a couple of new easy favourite recipes

Whenever we go to restaurants, especially in the South, if they have cornbread, you can be sure that Guillermo is going to order it. He loves him some good ole cornbread. Drowned in butter. Healthy, i know.

He’s been working a lot of hours lately, coupled with quite a few meetings, and now gearing up for the next phase of Renos at home. (Exterior hardscaping, landscaping and the basement) Most of that has been mental energy as we sort out financing, and final plans.. and just gearing ourselves up for the fast pace of work & decision making again.

So, I spoil him a little with cornbread. I found a great recipe on Pinterest, did my own typical additions/edits.. and he loves it. I tried making cornbread a few years ago, and it never turned out, it was dry, not sweet enough (for his liking) and just bland…so I gave up. A few weeks ago, I stopped by bulk barn and bought some cornmeal, and thought I’d try again. This one seems to be quite good. It’s going with a salad and chicken breast for dinner tonite… so at least he’s getting his veggies and lean protein as well. 🙂

Here’s my edited recipe for “super fluffy moist cornbread” in less than 45 min….

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup milk**
mix above together and set aside for 10 minutes. Today, it was “set aside” for more like 20 minutes, b/c just as I started baking, the outside temperature dropped 11 degrees Celcius, it began to rain, and I had a full line of laundry outside I had to rescue. Arrghhhh.
1 cup flour
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Whisk the above in the corn meal/milk mixture, then add:
1 large egg
1/3 cup unsalted melted butter melted
a couple tbsps of honey***Whisk that all together, then bake at 400 for 22-25 minutes in a greased 8×8 pan. I’ve been using our convection toaster oven lately, and it works fabulously.

**re the milk… the recipe calls for whole milk… we only had 0% lactose free in the house, so I did about 3/4 cup of 0% milk, mixed with almost 1/4 c coffee cream (I try to keep cream in the house for company (we don’t use it), so it often ends up in baking replacing milk)

and added in about 2 tbsp of fresh lemon juice to make 1 1 full cup of “buttermilk” as one recipe stated that for the “fluffiest cornbread” to use buttermilk. I learned the lemon juice trick years ago to make my own buttermilk.. it works like a charm. It also adds a bit more flavour to the bread.

***Another secret (not so secret – ’cause i’m sharing it) ingredient not in the original recipe was Honey. I used local smoked honey from a Meadery in Beamsville, ON. It’s amazing. I’m tempted to eat it by the spoonful.

Today’s corn bread turned out super fluffy.. so much so, it cracked on top. After it was all mixed up, I actually set the bowl aside for about 20 minutes before baking, which allowed the buttermilk, honey & baking powder to activate, creating a super fluffy cornbread.

I can hardly wait for Guillermo to come home from work and dig in happily. It’s a little dark on top, but still super moist and fluffy inside. I think it was just because it rose higher than normal that it got a little toasted. (thank the rain) This wouldn’t happen in a normal oven where there’s lots of room around the pan.. but for such a small pan, I use the toaster oven when I can.

Another super simple recipe I found last week and have made twice now is for blueberry crumble bars. Again, since I changed up the recipe I found, I’ll share it.

Blueberry Crumble Bars:

1 cup oats
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
cinnamon

mix that up til it’s crumbly, and put all but one reserved packed cup of the mix on the bottom of a foil lined 8×8 baking pan, that is well sprayed/oiled.