Sunday, November 26, 2006

English Muffins, Rice Balls & Salad

A LONG time ago, I cut out a recipe for English Muffins from our newspaper. It looked neat and yummy and pretty easy - and it turned out to be all those things! I finally had a nice lazy morning to wait for all that dough-rising. Making them was really fun. Instead of baking english muffins, you cook them on a skillet - I was amazed at how delicious and perfectly they turned out!

Here's a close up of one of the muffins. Fun! We ate more than a few, gave a few to my parents, and have 4 left for tomorrow. Here's the recipe. It involves a mixer, which I have (thanks Jen!), but you could probably make it manual quite easily.:
1 1/2 t active dry yeast
1 c water warmed to 110 degrees
2 c flour (I used 1 c standard, 1 c ww pastry flour)
1 t Earth Balance
1 t sugar
3/4 t salt
1/4 c coarse cornmeal, or as needed
veggie oil for the skillet (I just used the spray kind)

Put yeast and water in the bowl of the mixer and stir completely. Wait 4-5 minutes, then add flour, butter, sugar, and salt to the yeast mixture. Mix ingredients on low speed for 2 minutes. Then, mix on medium-high for 5 min until dough is smooth.

Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and then let it rise in a warm spot - until doubled in size (about 2 hours).

Fold dough in on itself in 3 or 4 places, and turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Shape into rounds and place on sheet pans that have been heavily dusted with cornmeal. Coat both sides with cornmeal. Cover and let the muffins rise slightly, about 30 minutes.

Preheat a griddle over medium heat and brush or spray lightly with oil. Cook english muffins until lightly golden on the bottom (4-5 minutes). Turn muffins over and cook another 4-5 minutes.

Split muffins apart with a fork. Toast them before serving (optional).

YUM!



For lunch we had "Giant Salad" and the rest of the Celebration Loaf from a couple of days ago. Very nice. I got a few more delicious tomatoes at the farmers market yesterday - I don't know how much longer that will last!


Tonight for dinner we had leftover broccoli soup with the "Veggie Rice Balls" from Garden Of Vegan. I ate mine with last night's red pepper cream. I liked them, but Musty wasn't crazy about them. Oh well. :)

15 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:08 PM

    I love the idea of homemade English Muffins! Your looks like they came out great! I had no idea you made them yourself when I saw the photo!

    The salad(s) looks SO good and colourful!

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  2. Hi Candi!
    Isn't it fun to make English Muffins? I never would have guessed it either until I saw that recipe in the paper.
    :) Amey

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  3. Anonymous11:23 AM

    Everything looks super! Maybe you could put the meatballs on the muffins and Musty would like them better.

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  4. Anonymous2:25 PM

    That's it. I can't just keep looking at yummy recipes and say "someday" ... I am making those english muffins now! (also a good chance to use the stand mixer which doesn't get nearly enough use around here) thank you so much for the recipe!

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  5. Oooo! I'm all about that giant salad. I love a good salad. I'm very impressed with those veggie rice balls though :) Could totally be a good falafel substitute :)

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  6. Anonymous7:05 PM

    I am so impressed with the English Muffins. I've really been craving them lately and about a week ago was thinking about looking up a recipe. I'm so excited!!! I'm going to make these very soon.

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  7. Hi aTXvegan,
    I think the rice balls are a little too starchy to go with bread. I think their only problem is that they could have been more heavily flavored. I'll add a bit more kick next time, some way or another!

    Hi Bazu!
    I can't wait to see how your muffins turn out... and I agree, it's a good change to appreciate the neglected mixer.

    Hi Ben,
    I think the rice balls could be a great falalfel substitute, especially with some work on the seasoning. And yes, I agree - giant salad rules!

    Hi VivV,
    Can't wait to see your english muffins... I found it to be a very easy recipe to work with and follow. How fun that you've been wanting a recipe, and one came to you!

    :)

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  8. Anonymous8:09 AM

    I made the English Muffins!!!!!!! YAY! Marty was so impressed. However, I don't have a stand mixer so I used my hand mixer and the dough kept crawling up the beaters. It was hard to mix it for long because of that. After the dough had initially risen, I found it very sticky to work with but it was also really pleasant. Light and fluffy almost. I somehow miscounted and made 13 muffins. So mine were a little on the thin side (I might have also made them to big). I think next time I'm going to try to only make 9 or 10 muffins. I loved this recipe. We've been eating them every day. They're great with soup!

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  9. Anonymous11:11 AM

    Thank you very much for the recip.
    It came out really good. The only thing was about my craftsmanship.
    I will defenitely make this again.
    P.S I linked this recipe on my blog.
    Thank you again.

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  10. Hi Lotta!
    Hoorah!
    I'm so glad that you tried this recipe. It was so much fun when I made them.
    :)

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  11. I need to make these English Muffins, they sound awesome!

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  12. Anonymous1:06 AM

    Hello! These look lovely, but I have a question, does the 't' stand for teaspoon or tablespoon?

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  13. Hi Anon,
    The "t" stands for teaspoon. I hope you give this recipe a go... it's really fun and easy.

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  14. Anonymous6:55 PM

    Oh my! Thank you for the quick response. If I can, I'll make these this weekend.

    Kym (Previous Anon)

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  15. Anonymous3:08 PM

    I just got done savoring these tasty home-made English muffins! The recipe was wonderfully easy and the muffins turned out great. I don't have a stand mixer(its on my X-mas list), so I just mixed it with a fork and my hands and they turned out fine. Thanks soooo much for this recipe, I will never buy English muffins at the store again!

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