Comfort Food: Corn Bread and Chili
While I was cleaning the kitchen and waiting for the last batch of cookies to bake, I whipped up a batch of corn bread for AdventureMan – no use in wasting a hot oven! It is a perfect, cold day in Pensacola. Perfect I say, because it really really is NOT fun baking Christmas cookies – or anything else – in a hot, humid kitchen. How did our grandmother’s and great great’s do it, especially in those voluminous dresses and no air conditioning??
The secret to truly great cornbread is to cook it in a cast iron skillet. You put the skillet in the oven until it is very hot, you take it out (using a pot holder, of course), melt a little butter in the pan, then pour the batter in. It will sizzle, and form a delicious crust. Pop the skillet back into the oven and in 22 minutes (at 425Ā°F) your cornbread will be finished, with a toasty crust. If you want to guild the lily, you can swirl a pat of butter over the top, too.
AdventureMan dunks his corn bread in a glass of milk, which I find totally disgusting, but reminds him of when he was a little boy. It’s just a custom, I know, but I can’t look.
We have a pot of chili brewing, with the last of our home grown tomatoes:
The Qatari Cat is following AdventureMan around, telling him to lie down so they can take a snooze together . . . I think it worked. I can hear them both sleeping . . .
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My mother used to put dark Karo syrup on her cornbread which I thought was gross. She said it was a childhood treat. Those things are powerful!
The very thought makes we retch, Momcatwa. Dark corn syrup! I do buy it, but I only use it for pecan pie. Holy holy smokes. Gross!
So, do you eat cornbread?
I like Southern cornbread. Northern cornbread has too much sugar in it. I make it and when it’s just out of the oven I take half a stick of butter and rub it all over the top so it melts in. I also like the kind with a little jalpeno pepper in it.
I am with you, no sugar in the cornbread. I also like the butter rubbed over the top; when you do that, you don’t need to butter the cornbread inside. Actually, I break it up in a bowl and pour the chili over it, I suppose some people might think that is pretty gross, too, LOL, but in the privacy of my own home . . . š
You’re in the south-will you be having your cornbread with black eyed peas for new years?
We keep working with the black eyed peas – for good luck – trying to find a recipe that will make them tasty! LOL, haven’t seemed to find the right one yet . . .
I just like them cooked until they are really soft, drained and with butter. To me they taste a lot like boiled peanuts which is a favorite of mine.
LOL. Sorry. We have tried boiled peanuts and we wonder why people like them! Different tastes for different folk, I guess š