One Brick at at Time

Brick by brick,

Clock by tick,

No matter how thin,

No matter how thick.

Papa told Mama,

and Laura told Nick,

'You can move a mountain

If you do it brick by brick.'

The above song is from the original computer game Lego Island, circa 1998.  One-day-at-a-time philosophy crops up in the most wonderful of places.  One brick at a time, I'm reorganising this blog into a more functional resource, letting the archivist brain run wild.

Dear readers, do you prefer one recipe at a time or a digest-type post?  I realise for ease of searching, as I’ve been reconfiguring the look and feel of this blog, it would behove me to make one recipe per post.  However, I post once or twice a week at maximum, and it would be odd, methinks, to have multiple posts of a Saturday just to break up what I did during the week.  Also, I don’t just talk about food.  Meta-questions, meta-decisions.

Fresh basil makes this bread.  I served it at a family cookout last weekend.

Basil Beer Cornbread

Works cited:

Laurie Sadowski, “Hearty Beer Bread,” in The Allergy-free Cook Bakes Bread (Summertown: Book Publishing Company, 2011), 52.

Dragonwagon, “Sylvia’s Ozark Cornbread,” in The Cornbread Gospels, 18.

“Basil Beer Bread,” Real Simple.

oil for pan

1 tablespoon vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance coconut spread)

1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used lite coconut milk from a can, a frozen leftover from cupcakes)

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

1 tablespoon oil (I used canola)

1 cup cornmeal (I used white stoneground)

1 cup brown rice flour (or whatever GF flour tickles your fancy)

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon cayenne (optional)

12 ounces vegan, gluten-free beer (I used Anheuser-Busch’s Redbridge sorghum beer)

1 cup fresh basil leaves, washed and chopped into ribbons

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Oil a 10-inch cast iron skillet, add the tablespoon of margarine, and place the whole assemblage in the oven.

In a small measuring cup, whisk together the ground flaxseed and non-dairy milk.  In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.  Pour the flaxseed mixture and the beer on top of the dry ingredients, mix, and fold in the basil.  Mix until just combined.  With potholder, remove skillet from oven and pour batter into pan.  Bake for 25-28 minutes or until the cornbread passes the toothpick test, cracks on top, pulls away from the sides of the pan, and springs back when touched.  Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.  Let cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.

From 11 o'clock: grilled pineapple, basil-beer cornbread, homemade baked beans, stewed peppers, lentil chilli, zucchini-potato tart.

I'm off to cheer on my brother at a bike race.

Ten-four,

Q