Egg-Free Wheat-Free Cornbread
1 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cup celery
1/2 cup butter
48 ounces chicken broth
1 cup yogurt
2 TBSP fresh sage
2 TBSP fresh thyme
1 TBSP poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Saute the onion and celery in butter until golden and soft. Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, crumble the cornbread. Add sauteed vegetables to the crumbled cornbread, along with the chicken broth and yogurt. Mix well. Add the sage, thyme, poultry seasoning and pepper and combine until well-blended. Pour into a large greased lasagna pan and bake for one hour.

This recipe is for a 9 x 13 pan of cornbread. You can also use it to make muffins, just shorten the baking time by 10-15 minutes.

4 1/2 tsp egg replacer
6 TBSP water
3 cups corn meal
3/4 cup brown rice flour
3/4 cup oat flour (for gluten free, substitute brown rice flour)\
6 tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar (make this 6 TBSP for sweet corn bread)
4 TBSP canola oil
2 TBSP melted butter
3 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 C). Grease 9 x 13 pan or fill muffin cups with paper liners. In a small bowl, beat together egg replacer and water. In a separate bowl, combine cornmeal, brown rice flour, oat flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add egg mixture, oil, butter and water; stir until smooth. Spoon batter into pan or muffin tins (1/2 cup for each muffin).

Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes (10-15 for muffins), until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

I modified a recipe I found online and it was startling how good these turned out. It was like I was eating Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies (well, almost kind of). Maybe I just don't remember what regular flour tastes like anymore. Anyway, these were delicious, and my kids LOVED them.

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My daughter's egg and wheat allergies inspired this recipe. Pancakes were a family tradition for the weekends, and I was afraid we'd have to give it up until I modified a buckwheat recipe I found to suit our needs. This recipe uses buckwheat and oat flour, both of which can be found at Whole Foods or other health food stores. For the eggs, I use Ener-G Egg replacer, which can also be found at health food stores.

Oat and Buckwheat Egg-Free Pancakes
Serves 4

1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer, + 2 TBSP water, beaten in small bowl
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup water
2 TBSP melted butter

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients, stirring until evenly blended. In a small bowl, combine the Ener-G Egg Replacer mixture, buttermilk, water and butter until well mixed. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until flour mixture becomes wet. There will be a few lumps; do not overmix. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Pour the mixture onto a griddle or pan over medium heat using a 1/4 cup measure. When the pancake becomes bubbly, flip with a spatula and cook until done on the other side. The pancake will be darker than usual due to the types of flour used.

We instituted a weekly vegetarian night a few years ago in an effort to eat more veggies and decrease our consumption of animals. While intellectually I'd love to be a vegetarian on a full-time basis, because I do think we treat our food animals poorly and they contribute to global warming with their methane emissions, unfortunately, I'm a carnivore at heart. Therefore, I thought maybe following my intellectual ideals for at least one night a week might be a positive change.

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