Sour Cream Cornbread

I make this cornbread every time I make chili – no, really, every time – I am not kidding. They go together like, I don’t know, but I am sure there is a phrase for it. These two things are just perfect together. At least to me. I am sharing this recipe with a good friend who is a chef at a place we like to go and his chili is just the best every – next to mine of course. Let’s put it this way, I always say when I eat his chili each winter that it is best because it tastes so much like mine, but I did not have to make it. This cornbread, from a great Southern friend, is just my go-to cornbread for chili. It is her family’s recipe and since she was raised in a small North Florida town, it really fits with my style of cooking – Southern, simple, but dead good cooking. I have other cornbread for cornbread dressing, but this is the kind you want to split and put in a toaster oven and smear with good European butter for breakfast – and yes, I do that – if there is any left over (not likely, but occasionally).

1 cup self- rising corn meal*
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 small can of creamed corn
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients well.  Pour into greased 9 x 9 inch glass baking dish. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes.

* 3/4 cup cornmeal + 3 Tbs
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt 

I do not buy self rising anything. There is no need. So I make my own rather than buying and just letting it go bad because I use it so infrequently. I guess it is just because I hate to waste things and I’d rather have control over my ingredients. 

 

Chili Jj

About a zillion years, or at least it feels that way, I found a recipe for Chili El Cid. It was very different than the chili I had grown up with, but it was intriguing beyond words. It was so weird – in a good way. It had a cinnamon stick and a jalapeño that was slit and they both simmered in the chili.

Question: Who puts cinnamon in chili?
Answer: A very enlightened person.

Seemed so strange. Still does, but it works so well. The source, originally, was not the Parade Magazine though that seems to be where everyone else knows it from. I found it via my love of Sheila Lukens.

I have to admit, I am not a huge fan of beans in my chili. Not sure what camp that puts me in – maybe Texas, but I do put a few (read: 1 can of light kidney beans, rinsed very very well) for the MotH. It is a concession I am willing to make. Though am still not really a fan, which is interesting since all the chili of my childhood had beans in it.

We have had a bit of a mild winter, even for us, so I have not been in chili mode, but we just are having a crappy weekend this weekend. Windy, rainy, and whatnot, so I think I that fits the bill. Maybe my last chance till next winter.

Steve (MotH) says that it is fine to make chili when it is not cold – he’ll just turn the A/C down and we will make due. He is probably right, but I always hold out hope that we get just a smidge of winter in February. One can only hope.

Olive oil
1 pound ground sirloin
2 hot Italian sausages, casings removed
2 mild Italian sausages, casings removed
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1/4 cup chili powder
1 Tbs McCormick – Montreal Blend
1 Tbs ground cumin
1 Tbs dried basil
1 Tbs dried oregano
2 – 14.5 ozs cans beef broth
1 – 28 ozs can whole tomatoes
1 – 28 ozs can crushed tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick
1 jalapeño, slit lengthwise 3 times
1 – 14.5 ozs can light red kidney beans, rinsed well, no, really rinsed well, otherwise ugh

Heat olive oil, about 2 Tbs in a large pot.  Add sirloin, sausages, and onion. Once it is all cooked though, with the meat being no longer pink and the onion translucent. Use a potato masher to break the meats up. Add the chili powder, Montreal blend, basil, oregano, and cumin. Cook until the spices are fragrant, a couple of minutes.

Add beef broth and both kinds of tomatoes. Add the cinnamon stick and jalapeño. Bring to a boil briefly and reduce to a simmer for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally while breaking up the whole tomatoes -with said potato masher. When there is about 30 minutes more of simmering to do, add the very rinsed beans. Stir well.

Before serving, remove cinnamon stick and jalapeño – duh. Garnish with grated cheddar, lime crema* and if you are a great person, serve over cornbread.  Yes, I am that person (see below).

*sour cream with some fresh lime juice – sounds cooler to say crema, maybe? Not sure. Yep. It does.

Sour Cream Cornbread – necessary
1 cup of self rising cornmeal (though you can make it from regular cornmeal if you make the correct modifications*)
2  large eggs
1 small can of creamed corn
1 cup sour cream  – full fat people, I mean really?
1/2 cup canola oil

Combine all ingredients, mixing well. Pour into a greased 9 x 9 inch glass baking pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 – 30 minutes. In my opinion – closer to 30 minutes.

From my great friend Dawn, who taught me a great many things about Southern cooking and baking. 

* 3/4 cup cornmeal + 3 Tbs
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt

I just do not like to buy self rising anything so …

Sour Cream Cornbread Muffins

I finally decided to make my favorite cornbread recipe into muffins, and I’ll be damned if it did not work out amazingly. I just took my favorite cornbread recipe that I always make for chili and tried to make it in muffin form. I am happy to say it worked really really well. Super happy – yep. 

1 cup self-rising corn meal*
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 small can of creamed corn – Publix brand is great – like most Publix brands
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients well.  Line a 12-well muffin tin with foil liners and spray with cooking spray. Fill cups 3/4 full – or basically just make them all even so the baking time is the same. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes. Do the toothpick thing just in case you are wondering.

* 3/4 cup cornmeal + 3 Tbs
1 Tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt

So this past week I have eaten really moist cornbread muffins for breakfast**. Split in half and put in the toaster oven and heat up and make a little crunchy. And then just go all in with the ridiculously rich European butter – that is some serious good eats. Might be better than biscuits for breakfast but that is almost blasphemy for a good Southern girl to say. Well ….

**Before, I just cut pieces of cornbread and brought them in. But then there was the problem of running out of cornbread for leftover chili, so I went all in – a pan of cornbread and then cornbread muffins – pretty good solution. And more cornbread for me. I didn’t even share this with the office. I think I just might be terrible, no, just selfish.

Butter / Egg Usage – October 2016

1 October 2016 – Red Onion White Wine OJ Butter Sauce Pasta with spinach tortellini  – 4 Tbs

14 October 2016 – Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookies – 16 Tbs / 2 large eggs

15 October 2016 – Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins – 5 1/2 Tbs / 2 large eggs

19 October 2016 – Shortbread – 16 Tbs

19 October 2016 – Best Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies – 12 Tbs / 1 large egg

25 October 2016 – Cheddar, Corn, and Sausage Muffins – 4 Tbs / 2 large eggs

27 October 2016  – Lemon Bars – 16 Tbs butter / 5 large eggs

28 October 2016 – Pecan Sandies – 16 Tbs butter

28 October 2016 – Lemon Crisps– 8 Tbs butter / 1 large egg

97.5 Tbs = 12.1875 sticks = 48.75 ozs = 3.04 pounds 

13 eggs 

I will have to add this all up just to see where it gets me for this year. This is not a bad month after all. Might even make up for my crappy summer. But probably will not. 

Sausage, Cheddar, and Corn Muffins

I have a thing for breakfast muffins, especially when a pork product is involved. I just had to try these, although I did mess about with the recipe a bit. We are little bit past fresh corn season, even for us.* So I purchased frozen white shoepeg corn – one of my favorite things in the entire frozen world. I think I prefer the shoepeg because it is slightly less sweet. I have modifications to the originally recipe and know I will be making more adjustments to this recipe the next time I make it.**

2 teaspoons olive oil
16 ounces hot breakfast sausage
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup corn meal
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs, room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup frozen sweet white corn kernels, let thaw while you make batter
1/2 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese, plus more for sprinkling on muffins
1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 12 muffin tin cups with foil liners.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and add sausage. Break the sausage into small pieces with a spatula as it cooks. Cook until the sausage is crumbly and cooked through. Remove skillet from heat. Blot up some of the fat with  paper towels leaving about 1 tablespoon. Let mixture cool.

Place flour, corn meal, and baking soda in a mixing bowl. Whisk until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and buttermilk together. Add egg/buttermilk mixture slowly to flour/cornmeal mixture. Add corn kernels, Cheddar cheese, and reserved sausage mixture. Stir in melted butter; mix just until flour is mixed in.***

Divide batter among muffin cups. Top with some extra Cheddar cheese.

Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool to warm before serving.

Adapted from Allrecipies … once again.

* We have a huge rural farming community around us, but it is October and I’ll just go with frozen corn and pass on the farming left-overs.

** I was missing a little salt in these muffins. I think next time I’ll add a 1/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan. I could add salt, but why not make it Parmesan. More cheese and some salty flavor to the mix.

*** I mixed everything up one night and put it in the fridge. Came home the next day and let it sit until room temperature and then baked the muffins and they were great. I am a huge fan of making a recipe to a certain point and then continuing on the next night.  I have to do that since I bake/cook after I get off work.

The original recipe had scallions in it. They might be nice, but I am thinking chives next time would be a great deal better, or maybe even a shallot. Now there’s a thought.

Can you tell I will be making these again pretty soon. One of our students had one and said anytime you add sausage to something, that was a good thing. I completely agree. Any pork is a good thing.

My sad baking/cooking summer

It has been a bit of a challenging summer. Not feeling creative and hot and humid as what I imagine hell to be. That said, I have done little and this will just prove it and I hope will be a kick in the right direction for fall baking.

9 July 2016 – Pear and Bleu Cheese Pastry – 1 egg

6 August 2026 – Creamed Corn – 3 Tbs butter

7 August 2016 – Chicken Salad – 8 eggs and some of them were for the pup.

10 August 2016 – Asparagus, Red Onion, Fettuccini with orange juice, white wine, butter sauce  – 4 Tbs butter 

17 August 2016 – Butter-Roasted Mushrooms – 2 Tbs butter

26 August 2016 – Sour Cream Chocolate Chip & Butterscotch Chip Cake – 5 Tbs butter – 1 egg

26 August 2016 – Brownie Cakes – 16 Tbs butter – 4 eggs

29 August 2016 – Thomas’ California Cheese Bread – 6 Tbs

Sigh.

So an underwhelming total of 14 large eggs and 36 Tbs of unsalted butter.

Corn Pudding – Thanksgiving review

Corn Pudding with some cheese – yep

One of my goals this year for Thanksgiving was to add one new recipe, and I had been thinking about something with corn. We have great local corn here in the summer, but this is not the time of year for it now, so how to make something that bridges the gap between late summer and early fall – at least early fall for us – not quite cold-ish yet.

I have never made a corn dish for Thanksgiving, however,  it was on my list – yes, another list. I may not share the rest of my list since I pretty much fell down on most of the others – like “fall” salad. But I did score on apple dessert – thanks to the Boy. I really should have made a better attempt at down-sizing (also on the list) since it was just us – me, the Boy (thankfully), the MotH*, and his amazing Mom.

I really thought about making biscuits, also on this damnable list. I always make sweet potatoes biscuits, but I should have made buttermilk biscuits – not quite traditional, but it could become a tradition in our family. I think it may have to be next year – dang it (I just sound like a bit of a dork, saying dang it), Sigh.

Either way, this corn pudding was pretty good, And the recipe was a mix of a food network recipe and of my other Mom’s recipe. Yep – it is so nice to have another Mom, who happens to be my mother-in-law. She is the best. A girl can only be so lucky – and I am.

There are some vegetable that I love, and corn is probably at the top of my list. It was a favorite when I was a child. When I was in middle school and had a mouth full of braces, I would dutifully cut my corn off the cob during the summers – hated it because eating corn on the cob and have butter dripping down you hands is a summer tradition that is right up there with eating boiled peanuts.

One of my favorite things was to mix rice (yes, we were a rice family, not a potato family) with corn and lots of butter. Still one of my favorite things. Guess the things you love as a kid stay with you. Oh, I love white shoepeg corn – that’s what I used in this recipe – frozen white corn.  It is not too sweet but with rice and, now European salted butter – pretty much amazing. And great for breakfast.

Guess I need to get to the recipe for this bit of stuff now.

4 ozs cream cheese, softened – 1/2 bar
1/2 cup sour cream
small can of creamed corn
1 cup white corn (frozen, but thawed)
1 small onion, diced fine
1/3 cup whole milk
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup grated cheddar, sharp, if you please

Spray 9 x 13″ baking dish with cooking spray. Beat cream cheese in a decent sized bowl until smooth. Add sour cream and mix to combined. Add corns, milk, egg, and cheddar. Mix well. Season with lots of freshly ground pepper and salt.

Spread in the baking dish. Bake at 350 for 45 – 50 minutes until lightly browned. Let stand for a few minutes before serving.

I liked this, but I like corn. It’s rich, but not too much so. May try a different version next time, but this was a damn good first attempt.

* Man of the House

2015 Butter Usage (by month – July)

Pecan Pie Muffins

6 July 2015 – 13 1/2 Tbs – Pecan Pie Muffins

14 July 2015 – 16 Tbs – Old-Fashioned Lemon Sugar Cookies

22 July 2015 – 2 Tbs – Creamed Corn

28 July 2015 – 12 Tbs – Lemon Icebox Cookies

43.5 Tbs = 21.75 ozs. = 1.359375 ibs.

Seems rather paltry to me. But there is always next month!

Creamed Corn – love the local!

Wendt Farm Store

It is the end of sweet corn season in NW Florida. It is a local crop grown on many of the farms that are within 30 minutes of town.  A couple of weeks ago on a lovely Saturday, we went into Santa Rosa county to the small market of Wendt Farm. Chumuckla Highway (yeah, go ahead and try to pronounce that – dare you) just north of Pace is where we are talking about (once again, don’t like to end a sentence that way – ugh). All the produce is locally farm grown and sold by the family.
There were plenty of watermelon available, but I avoid all kinds of melons (long story). So cool –  there were shelled peas, really beautiful tomatoes, some peppers, eggplant, and lots and lots of fresh corn. Boy, there was plenty of traffic and it was all locals – and by that I mean people from Pace and Milton. I felt like an interloper from town. People didn’t even turn their vehicles off. Just left them running. So many regulars. What a great thing to see. This is the way food should be.

Either way their corn was $4 for a dozen ears, but I had to get 6. That is more than we (me and the MotH*) need, but what the hell!

I have seen a couple of recipes lately for creamed corn. Both different, one with more ingredients than I thought necessary, and other was a bare minimalist approach. But the mechanics of it are basic: shuck corn, remove silks (which takes for bloody ever), trim kernels off (but not too deep), run back of knife over cobs to get the corn juice, heat butter in sauté pan, add corn and juice. After this things can go a variety of ways. For me it went like this:

Shuck 6 ears of corn and remove those damn silks – ugh – the worst part about fresh corn in my opinion  Slice the kernels off, but not too deep.  Scrape the corn juice from the cobs into the same bowl.  Heat a couple of tablespoons of butter (salted or not, but I think salted is best for this application) in a skillet and add the corn and corn juice (does this have a name – not sure).

So far, for me, that is it. Corn and corn juice with a little bit of butter. I tried it with a bit of cream, but dairy messes with the fresh corn flavor (can’t believe I removed silks again – ugh – do I say that enough? Nope). No dairy, no onions, no chicken stock – none of it. Just corn and butter, but it has to be fresh and local corn. No biggie for us here. How lucky are we? Very.

Wendt Farm store is closed now until the fall crops come in – October. Can not wait to go back.

Corn – simple and excellent

*Man of the House – just watch Quiet Man. Yep.