ISTOCKPHOTO/MARCELO WAIN

Happy holidays everyone! I was reading the Healthy & Green Daily newsletter and came across this great recipe for a Thanksgiving dessert — Vegan Pumpkin Pecan Pie. It sounds delicious, so check it out!

Crust
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup pecans (chopped or whole)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon Sucanat (see notes)
1 cup trans-fat free vegetable shortening (see notes)
3 tbsp ice water

Filling
16 ounces extra firm lite silken tofu
2 cups pumpkin puree (canned, or fresh – here’s how)
1/2 cup Sucanat (see notes)
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 cup pecan halves

1. For the crust: Pulse flour, pecans, salt and Sucanat in a food processor until ground, then add shortening and pulse until almost combined. Add ice water and pulse until just blended.

2. Collect dough into two balls and flatten each into a disc. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for two hours until firm. When chilled, roll out into a 9-inch circle on a floured board and place into an 8-inch pie pan. Refrigerate until ready to use.

3. Make the filling: Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place tofu in a food processor or blender, and blend until creamy. Add pumpkin, Sucanat, 1/4 cup of the maple syrup, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, and blend well.

4. Set aside some pecan halves for garnish. Toss remaining pecan pieces with remaining 2 tablespoons maple syrup in a small bowl and then place evenly on the bottom of the pie shell. Pour filling into pie shell and bake approximately 1 hour, or until tester inserted in the center comes clean. Set pie aside to let cool. Garnish with remaining pecan halves.

NOTES
Sucanat is a great natural sweetener that you can read about here. If you don’t have Sucanat, you can use the natural sweetener of your choice.

For vegetable shortening, try Spectrum Organics which is trans-fat free and made with 100 percent organic expeller pressed palm oil.

This recipe was reprinted with permission by Care2 Inc. Care2 is an organization that strives to provide “powerful tools to make a difference in your life, community, country and world.”

It's been getting around the playground at my son's school that I bought a $95 turkey for Thanksgiving this year. The consensus has run somewhere between general disbelief and the statement that my turkey sure better be laying some golden eggs to justify the expense. So, let me back up and explain.

Late last spring I heard a local farmer discussing his pasture-raised beef on our local NPR station. The farm, Thundering Hooves, also offers pasture-raised, heritage turkeys, but you'd better get your act together because they sell out as soon as they go on sale in July.

Who wants to think about Thanksgiving in July? Well, I for one, and it certainly appears that plenty of others do as well. So, we dutifully ordered our turkey as soon as we could and have been diligently waiting ever since. The turkeys were processed a few weeks ago and we picked ours up last weekend. We'll be roasting it rather simply since we want to be able to really taste the meat and see how it compares to the standard breeds.

How's it Heritage? 

This bird is a rare heirloom Unimproved Standard Bronze. Thundering Hooves keeps their own flock so the eggs are produced and incubated on site (rather than chicks purchased from another grower). According to their website:

"There are extremely limited numbers of breeding flock [of unimproved turkeys] left in the country. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy estimated that in 1987 there were 'less than 300 breeding hens' found in America with the possible exception of a limited number of turkeys used by hobbyists and show goers."

These birds are becoming endangered simply for the fact that turkey growers are breeding birds that have larger amounts of white meat. I'm sure you've heard of some commercially grown broad-breasted birds that are so busty they can barely walk and are so far removed from nature that they don't know how to mate and must be artificially inseminated in order to breed. A more thorough examination of the issues with commercial turkeys is made in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Out to Pasture

Most commercially grown turkeys are raised in confined and cramped quarters, given little access to the outside (if at all) and are fed a limited and unnatural diet. This makes for a very low-quality life for the turkey and some argue that it results in a less flavorful and nutritious meat.

Pasture raising is a method of raising flocks that is more than just "free range," which generally means that the birds have access to a small outdoor area that they may or may not actually use. On the other hand, our pasture-ranged turkey roamed freely in the fields, eating bugs, grasses and vegetarian feed. The birds on the farm are free to roam about as they please and their roosts are periodically moved throughout the field. This is generally referred to as pasture rotation and it allows the birds access to new areas of grass and bugs for their dining enjoyment.

Eat Local for Thanksgiving 

Not only was it important for us to purchase a turkey that is raised sustainably and preserves a heritage breed, but it was important for us to buy local. Each year I host an Eat Local campaign urging individuals and families to choose local foods for their Thanksgiving table. Not only does it help support local farmers, but the reduction in transportation of foods also results in lower carbon emissions, some say as much as 2.2 lbs of CO2 per plate of local foods chosen.

So, if you are interested in joining the movement to Eat Local for Thanksgiving, stop by and sign the pledge!

OK, some of you make it all from scratch, right? But others who generally stay away from the oven all year decide to fire it up for that one special something. And the holiday just wouldn't be the same without it, right? Or maybe you have a great memory of making something from scratch and sharing it with someone else for Thanksgiving. (Are you the guest who always brings the best made-from-scratch take-alongs even when you've been told not to bring anything?)

At our house, everyone goes crazy if my dad doesn't make his famous apple-oyster stuffing with homemade cornbread. Hey Dad, you remembered to put fresh oysters on the grocery list this year, right??? Mother Earth News contributing editor Barbara Pleasant remembers fondly making a pecan pie just for herself even when she was living alone: "and it was wonderful!"

So how about you? Please share your "wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it" and "just gotta make it from scratch" stories, as well as your stories about filling Thanksgiving needs through generosity, by posting them in the comments section below.

If your Thanksgiving repertoire could use some new ideas, too, then we've got a seat for you at our table.

JESSIE FETTERLING

My mushroom log is starting to become dry. Each day I’ve been spraying it with water, like Doug Williams at Lost Creek Mushroom Farms suggested, but I don’t think it’s enough. Because I still haven’t shocked it, I’m going to try that this weekend. To shock the log, I’m going to soak it in a gallon of non-chlorinated ice water, which I’m told will trigger fruiting. After that, I’m going to try and keep it at the optimum temperature between 62 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Hopefully, the log will start growing again.

In the mean time, I cut off one of the mushrooms that grew three to five inches in diameter. I decided to sauté it in some butter with a little bit of red wine. The mushroom mixture turned out to be extremely flavorful — and the wine added the perfect kick to it. I just ate it as is, but if you’re looking for something more, try some of these ingredient-filled mushroom recipes in The Master of Mushroom Cookery.

For further reading, check out Grow Mushrooms This Winter!, Fungi Galore: How to Grow Mushrooms at Home or Grow Your Own Mushrooms.

For many, the Thanksgiving meal is the culinary apex of the year. Rolling pins find their way out of dusty corners, choice ingredients are stockpiled over the preceding week, the flesh of freshly picked pumpkins is scooped out with tiny bare hands; heck, most ovens see more action on the fourth Thursday of November than they do all year. Two or three or even four generations preparing a meal together is a celebration indeed.

Thankfully, someone usually remembers to bring a nice bottle of wine or Champagne to kick off the festivities. But these days, a growing number of conscientious eaters are committed to locally sourcing the makings of their holiday meals. So why not celebrate the most American of holidays with the original local American beverage: hard cider. (OK, maybe the fourth of July is the most American holiday, but save the local beer for that one!) Hard cider is a true treat for fall, when apple harvests are at their peak.

Cider makers are bobbing up all over this country once again, and rededicating themselves to that pre-Prohibition pursuit of balanced acidity and sweetness. Unlike wine and grapes, you can usually still taste apple when you sip cider. And not just any apple: If you’re lucky, you’ll enjoy the specific combination of apple varieties whose tasty tongue-dance has been carefully choreographed by a real artisan. And this is where you really get to enjoy regional variation. Steve Wood up at Farnum Hill Ciders in New Hampshire simply cannot grow the heat-loving ‘Virginia Hewe's’ crabapples that Diane Flynt enjoys so well down at Foggy Ridge Cider in the blue ridge mountains of Virginia. But Steve grows numerous apple varieties well-suited to the New England climate, such as a tasty ‘Kingston Black,’ which makes a remarkable still cider but refuses to grow in the South. He shares these well-adjusted apples of French, English and American descent with other cider makers in the region, too, like West County Cider in Massachusetts.

Hard ciders range from dry and very tart with nary a bubble in sight, to supersweet and Champagne-bubbly. Last night, I got to try a wonderful dessert cider fortified with apple brandy (Pippin Gold), and a spectacular semi-dry cider from Slyboro Ciderhouse, which at the foothills of the Adirondacks, is in my neck of the woods. Slyboro Hidden Star is made from a blend of ‘Northern Spy’ and ‘Liberty’ apples grown on the fertile soil of New York state’s oldest U-pick orchard, and it definitely deserves the Double Gold Medal it won at last year’s International Eastern Wine Competition. (The raw sheep's milk cheese I relished it with — Hidden Springs Ocooch Mountain — deserves the awards it has won, too!)

So this Thanksgiving, why not pair that roasted turkey leg with a well-made local hard cider? Or a nonalcoholic sweet cider — they make those too! Try a few. Experiment to see what you like. But most importantly, find a good cider maker near you and make that artist your friend.

RESOURCES

* To locate artisan cider makers near you, search by ZIP code at Local Harvest. And don’t forget to ask the wine merchants in your closest shop if they carry any local ciders. Consumer interest is a key ingredient to the success of this old-new American industry.

* To learn more about the how-to and history of cider making, look for these wonderful books:

  Cider, Hard and Sweet by Ben Watson
  Cider: Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx
  Making the Best Apple Cider by Annie Proulx (an e-book available from our online store)
  The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World (Part I of IV) by Michael Pollan

* And, oh yeah, you can also learn more in the many articles on cider we’ve published over the years:

  Enjoy Delicious Apple Cider, Sweet and Hard by Megan Phelps
  Fall’s Sweetest Harvest by John Stuart
  Make Your Own Hard Cider by Nathan Poell
  Falling for Apples by Noel Perrin
  Get Ready for Cider Pressin’ by Judy White
  Juice of the Apple by Michael Phillips
  Pouring Apple Cider by Richard Varr (from Grit, our sister magazine)

* Want to recommend a great local cider to our readers? You’re in luck — that’s what our comments section is for!

Attention Vegetarians and Vegans: You too can have an enjoyable, delicious Thanksgiving dinner without compromising your lifestyle!

There are plenty of websites out there that offer meatless Thanksgiving Day menus. Many of them have complete, 3- to 5-course menus that are appetizing even if you’re not a vegetarian.

The appetizers usually consist of a variety of salads and soups. An obvious choice would be the Pumpkin Soup. Many of the sites have this recipe, but I thought this recipe looked interesting because it calls for a little sour cream. And don’t worry, this soup uses vegetable broth, not chicken.

Pasta dishes and vegetarian gratin would be nice main dish selections, such as this recipe for Three Sister Stew, which features the Ancient Three Sisters: corn, squash and beans.

Dessert could really be anything, so pick your favorite and make it for the whole family! Pumpkin pie is a more traditional choice if you want to go the traditional route, but one site I found has a lot of unique suggestions for desserts.

If you think about it, the only part of the Thanksgiving meal that traditionally features meat is the turkey. And with tofu turkey and other main-course selections, a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal doesn’t have to be that different from the original.

Here’s a list of some websites to help you plan a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner:

   * The Veggie Table

   * Boutell.com 

   * In a Vegetarian Kitchen

   * Farm Sanctuary

   * Recipe Zaar

A champion of vegetable cookery for more than 25 years, Andrea Chesman has written more than a dozen cookbooks that celebrate fresh food cuisine. When it comes to autumn's best root vegetables like parsnips, rutabagas, and sweet potatoes, Chesman thinks roasting is the best way to go.

"The dry heat of roasting coaxes out and concentrates flavors," Chesman says. "With parsnips, roasting brings out sweet, nutty flavors and aromas that otherwise would not exist." Roasted rutabaga melts in your mouth like butter, and a pan of Herb-Roasted Root Vegetables (recipe below) will transport easily and hold up well on a buffet table.

Chesman includes this recipe among 14 "Master Recipes" in Serving Up the Harvest: Celebrating the Goodness of Fresh Vegetables (Storey, 2007). As with the other master recipes in the book, you can vary the mix of vegetables, using what you have on hand. It's the method that counts, which in this case involves roasting in a hot oven until the vegetables are brown and tender.

If you don't have carrots or sweet potatoes, substitute cubes of winter squash for savory-sweet flavor and bright orange color. "It has similar cooking properties and works well with root vegetables," Chesman says. In addition to sharing the recipe for Herb-Roasted Root Vegetables below, Chesman offers these tips for roasting goodies from your garden:

* To prepare vegetables for roasting, cut into uniform-size pieces and slick with oil. Use a lightly oiled sheet pan or shallow roasting pan for good air circulation. Crowded vegetables will steam rather than roast.

* To ensure even browning, flip the vegetables with a spatula once or twice during roasting.

* Roasted root vegetables are beautiful; roasted green vegetables are equally delicious but somewhat less than beautiful.

* Make plenty, because vegetables shrink as they roast. Use leftovers in salads, omelets, quiches, and other quick-fix dishes. 

Herb-Roasted Root Vegetables

Serves 4 to 6

3 to 4 pounds (8 to 10 cups) mixed root vegetables or winter squash, such as beets, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, turnips, and potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 large onion, peeled and cut into eighths, or 1 cup peeled pearl onions or shallots

6 cloves garlic, peeled

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

2 tbsp fresh herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, alone or in any combination, chopped

Coarse sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a large sheet pan with oil.

2. Combine the mixed vegetables, onions or shallots, and garlic in a large bowl. Add the oil, herbs, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss to coat. Transfer the vegetables to the pan and spread out in a single shallow layer.

3. Roast 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until the vegetables are slightly browned and tender, turning with a spatula twice for even cooking.

4. Transfer to a serving platter, taste, and add more salt and pepper if desired. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve.

Adapted from Serving Up the Harvest: Celebrating the Goodness of Fresh Vegetables (Storey, 2007), by Andrea Chesman. If you can't get enough roasted vegetables, check out Chesman's The Roasted Vegetable (Harvard Common Press, 2002).

Are some roasted veggie/herb combos so great everyone should try them? Share your best ideas for a veggie roast-a-rama in the comments section below!

Last year, the organic turkey I was supposed to pick up at my local health food store the Monday before Thanksgiving stood me up. The explanation had to do with a truck not making it from Pennsylvania, but whatever. There were no organic or pastured turkeys to be found within 100 miles.

Don't let this happen to you! Supplies of the best quality birds are already selling out, so if you plan to buy one at the store, do it soon. Or maybe you'll have luck finding one through a local producer (search by ZIP code at Local Harvest). If you live out in the country, call around. Most folks who keep small flocks grow a few extra birds in addition to those ordered by customers in spring. Others keep a waiting list for cancelled orders.

In Wisconsin, Good Earth Farm, a 5-farm cooperative that raised 750 pastured turkeys this year, expects them all to be sold before Thanksgiving week. Good Earth sells their turkeys throughout Wisconsin in health food stores, and throughout North America with their mail order business. Good Earth's Mike Hansen says that in addition to turkeys, he sees many more customers adding other pastured meats to their Thanksgiving orders.

With feed prices rising from $325 to $900 a ton this year, and turkeys being sensitive, somewhat goofy animals to handle, turkey should not be cheap. Right now, frozen organic turkeys from Whole Foods and similar chains range from $1.99 per pound doorbuster specials to more typical $3.49 per pound pricing.

Reminder: this is factory-farmed albeit "organic" poultry, which is not necessarily pastured. These animals were fed organic food, but were probably raised in tight quarters with very limited exposure to fresh air and sunshine. In comparison, pastured turkeys are allowed to move about freely outdoors during the day and confined at night. Whether or not the turkeys eat organic feed is up to the grower.   

This year, local small-farm prices range from $2.50 to $5 per pound for pastured birds (that's cleaned, in-the-bag weight). You get the lowest prices by picking up at the farm on a specified day (bring your cooler). Heritage breeds cost more, as do turkeys kept frozen until you're ready to bring them home.

This year I am rich in turkey, thanks to the three birds that were running around the turkey yard of Larry and Debby Bright on the morning of October 25, and in my freezer by sundown. And while I'm happy to have primo turkey, there is an important benefit if you opt for a meatless Thanksgiving dinner — that second piece of pumpkin pie.

So, I called Doug and Sandra Williams at Lost Creek Mushroom Farms (where I got my mushroom kit), and they gave me some much-needed advice. Doug told me that it was a good thing that the log was already producing mushrooms, and that I should just spray my log with water. He also said that he cuts his mushrooms off the log when they’re about three to five inches in diameter and are firm. One of mine had already grown to that size, so I cut it off, and I’m going to try it tonight. Now, I’m going to spray my mushroom log with water, and hopefully it will grow more!

It's amazing how much peanut butter we consume in our house. Between two small children and one adult peanut butter fanatic, we go through it pretty quickly. The store brands of natural peanut butter are expensive and the commercial kinds aren't exactly great because they are loaded with fun things like stabilizers and partially hydrogenated oils. Many stores also have the "u-grind" peanut butter dispenser in their bulk or natural food sections, but they tend to result in a rather flavorless (albeit nutty) spread.

So, how about making it yourself so you can make a more flavorful blend? Since peanuts are fairly inexpensive per pound, you will find that if you eat a lot of peanut butter, you will save money by making it yourself at home. Better yet, try growing your own peanuts, shelling and roasting them to make your own. It doesn't get any more inexpensive than that. Well, except for your own cost of labor, but we just won't include that, will we?

Spanish peanuts work better for making peanut butter as they have a higher percentage of oil. But if you can't find them, just increase the amount of peanut oil you use to make it more spreadable. You can even add honey for a smoother consistency and a sweeter spread. 

Heck, if you are feeling adventurous, mix in melted dark chocolate (1/8 to 1/4 cup) for a superdecadent treat!

Ingredients:

2 cups roasted shelled peanuts

1 to 2 tbsp peanut oil

1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted nuts)

2 tsp honey (optional) 

Instructions:

Place peanuts in a food processor with the oil (adjust as necessary if you are not using Spanish peanuts). A good rule of thumb if you are not using a high fat peanut is to use approximately 2 tablespoons of peanut oil for every cup of peanuts you use. Process the nuts and oil until the desired consistency is reached, adding in additional peanut oil or honey if it is not creamy enough to your liking.

If you prefer a chunkier blend, add in an additional 1/2 cup of chopped nuts at the end.

Make sure you store this in the fridge in an airtight container - it should last about two months. But I guarantee you, it won't make it that long.

Because it’s getting colder outside, it’s time to start finding ways to entertain yourself indoors. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still play with nature. If you like growing food, then a mushroom kit is right up your alley.

To make this project as carbon-free as possible, I started out by looking for mushroom kit companies closest to my Mother Earth News home base in Topeka, Kan. I also wanted the logs and mushrooms to be certified organic. Luckily, I found Lost Creek Mushroom Farms in Perkins, Okla. Not only are they close, but their mushroom logs and mushrooms are “grower certified” organic. Another bonus was that a portion of their sales go to their Mushrooms in Ghana project.

Last year the two owners, Doug and Sandra Williams, visited Ghana to teach farmers how to grow shiitake mushrooms. In Ghana, they were growing oyster mushrooms in sawdust bags, which were contaminated and not producing even a moderate level of mushrooms. In hopes to help the production in Ghana even more, they’re trying to raise money to bring one particular farmer, Bernard Bempah, to the United States. They will take him to various shiitake farms to learn more about mushroom farming, so he can return to Ghana and hopefully change mushroom production in the country.

This seemed like a good cause, so I called them up, and they helped me determine which kit would be best for my mushroom-eating needs. I decided to start simple and get a 10-inch log to grow shiitake mushrooms on. So we’ll see how it goes, and I’ll keep you updated on my experience. Please post a comment below if you have any mushroom-growing advice to share.

For further reading, check out Grow Your Own Mushrooms.

ISTOCKPHOTO/MICHAEL THOMPSON

After hosting a dinner for our parents, my roommate and I were stuck with a whole bottle of ranch dressing. Neither of us eat salad (I’m allergic and she doesn’t like it), so I decided to create a recipe so the dressing could be used in a non-salad way. What resulted was a grilled chicken bacon ranch pizza (all ingredients were things I already had in my kitchen). I even made the crust from scratch!

Crust
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk or water
Your choice of additional spices (suggestion: Oregano)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While waiting for the oven to warm up, lightly grease a pizza pan with butter.

Combine flour, salt, eggs, milk (or water) and spices of your choice into a large mixing bowl. Stir using a large wooden spoon.

Once the mixture is thoroughly combined, pour dough onto a round pizza pan and evenly spread out. Make sure the edges are rounded and not too thin.

Bake for about 15 minutes. Watch carefully. Every oven is different. Remove from oven. Set aside.

Tip: If you like a crispier crust, try a pizza stone! Although a little tricky to determine the baking time, the crispy crust will be more than worth it in the end.

Preheat the pizza stone in the oven for 15 minutes and then add the pizza dough. Place back in oven. You'll know it's done when the crust is a light brown.

Pizza
1 cup cooked chicken (chopped)
1/4 cup ranch dressing
1 cup tomatoes (diced)
1/2 cup chopped bacon
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (or enough to cover all the toppings)
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Oven should already be set on 400, but once the pizza crust is removed, turn the heat slightly up to 425 degrees.

Combine the chicken, ranch dressing, tomatoes and bacon. Stir in a mixing bowl. Evenly spread mixture over warm pizza crust. Top with mozzarella.

Place pizza back into oven for another 15 minutes. Remove pizza and lightly sprinkle the top with parmesan.

Serves 8.

As long as I make the muffins, my husband, Rob, often cooks us a breakfast of scrambled eggs and goat cheese (with a sprinkle of cinnamon) served on English muffins. These little "griddle breads" were invented by Victorian-era English servants as a way to use leftover bits bread dough. They make scrumptious toast, but they're expensive to buy and their packaging is just plain ridiculous. We don’t even give white bread hotdog buns double layers of cardboard and plastic armor.

To make my own, I found several variations on classic English muffin recipes and started cooking. A half-dozen or more batches later, I hit the right combination by using the dough from one recipe and the shaping technique from another. Whether you use a knife or fork to split the muffins before toasting them is up to you. 

Whole Wheat English Muffins

 I like to use my KitchenAid to make dough whenever possible, but this dough can just as easily be kneaded by hand. When hand-kneading, be sure to flour your surface and hands generously. The dough has been kneaded enough when the surface becomes taught, smooth and elastic. Yields 12 English muffins.

Ingredients:

1 cup milk, warmed until just barely bubbling

2 tbsp honey (granulated sugar works, too)

1 package or 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

1 cup warm water (110 degrees Fahrenheit — just barely warm to the touch)

1/4 cup melted butter or oil

About 5 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour (Substitute as much all-purpose flour as you’d like for a lighter muffin.)

1 tsp salt

Instructions:

1. Combine warmed milk and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer and stir until dissolved. In a separate bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

2. Add yeast mixture, butter or oil, and three cups of flour to the milk. Attach the dough hook and beat at a low speed until mostly smooth. Add flour by the half-cup until a soft dough forms. The dough has the right amount of flour when it pulls into a ball and cleans the sides of the bowl. Be patient, though — it take a moment for new flour to incorporate into the dough.

3. Move the dough to a greased mixing bowl (finesse works better than strength when removing the dough hook), cover and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

4. Sprinkle a work surface with flour and a long sheet of waxed paper with cornmeal. Punch down the dough and move to the floured surface. Cut the dough into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and place on the waxed paper, leaving 3 inches between the muffins. Slightly flatten each round and sprinkle with cornmeal. Cover and let rise 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat a greased griddle over medium heat. Gently brush excess cornmeal off muffins and place on the griddle, cooking until a deep golden brown, 5 to 7 minutes on each side. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes or until the edges feel firm.

6. Cool on wire racks and toast before serving.

Above: A dusting of corn meal and a turn on the griddle give English muffins their signature crunch.

Right: A bed of corn meal keeps the muffins from sticking during the second rising.