Sattoo (Corn Pudding)

I made this from the recipe in Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian & Grain Cooking. This is a popular item for breakfast in part of northern India. From the explanation, finding the grains for Sattoo in the U.S. can be difficult, and then preparing them can be complicated. Therefore, this recipe uses cornmeal as a substitute.

The cornmeal is combined with ghee or melted butter -- though as I can't have either, I experimented with coconut oil, instead. This mixture is dry-roasted, and then cooked slowly with water -- I used half-milk/half-water, to hopefully soften the stone-ground cornmeal a bit. Lastly, add brown sugar, and then raisins -- I used brown sugar, and dried blueberries (plumped up in some hot water). Although I chose not to garnish it, she suggests toasted pumpkin seeds, and sliced fruit.

This reminded me so much of the oatmeal that I haven't been able to eat for a number of years, and hadn't yet found a substitute for, until now. That makes me smile. 

Blueberry-Almond Scones (with dried blueberries)

This recipe is from James Villas' Biscuit Bliss. The scones are based on the recipe for chocolate chip scones, with the dried blueberries instead of the chips. Also, I was trying out some almond milk at the time, so I used that here in place of the regular milk. With my usual habit of using oil instead of butter, these scones are vegan. I really liked the very blueberry-y flavor from the dried fruit, and it was easy to use with these scones. (Normally, I use frozen blueberries for muffins, but I don't think they'd work so well here.) A success!