The book:  Clean Food by Terry Walters (link is to revised edition, I have the original).

Why do you have it?  I really like the concept and idea of eating clean.  Frankly, if I could make everything, I would never buy pre-processed anything.  This is actually something I’ve been striving towards for a long time and still do.  I can make my own pancake mix, muffins, chocolate peanut butter cups, chips, tortillas, roti… I’m working on mastering breads and cream “cheese”.  I think clean is the way to go.  So the title got me!

Well, why hadn’t you cooked from it yet?  This is one of the few books I have in non-Kindle format.  I don’t think this author does e-book formats from what I see.  I ran into the problem I’ve run into in the past… the book is large and intimidating.  Another known me problem is that it’s formatted by season.  Also, there are no pictures.  (This last piece I am over, but at the time of purchase all of these things conspired to make me read the book and then display it on a shelf… never to be touched again… to somehow multiply in my library…)

Did you have difficulty deciding on a recipe?  As before, I decided to stick to a season and pick out a recipe.  There were two or three from the season that I thought I could reasonably accomplish on a week-night.

What did you make? Skillet Cornbread.  It involved using my lovely skillet.  It involved cornbread, and I’m always searching for the perfect corn pastry recipes.  It would go well with the recipe that will be in tomorrow’s post (spoilers!)

How did the cook go?  Not bad.  If there’s something I’m worse at than cooking one thing quickly, it’s cooking two things simultaneously without burning down the house.  However, I think my current experience with quick-breads has helped me in this respect, so it came together fine once I got past some minor chopping.

Did you modify?  Because we know you can’t help yourself.  I had to sub orange pepper for red pepper based on what was in the house, and my usual substitution of whole wheat pastry flour for the all purpose flour.  And maybe some apple cider vinegar.

How did the eat go?  Fantastic!  This is probably one of the best corn breads I have made yet!  It was lightly sweet but not too sweet (can’t stand an over sweet cornbread), not at all dense, lovely bits of corn and sweet and hot peppers, cast iron cooked.  It was fabulous.  

And The Husband? For the husband, this currently wins the corn bread contest.  He thought the hot peppers could have been hotter, but would otherwise love to see this being made again.  I think I can oblige.

Will you cook from this book again?  I can see myself doing it.  There were a few more recipes that caught my eye in the Autumn section alone, though it will take some planning to make sure I could so it on a weeknight (this recipe was certainly one of the easier ones to whip out).

So, are you a clean vegan?  I try to be.  As I said, I really do want to make everything ever.  Processed foods are so full of stuff that I really don’t want worming around in my system (though they can be pretty hard to resist due to convenience and tastiness).  It can be a balancing act… but if I can make it myself and make it clean, I’m much happier with that!