Rio Grande Egg Puffs Recipes

Steps:

• For the ginger butter: Place the butter, agave and ginger in a food processor and process until smooth. (If no processor is available, you may use softened butter and whisk all ingredients instead.) The butter should have a smooth consistency, ready to be dipped into.
• For the french toast puffs: Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F, using convection if available. Spray a large baking sheet with cooking spray.
• Put the bananas, oat milk, coconut, sugar, cinnamon, turmeric, nutmeg, vanilla and salt in a blender and blend until smooth. If there are a few small chunks of banana, don't worry, it will add to the texture of the puffs.
• Put 1 loaf's worth of bread chunks in a large mixing bowl, followed by the batter. With a spatula or fingertips, gently fold everything together. Take care not to overmix. Homogenous is boring, so we are looking for the bread to be mostly intact, moistened by the batter. Let sit for 5 minutes. The texture should now be soft and wet, not soupy (if it's soupy, add more bread).
• When the correct texture is achieved, it will be easily scoopable with a golf-ball-sized cookie scoop. Scoop out all of the bread-batter mix onto the prepared baking sheet. Keep it funky and scoop larger amounts than the scoop can hold, like a scoop of hard ice cream. Bake until golden brown and crispy on the outside, 10 to 15 minutes. (Browned and slightly crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside, is our goal.) Eat with hands, dipping into Vermont maple syrup and ginger butter.

Steps:

• Preheat the grill to medium-high.
• Grill the corn until slightly charred black in some areas and has good color. Remove the corn from the grill to a cutting board and, using a serrated knife, cut the kernels off the cob. Set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Add about 1/8-inch of bacon fat to a 10-inch cast iron skillet and put it in the oven to heat up. While this is going on, mix the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl add the cornmeal, reserving about 1/8 cup, the salt and the baking soda. When the oil is hot, remove the skillet from the oven and sprinkle the bottom with the reserved 1/8 cup of cornmeal. Stir it into the oil and return the skillet to the oven to brown the cornmeal. In a large bowl add the eggs, creme mexicana, corn, chiles, water, remaining bacon fat and the onions. When the cornmeal roux is nice and brown, remove the skillet from the oven and pour in half of the batter. It should sizzle a little in the hot bacon fat. Now sprinkle the goat cheese evenly across the top of the first layer of batter. Gently pour in the remaining batter, being careful not to upset the layers, and bake until the top is golden brown, about 40 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool 10 minutes before serving