fluffy is what I wanted. This is best served warm with jam and/or a buttery spread!

Vegan Skillet Cornbread By Fallon
Serves 14 Approx. 100 calories per serving
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups organic yellow cornmeal
3/4 cups organic spelt flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp stevia (agave or molasses could be substituted)
Dash of sea salt
2 tbsp ground flaxseed mixed with 6 tbsp water
1 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
1 cup almond milk
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. If you want a crispier crust, put your pre-seasoned 10 inch skillet into the oven coated with coconut oil. Otherwise just coat with coconut oil and set aside.

Next take your flaxseed and mix with water. Let sit while you put together the other ingredients.
In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Then add in the flaxseeds, coconut oil and almond milk.


Mix until everything is incorporated but still lumpy. Pour into your prepared 10 inch skillet. Cover with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes or until done.
You can easily add in other ingredients like frozen corn, jalapeno peppers or sun-dried tomatoes. I would add in some cheese like cheddar or goat cheese but then it wouldn’t be vegan.
After I let it rest for a few minutes I covered my slices with seedless blackberry jam. HOLY YUM! If 1 tbsp of sweetener is not enough, add more. I knew I’d be adding jam to my cornbread, so I didn’t want it so sweet. The bread is moist, airy, light and everything else I’d want my cornbread to be. Next time I would add almost 1 tsp of salt since it was rather bland but still good regardless.

 
What goes good with cornbread? How about bean and barley soup?

Stay tune, recipe coming soon!
Enjoy,
Fallon

ALSO check out this great giveaway going on at Run, Eat, Repeat. It involves Lululemon! 

Pumpkin Cornmeal Muffins

Okay so I FINALLY decided to make the Pumpkin Cornmeal Muffins I mentioned a while back when my mom was making her Turkey Taco Chili. My dad requested she make it with ground beef this time around, since he isn't a turkey fan. So I noticed I still had some pureed pumpkin to use up and this was screaming MAKE ME! I only made half a serving, 6 muffins. We each ate one and I put the remaining 3 in the freezer. Thinking about it, I freeze a lot of my baked goods and end up forgetting about them. I should see what I have lurking around. ;)

The recipe for the Pumpkin Cornmeal Muffins comes from the Wholefoods website. I think I printed this recipe out LAST YEAR and never made it till recently. I have so many recipes I want to make and then I never make them. I think it just a foodie thing many folks do because we save so many recipes and it becomes very overwhelming!

I made some changes to the recipe. The scaled down version of 6 muffins is below.

Pumpkin Cornmeal Muffins (Adapted from Wholefoods Market)
Ingredients
1/4 cup cooked, mashed fresh or canned pumpkin
1 tbsp flax meal, 3 tbsp water (Do this first and set to the side, it takes about 2 minutes to set)
2 tbsp plain Greek yogurt
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly oil or spray 6 muffin tins (I used a silicon muffin pan and sprayed it lightly just to make sure nothing would stick.). In a large bowl, combine, pumpkin, flax/water combo, and yogurt. In a separate bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, honey, baking powder and salt. Add this to the liquid ingredients, stirring to just combine (I added the honey to the dry and mixed it in, you can add to liquid instead, won't make a difference.). Do not over-stir or beat. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tin and bake 20-25 minutes, until muffins are golden and a toothpick is inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

They baked really nice in the silicon.
Check out the flax specks!

What's a pumpkin cornmeal muffin without
some pumpkin butter?

Chili with extra lean ground beef.
It was good but I liked the Turkey version better.

That's right baby!

They were absolutely awesome. I ask myself why didn't I make these sooner? They weren't overly sweet, perfect cornmeal crumble and the oil and butter couldn't even tell it was missing! To be honest with you, I didn't realize that I didn't add any canola oil or butter to the mixture. I was more focused on swapping out egg for flax that I totally forgot! Oh well because I didn't even notice it was missing, neither did anyone else. LOL

I'm off to roast some cherubs (baby tomatoes) and eggplant. So much work and so much food, I'm just cooking it up and throwing meals together for work. Way better then eating out any day, in my opinion!!

Happy Saturday,
Fallon