Aieeee

Gumbo night! I made gumbo Monday night. It was delicious! We had again tonight. I'll take the last bowl of leftovers with me to work tomorrow along with some homemade cornbread. Uuummmm-um. So good! Makes a possum hug a hound! :-)

My cornbread recipe has to be somewhere on this blog, but I didn't label it. So here goes:

Set out a stick of butter before starting.

Buttermilk Cornbread

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose or unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup oil
1 egg

Set oven on 425 degrees. Put a dab of bacon grease in each section of your cornbread pan(s). I use a cornstick pan and a 'scone' pan. Both cast iron of course! Set both pans in the oven.

In a medium size mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients.
In a 2 cup measuring cup, combine all liquid ingredients in order given. You can measure directly into the cup. Just remember to add the egg last. Beat with a fork or small whisk.
Pour buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients. Stir well. If it seems dry, add a bit more buttermilk.

For the cornstick pan (bacon grease should not only be melted, but HOT so that the batter sizzles as you spoon it in), spoon enough batter into the compartments, spreading a bit. Pop this in the oven. Divide the remaining batter evenly in the scone pan. The cornsticks are going to take about 12-14 minutes. The wedges take about 18 minutes.

Slice your favorite piece of cornbread and slather with that softened butter!

You can tell from the size of the wedges why I also bake a pan of cornsticks. If my memory serves me correctly from when I baked cornsticks on Sunday morning for when we had our 5-Sunday dinners at church, this recipe makes somewhere between 4-6 pans of cornsticks.

You can also make this by pouring the entire bowl of batter in a greased and heated cast iron skillet. Or in a 9 x 12" baking pan - but I don't know why you'd use a baking pan when you have perfectly good cast iron. You DO have cast iron don't you? If not, go to thrift stores, second hand stores, some junk/collectible/antique stores. Look for American made. Some of that imported stuff is 'pert near' impossible to season correctly.

Gumbo recipe (with photos) here:
http://keepyouinstitches.blogspot.com/search/label/gumbo