Not Your Mimi's Cornbread

The first time I heard Carl call his grandmother "Mimi" I summoned all composure to suppress a torrent of giggles. I had no reason to laugh, since I grew up calling my grandmother "Bubbie." Still, "Mimi" seemed like an odd term of endearment for one's grandmother, although I couldn't explain why I thought so. Knowing when not to irritate Carl with my condescending Yankee-isms, I saved my giggles for the day I listened to him tell me all the words Southerners have to describe one's urine.

Those with good manners would deem my last sentence inappropriate table talk, but please continue reading.

My Bubbie "cooked" (and I use this word loosely) from boxed mixes she kept on dust-free shelves in her two-bedroom apartment that always smelled like Windex and moth balls. When we ate at the white Formica table in her dining room, my sister and I scanned our food for (a) flecks of tin foil that had escaped the pan to dust our food like specks of mica on dirt (b) errant red press-on fingernails that had enjoyed short-lived lives atop Bubbie's fingers and embedded themselves in the meals we ate.

While I was learning what Sweet'n Low tasted like in mandelbrot (like Tylenol), Carl was watching his grandmother work culinary miracles in the house where she had raised and fed four children.

To this day, everything Mimi cooks inspires my awe. Her date pudding remains my absolute, all-time favorite dessert and I am struggling to give this recipe a vegan makeover in time for Mother's Day, during which I plan to cook and eat the food our mothers and grandmothers passed on to us. I hesitate to tamper too much with date pudding, since the recipe originated with Mimi's mother, who served the dessert each Sunday at the boarding house she ran in Hickory, North Carolina.

For Carl, Mimi's cornbread is the golden foodstuff of legend, and I have only just begun to work my vegan magic on this dish. Carl's initial response to Not Your Mimi's Cornbread?

"It doesn't need butter." Perhaps, the best compliment he has ever paid me.

BTW: We ate Not Your Mimi's Cornbread with a Citrus Avocado Spinach Salad so watch for that recipe later this week. Oh, and I adapted the cornbread recipe from Alex Jamieson's The Great American Detox Diet.

What you need for Not Your Mimi's Cornbread
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup almond milk or soy milk
1 cup thawed frozen corn
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp sliced jalapeno, from a jar
1 serving of vegan egg substitute, whisked
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cast iron skillet

What to do
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Heat olive oil in the skillet on a low flame. Mix dry ingredients, then make a well in the center and fold in wet ingredients. Once mixed, pour the batter into your skillet and bake for 15 minutes.

Nigella's Chickpeas with Rocket and Sherry (with a Southern Twang)

While excessive apologies make me squirm, I should say "sorry" for vacating the blog. Sorry, dear blog, for the hiatus. Blame spring, blame school, blame spring quarter.

Now I'm back and have a story to share. It goes like this: When I found out this winter that I was teaching a noon to 2 p.m. class, my first thought was: WHEN AM I GOING TO EAT LUNCH??? (Yes, when it comes to meals I always think in capital letters and employ punctuation liberally.)

The first day of school snuck up on me last week, and that sucker found me feeling more jittery than pleasurable at 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning. So I did what any terrified, first-time teacher would do. I uncorked a bottle of cream sherry.

Only the intense stare of my morally-superior husband prevented me from pouring that sherry into a crystal glass, and then taking a few generous sips. Why, you ask, did I have a bottle of sherry in my hands just after sun-up?

I wanted my back-to-school lunch -- the lunch that followed my first class -- to be special.

Lately, I am obsessed with Nigella's Chickpeas with Rocket and Sherry and claimed this recipe as The One. Btw: Stateside, we call "rocket" by the snootier name of "arugula." As a cheapskate who happens to live in Louisiana, I substituted turnip greens for the pricey rocket. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Hopefully, my students will never know how frequently I thought of the lunch awaiting me as I tried to make a good impression, teach them something useful, and stop myself from sounding like a crazy old person when I said things like, "Stop rustling your papers" or "Is it just me, or is it really hot in here?" and punctuated my sentences with a long, deflated um.

Super Sundried Tomato Squash Soup with Snaps to Nigella Lawson

I like to make sure Carl eats well. Despite how 1950s that idea sounds, I have not defected from the divine sisterhood of third-wave feminists, of which I am a lifetime member. To borrow loosely from Gail Godwin's vocational musings in her novel Evensong, cooking makes more of me (no pun intended). We should all enjoy what makes more of us.

On Sundays, I usually serve leftovers to save time, but last night's dinner of chickpeas and arugula simmered in cumin seeds, olive oil, and cream sherry was so fantastic that I had to begin from scratch today.

Btw: I thank my cousin Gail, a nutritionist, for teaching me how to make Sundried Tomato Squash Soup when she visited during Mardi Gras 2008. Thanks also go to my shero Nigella Lawson for the delish salad recipe.

What you need for Sundried Tomato Squash Soup:
1 butternut squash
1/2 8.5 oz. jar of sundried tomatoes in oil, rinsed and drained
1/2 white onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
pinch of nutmeg
1 tbsp olive oil
6 cups water
2 cubes low sodium vegan boullion cubes (I used Rapunzel)

What to do:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Halve the butternut squash and scoop out seeds. (You may save them to roast for a snack.) Brush the squash halves lightly with olive oil and place skin side down on a cookie tray. Roast for an hour.

In the meantime, saute the onion and garlic in a stock pot. Add water and boullion, bring to a boil and let simmer for 30 minutes. Then add sundried tomatoes. Simmer until the squash has finished cooking, then allow the broth and squash to cool for another half hour.

Remove skins from squash with a vegetable peeler. Cube squash and add everything to the pot. Use an immersion blender to puree. If you do not have an immersion blender, transfer half the soup to a standard blender and puree in batches. (Times like these definitely make me wish we owned an immersion blender.) Transfer the soup to a heatproof bowl as you blend. Once finished, return the soup to the pot and add spices. Simmer until ready to serve.