Cornbread Deliciousness

First of all, I know I’ve been neglecting the blog.  Unfortunately it’s not just the blog that’s been set aside, I’ve been neglecting my kitchen a bit.  Between a weeklong vacation in June and two weeks staying with my parents in July I kind of stopped cooking for a while but I’m working on getting back on track with it, and the first recipe back is more bread.

Once again it was time for our Sunday potluck with out twenties and thirties group at church, this time I was a bit more prepared than last.  I knew a week in advance that the main dish was going to be chili and that I was going to bring cornbread, the question was what recipe to use.  I have made Ina Garten’s Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread for a choir dinner and it went over very well at that event (and we absolutely loved it), but I discovered we have a couple people in the group who don’t like jalapeno so that was out.

I briefly thought about using that recipe anyway and omitting the jalapeno but decided against that partly because I was hesitant about the amount of butter her recipe calls for, and partly because I wanted to try a new recipe.  Now, I’ve had my fair share of dry, crumbly cornbread and was a little worried about randomly picking out a recipe to serve to a group and having it turn out poorly but I figured I’ll never learn unless I just go for it.

I decided that I’d go with a King Arthur Flour recipe, one of their guaranteed recipes at that, so I had a little bit of confidence that It would be pretty tasty.  This recipe was ridiculously simple to put together and start to finish, including baking time, was well under an hour.  I pulled it out of the oven and waited impatiently for the muffins to cool so we could try one before giving them to others.  As soon as they were barely cool enough to handle I grabbed one and ripped it in half to share and it looked delicious and we weren’t at all disappointed when we bit into it.  This recipe makes wonderfully moist cornbread that’s just a little sweet, and I will absolutely be going back to this recipe in the future.  There was also a general consensus among the church group that it was delicious.

Along with being an excellent side with chili I also enjoyed it warmed a bit, topped with butter and maple syrup which was also delicious.

 

Cornbread

Source: King Arthur Flour

 

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 large egg

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 375.  Grease your pan of choice (It calls for a 9-inch pan, I doubled the recipe and made 12 muffins then the rest baked in an 8-inch square pan).

Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Stir in any extras you might want to add, you can add in herbs, cheese, corn kernels, green onion, jalapeno, etc. up to 1 cup.

In another bowl whisk together milk, melted butter, and egg.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture and stir gently until just combined.

Spread batter in pan, or muffin pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the edges begin to pull away from the pan and a toothpick comes out clean. (I baked the muffins for about 18 minutes and the 8-inch pan for 25)

Remove from oven and cool on a rack for 5 minutes before cutting; serve warm.

If you’re looking for a good cornbread recipe, I highly recommend giving this one a try.

Missing Ingredients...

A couple weeks ago we had a pot luck dinner to go to at church. Sunday morning I still hadn't decided what to make, but I was thinking I'd go with something simple like macaroni and cheese. That is, until I was told that someone else was planning on lasagna and I decided that lasagna and macaroni and cheese might be a bit much for one meal. I came home and was trying to come up with something by looking through recipes when a lightbulb went off.

What do you have to have with lasagna? Garlic bread!

OK, that will work, I guess I could just go pick up a loaf or two of french bread, slather it with garlic and butter and stick it in the oven but I decided that would be too boring, so I decided to look through my recipes to see if I could find something that I'd be able to make in the 3 hours I had.

I settled on the Cooking Light basic dinner roll recipe because the timing looked about right and I only had to pick a couple things up at the grocery store before I started baking.

After a quick run to the store I got to work mixing the dough. Working as quickly as I could because I had such a limited amount of time. I got everything mixed, stuck the dough in the dryer to rise, then got it back out to shape. I formed them into three different shapes and managed to find room in the dryer to stack 2 pans to let the rolls rise again.

Here is where I added the garlic. While the rolls were rising I mixed up some melted butter with a couple cloves of minced garlic and basted the tops of the rolls with it just before they went into the oven. They came out of the oven about 15 minutes before we had to leave so I let them cool briefly then piled them into a bowl to take with us. First of all, in this rush to get out the door on time I unfortunately was not able to get a picture of the rolls. Second, one of the rolls dropped on the floor as I was transferring them into the bowl, so we decided to split it before we left. I ripped it open and it looked so light and fluffy on the inside, albeit slightly overdone on the outside, and I was really excited about trying it because it looked so good.

We both bit into our chunks of bread, and something was missing. I have apparently developed a bad habit of forgetting to put salt in baked goods. They were still delicious rolls, just a little bland without the salt, and if I need rolls again I would be happy to make these again.

The recipe is here at myrecipes.com, if you're looking for easy dinner rolls, these are good.

Comfort Foods

We all have our comfort foods, those dishes that you turn to when you've had a bad day or just need something, well, comforting. We all know that frequently comfort foods aren't the healthiest of options, in fact most of my comfort foods are full of gooey cheese. What I have for you today is a slight spin on the classic grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Grilled cheese has been one of my favorite foods for quite a long time, but there are different ways to make and eat it. Eating in the dining halls in high school and college grilled cheese day was always one that I looked forward to, the slightly soggy grilled cheese with melted orange cheese that can be ripped up and dipped into tomato soup. Delicious.

Eating grilled cheese at home was an entirely different story. At home we used white extra sharp cheddar (it's always white, orange cheddar just doesn't taste right to me) and put it on the griddle until the cheese was running out from the bread and the bread was nice and toasted and crispy.

Now we come to todays grilled cheese, which may in fact be the the better of these three. This is my open faced grilled cheese, today with sliced tomato. I only make this version when I have a good fresh tomato, because that's what makes it. Occasionally I'll add bacon or avocado in addition to the tomato, but the tomato is a necessary part.

Here's what you need:

Bread (for however many sandwiches you need)

Cheese (I generally use white extra sharp cheddar, but have occasionally put slices of swiss on top, it really is your preference)

Tomato, sliced

Avocado, sliced (optional)

Bacon, cooked to almost done (optional)

Toast the bread lightly, it will toast more in the oven. Top the toast with a layer of cheese and then top that with tomato, avocado, and bacon, as you like. Put one more thin layer of cheese on top of that, place on a baking sheet and broil until the cheese is melted.

Just look at that warm gooey melted cheese, just slightly browned on the top. It's a great easy meal good for either lunch or dinner. This does come in second to homemade Macaroni and Cheese, but it's a close second, and I'll post that recipe later.

Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken

I was looking for a quick and easy but delicious recipe that I could have mostly prepared when Philip got home about a week ago. I found this recipe on Stephanie Cooks and knew that it would be perfect, and I had everything I needed on hand. I actually started it earlier than I should have so before I put the brown sugar on the chicken I added some chicken broth, covered the pan and let it simmer a bit, I also let it continue to simmer just a little longer covered after putting the sugar on. This was the perfect simple weeknight dinner, absolutely delicious and i will definitely be making this one again.

Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken

4 Servings, I halved the recipe for just the 2 of us.

As found on

Ingredients:

Brown Sugar, 4 tsp unpacked

Chicken Breast, no skin, 12 ounces

Garlic, 1 clove

Butter, salted, 2 tbsp

Salt, 1 tsp

Pepper, black, 1 dash

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a frying pan

2. Brown the garlic in the butter

3. Add chicken breasts to garlic and butter and cook thoroughly, adding salt and pepper as you like it. (This is where I added chicken broth and simmered)

4. When chicken is fully cooked add brown sugar on top of each breast (1 tsp per breast)

5. Allow the brown sugar to melt into the chicken (about 5 minutes)

6. Serve, we ate it with green beans with slivered toasted almonds.

Rhamkuchen

I made this Rhamkuchen, also known as German Cheesecake, for a dinner with 4 other couples 2 weeks ago and only now am I finding the time to sit down and blog it. When I was little I didn't like cheesecake, it just didn't appeal to me at all. When I was about 11 or 12 I decided that I did, in fact, like some cheesecake, but only the Jello no bake kind. It may have been a couple years after that when mom made this cheesecake and I discovered that I now really like cheesecake, no matter what kind. Since that this has been my favorite cheesecake and it's one of my favorite desserts to make for a crowd because it's simple and usually goes over well.

As usual, when I offered to make dessert for this dinner I knew exactly what I was going to make, and it went over as well as always. I actually had most of them tell me that I'm welcome to bake for them anytime. On that note, on to the recipe:

Rhamkuchen (German Cheesecake)

Source: Mom-beyond that, I don't know

1½ cup rolled Zwieback crumbs
3 Tbsp butter (or margarine)
2 Tbsp sugar

1 lb cream cheese
½ cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla
rind of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs, separated
1 cup thick sour cream
1 Tbsp sugar
½ tsp vanilla

Blend the rolled crumbs with melted butter and 2 Tbsp sugar. Press into the bottom of a 9-inch spring pan. Place in warm (150-200˚) oven for 5 minutes to set the crust. Cool.

Warm the cream cheese to room temperature and break up with a fork. Blend in the sugar and lemon juice, rind and vanilla. Drop in the egg yolks, one at a time, and beat well after each one. Beat the egg whites stiff and fold into the mixture with a spatula.

Pour over the crumb base and bake for 45 minutes at 300˚.

Mix 1 Tbsp sugar and the vanilla into the sour cream. Spread lightly over the top of the cake and return it to the oven to bake 10 minutes more.

Let the cake cool and remove the rim of the spring pan.

Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

We had breakfast for dinner earlier this week, which I love doing because I love breakfast foods, but I'm not big on eating that much in the mornings. Pancakes are one of those essential breakfast foods, but I hadn't yet found a recipe that I really loved until now. I decided to try Ina Gartens Banana Sour Cream Pancakes from "Barefoot Contessa Family Style." Unfortunately I now can't post the recipe because the link I used is now gone, and I can't seem to locate it. What I can say is they were amazing, I loved how dense they were (much more so than most that I've made) and it was also the first pancake recipe I have made that actually made the exact number of pancakes that the recipe expected. All in all, serving these with fresh strawberries and honeydew melon, smothered in real maple syrup, was wonderful and I will be hunting down the recipe again so we can make them on a somewhat regular basis.

So, for those of you who may be reading this, do you have a favorite or fall back pancake recipe? If so, please share, I'll be sure to give it a try.

The Husband Cooks

I just need to tell you how much I love having a husband who cooks for me on occasion. I would say throughout the week that we split the cooking about evenly, although frequently he will take over the main dish and I still have to worry about the sides or making sure everything gets cleaned up. Every so often, however, like the other night he tells me to sit down with a glass of wine and banishes me from the kitchen.



The other night was one of those nights. We had this menu planned and put it off a couple nights because we didn't have time, but finally Sunday we decided we were going to have it, and he kept to his desire to fix this meal almost entirely unaided.

What he made was the Mushroom Crepe Cannelloni out of the Complete Cooking Light Cookbook. I know that there have been some issues with posting Cooking Light recipes in blogs so I'm not going to post it here, but it was an excellent meal.

I would absolutely make this meal again, although next time I think we would make the crepes ahead of time so it's not quite as time consuming, over all I think it took him close to 2 hours including the crepes. I also have to brag that I seem to be able to get Philip to eat foods that he pretends to dislike, such as mushrooms. When we picked this meal, I had looked at at in the cookbook but hadn't suggested it because I know that he's not big on mushrooms and had already agreed to one mushroom dish, but then he suggested it and I figured we might as well go for it.

It has a wonderful flavor combination with tomato, parmesan, and mushroom all balancing each other quite well. One thing that did stand out to me while we were eating is that the mushroom filling incorporates a dry white wine, we got a Barefoot Sauvignon Blanc and we decided to each have a glass with dinner, assuming it would go quite well with dinner. It was a good wine and I'd had several sips of it before I started eating, however when I had a sip after taking a couple bites of food it actually made me shiver. The wine did not pair with the food at all, it's possible that with a different wine it would be different, but this one just didn't work.