Pots and Pans

My family is fanatical for cornbread, so I try to have it as often as possible.  It seems, for some reason that I make it more often in the fall and winter than I do the spring and summer. I guess that’s because my favorite meals to serve it with are chili and beans, which we have far more often in cooler weather.

Here are a few of my favorite ways to enjoy leftover  cornbread:

• Coarsely (very coarsely) crumble or cut cornbread into chunks and place in a bowl or large mouth glass.  Add buttermilk and eat with a spoon.  I SWEAR this is absolutely Heavenly.
• Serve cornbread the next morning with eggs.  You can warm the cornbread up on a griddle (with a little butter, of course) and place a fried egg smack on the top of it.  Or, simply eat it with butter and jelly as you would toast as a side.
• Of course there’s the old school favorite – use leftover cornbread for stuffing!  All in all, I still favor it in a bowl with buttermilk. If you’ve never tried this, you seriously don’t know what you’re missing.

A few other tips about cornbread:

• Buttermilk always makes the cornbread taste better than regular milk.
• Use a cast iron skillet or pan for the absolute best cornbread or cornbread muffins on earth. Like buttermilk, it somehow makes a HUGE difference.
• Green Chilies are a great stir-in addition to cornbread.
• Like pancakes and brownies, cornbread batter doesn’t like to be manhandled. Just combine the dry and wet ingredients, and put the spoon down. Don’t even think about using your electric mixer.
• The wet ingredients  activate the leaveners in the batter, so once you’ve combined the wet and dry ingredients, get it into the pan(s) and get the show on the road. Act fast, don’t doddle.
• When using leftover cornbread (for the next day), keep it wrapped in the refrigerator. If you’re saving it for cornbread dressing or stuffing, cornbread can be kept in the freezer for 6 weeks.
• If you’re making cornbread, in bulk, for stuffing, Jiffy Cornbread Mixes are excellent!
• When making cornbread that’ll be used for stuffing or dressing, add a little sage to the batter.
• Here’s a recipe for Cheddar Cornbread from Taste of Home.  I’ve actually never made cheddar cornbread but, after seeing this recipe, I’ll be correcting that oversight SOON.
• Here’s an Alton Brown recipe for Creamed Corn Cornbread you’ll love.

Adding a little chopped jalapeno to your cornbread batter adds a lot of flavor – and it looks pretty cool too… especially when you make cactus-shaped cornbread, courtesy of the Lodge Logic Pre-Seasoned Saguaro Cactus Pan, shown above.

Product Features

Amazon.com Product Description

Southern chefs will tell you that nothing bakes cornbread like a good cast-iron pan, and this Lodge Logic cactus pan is among the best. The vessel features a series of five saguaro cactus impressions, each measuring 4-1/4 inches long and 2-1/2 inches wide. The cactus shapes are clever and precise, with a pair of arms that extend out and up in the traditional saguaro manner. Meanwhile, the batter cooks beautifully thanks to the cast-iron material, which heats slowly but evenly and holds its heat far longer than stainless and aluminum rivals. The resulting cornbread cakes and muffins are cooked to the peak of perfection, with slightly crisp exteriors and moist, flavorful insides. It’s the perfect way to add a Southwestern touch to your chili and black-eyed pea recipes.

NOTE: Yesterday, I told you I’d be making the Cucumber Salad recipe for supper. It was beyond delicious.  My youngest daughter, Stephany, helped me in the kitchen last night and that’s always a special treat. We actually wound up doubling the recipe because we kept sampling so much as we went along!  The dill adds such a wonderful flavor to the fresh, crisp cucumbers. Outstanding.