How You Like It (Part 2)

Yesterday I posted a recipe for Southern style cornbread and promised directions for a version of the sweeter, less dense Northern style (which is what the cats noshed on.)

This easy recipe is a copycat of Tippin's, a long-departed restaurant that had several locations in the area. Tippin's was known for their delicious pies, but they also served a wonderful cake-like cornbread accompanied with a crock of honey butter on the side that could pass for dessert.

"Tippin's" Corn Bread
1 (8.5-ounce) box corn muffin mix (such as Jiffy brand)
1 (9-ounce) box yellow cake mix (such as Jiffy brand)
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a bowl, mix all ingredients together. Let mixture set for 5 minutes, then pour into a greased 9x9 baking pan. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

What's your favorite type of cornbread?

Five years ago today: New Thing #20--Snow Day!

How You Like It (Part 1)

Sage left a comment on my last post about bad cats and cornbread asking if I could post a recipe; she'd never had it.

Of course I could, but first I needed to figure out which recipe to use. There are two basic types of cornbread--Northern and Southern, and a few differences between the styles:

• SWEETNESS-Southern cornbread uses very little sugar, but Northern cornbread uses a significant amount.
• TEXTURE-Southern cornbread is contains more cornmeal and very little flour, while Northern cornbread typically uses equal amounts of flour and cornmeal.
• BAKING VESSEL-Southern cornbread is traditionally baked in a sizzling hot cast-iron skillet or corn stick pan; in the North, they generally bake cornbread in a baking dish.

Most people have a definite preference for one type or the other.  I like my cornbread Southern style--dense, savory, and kind of gritty from the cornmeal.  My go-to recipe is from a tattered and stained copy of Betty Crocker's Cookbook (New and Revised Edition) that I received for a wedding present more than 30 years ago.  How times have changed- the recipe suggests using bacon fat as an option! Shortening works just as well, and I'm sure it's healthier.

CORN BREAD
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup shortening or bacon fat
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs

Heat oven to 450°F. Mix all ingredients; beat vigorously 30 seconds. Pour batter into greased round layer pan, 9x1½ inches, or square pan, 8x8x2 inches. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm.

Note-To cook it in a cast iron skillet, put the shortening in a cold pan. Put pan in the preheating oven while you prepare the rest of the batter. When oven is hot and the grease is melted carefully pour it into the batter and mix well. Pour batter back into pan and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Tomorrow I'll post an easy recipe for Northern-style cornbread

Five years ago today: New Thing #19--Blogging for Beginners

Doing Wrong

Yesterday a group I belong to at church hosted our annual parish Chili Supper, an all-you-can-eat extravaganza of chili, chili mac, and hot dogs with or without chili. (We aim to please!)

The Chili committee cooked the food in the school cafeteria.  They handed out a recipe for cornbread and asked each member to bring a pan and a finger-food dessert of their choice.  During the event volunteers cut the cornbread and wrapped it for serving at the main line, and the people at the dessert table set out portions as needed.  A third station offered drinks.

On Saturday I baked my cornbread in a disposable aluminum pan. After it cooled I covered the pan with plastic, protected it with a large baking rack, and set it on top of the refrigerator. Yesterday after church I made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Shortly before it was time to leave for my work shift I decided to move both cooking projects to the car so I wouldn't forget anything.

When I took the cornbread down, this is what I saw:

The picture doesn't do the damage justice; the hole was about an inch deep!  There were only two names on the list of suspects-Jackson and Pepper, the cats.  One of them got to the top of the refrigerator (probably from the counter) and then nudged the baking rack out of the way to have a cornbread feast.  Neither would confess to the wrongdoing. 

I brought the pan with me but left it in the car, figuring if the kitchen started running low on cornbread we could cut away the ruined part and serve the rest.  Fortunately there was plenty; as a matter of fact there were a couple of pans that weren't even used.

Five years ago today: New Thing #17--Fun with Soap

Words Of Wisdom

Unwelcome Guest

Sometime Tuesday night while I was sleeping a stomach virus came to visit, making himself comfortable in my body.  I woke up with a horrible headache, and when I got up to get some aspirin I felt hot and clammy.   For an hour or so I tossed and turned in bed, and then my digestive tract revolted, trying to expel the unwelcome visitor.  However, Mr. Virus announced he was going to stick around because he wanted to spend some quality time with me.

In my opinion, he was an unwanted intruder.  I had a lot of plans for the day, including a shift at work.  Mr. Virus didn't care about my opinion, though, so when the alarm went off I got up and sent a text to my boss, giving him plenty of time to find a replacement.  Then, since I was tired of being in bed, I grabbed my pillow and went to sleep on the couch in the family room.

Mr. Virus was a very rude guest who refused to be ignored.  He didn't like any of the food I offered him, even though I tried to keep it to things he'd enjoy like hot tea, saltines, chicken noodle soup, and bananas.  He kept demanding that I jump up to run to the bathroom (once sending Pepper the Cat sailing across the room from my lap in my mad dash).

On the other hand, he didn't seem to mind that I didn't have the energy to shower (or even brush my teeth) and sat around all day in sweats watching lousy daytime TV.  Or even the fact that I ignored the dirty dishes in the sink and took five naps.

Mr. Virus didn't bother to share his departure plans with me.  After my "dinner" of a piece of dry toast and hot water with ginger syrup I called my boss to let him know not to count on me again today.  As the night went on I felt a little less queasy, but still tired; as much as I fought it I ended up taking a late-evening snooze on the couch which left me sleeping fitfully most of the night.

Good news, though.  This morning I realized that Mr. Virus has packed up and moved on.  He didn't bother to leave a house guest thank-you gift, but frankly his being gone is gift enough!

Five years ago today: New Thing #13--Hearth & Home

BRRRRR!

Last summer we had record-setting heat.  Now, the temperature isn't close to setting any records, but today's low of 12° will be the coldest of the season.  And the cold stuff is predicted to stick around for a few days.

I'm not a fan of either extreme, but if I was forced to pick one it would be cold.  Here are a few reasons why:

• Being too cold is easier to fix than being too warm; you just put on extra clothes.

• When you're running errands and have to park far away from the door, instead of turning into a puddle of sweat walking to the entrance you're warming yourself up.

• The cold weather kills off some of the insects, and the outside allergens come to a screeching halt.

• When I leave in the morning several hours before I head to work I can put my lunch in the car and don't have to worry about keeping it cool.

• The water from the bottle in my car is always nice and chilled.  Sometimes its even icy.

• In winter I can put organic things like chicken skin, meat fat, and bones in the outside trashcan and not worry about it going rancid and stinking to high heaven.

• The piece of fruit I left in the car to eat on the way home still tastes like it came straight from the refrigerator (instead of halfway cooked).

Five years ago today: New Thing #11--So, Do You Soduku?

Pressing Matters

Back in May I experimented with making my own corn tortillas. They tasted much better than the ones from the store, but rolling out the dough out to a consistent thinness and shape by hand was a bit of a challenge. Over the summer I saw an article about tortilla presses in a local food magazine, and put that on my mental list of things to buy.

I should have transferred my thoughts to a physical list, because it took me until last month to take action on it.  In between Christmas and New Year's, though, Hubby Tony and I made a trip to the "Little Mexico" section of St. Louis on Cherokee Street, and I popped into a market to look at their selection of tortilla presses.

Amazon.com

There were four types: plastic, wood, aluminum and cast iron. I quickly decided the plastic models didn't look sturdy, and the wood models were too big to store. That left aluminum (which were shiny silver) and the cast iron (with an electrostatic black coating). I couldn't decide which type to get, so I brought both up to the cashier and asked him which one was better. I suspect his English wasn't very good and he didn't know what I was asking, but when he pointed to the cast iron one I made up my mind.

Today I used the press for the first time.  First I made the dough (a mixture of masa harina, salt, and water), divided it into portions, then rolled the portions into balls. Next I put a piece of plastic wrap on the base of the press, placed a ball of dough in the center of the base, then covered it with another piece of plastic wrap and pulled down the top of the press to smash the ball into a tortilla.

Holy Cow! I ended up with a perfectly flat round. I did it again and again, with the same results. The tortillas got cooked in a hot frying pan for a minute on each side, then piled on a plate.  They tasted great topped with pulled pork, Mexican cole slaw, avocado dressing, and salsa.

And since I still have 2/3 of a bag of masa left, I see more tortilla-making in my future!

Five years ago today: New Thing #9--Popcorn on a String

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Ever had one of those days? It happened to me yesterday.

• The first half of the day was OK, but when I left work things went downhill fast. First, the car oil change appointment took fifteen minutes longer than they told me it would. 
• I left the repair shop to find that traffic on Manchester Road was bumper-to-bumper and the drive home that should have been taken five minutes was doubled.
• When I got home the cats huffily announced I was late getting them their food.  
• After feeding the cats (who didn't even offer a thank you) I checked on the pot of beans I started soaking after breakfast, and discovered I hadn't put enough liquid in; the halfway-rehydrated  top layer stared back at me accusingly.  It would now take longer to cook and I planned on having beans with ham for dinner.
• While the beans were cooking I had a forty-five minute online chat with a Tech Support representative to clear up a computer issue and discovered it wasn't the hardware; I was at fault.
• Because I was busy on the phone I didn't quarterback the beans properly.  Even though the few I tested before I served them were done, some of them in the bowl I had for dinner were a little hard.
• After dinner I tried to make some changes to the contacts in my email address book, only to be told "it wasn't available at this time" and I should try again later.
• I figured some exercise might restore me to sanity, so I threw on some warm clothes and got ready to take a walk. The wires to my mp3 headphones got tangled up in my ear-warmer headband; all of a sudden I was trying to strangle myself!

That did it!  Right in the middle of the kitchen I threw a tantrum.  I shrieked, threw the headphones, and pounded the counter top (which is granite and hurt my hand), then apologized to Hubby Tony and the cats and sent myself to my room.  I ran a nice hot bath, poured in some bath oil, then sat in the water until my toes started pruning.  Afterwards I put on my night clothes and came downstairs to sit on the couch.

 Pepper the cat stretched out on my lap.  That, and a bowl of chocolate ice cream, made it all better.

Five Years Ago Today: New Thing #8--Hi, my name is Kathy

Call Me

I've had my iPhone for a little over two years; the contract period was up in the fall and I was qualified for an upgrade. At first I was just going to keep the old phone (a 3GS), but as the weeks went by there were more and more problems.  I guess that's not surprising. Apple is now selling the iPhone5; in cell phone lifetimes mine was geriatric.  Having the newest phone isn't important to me, so after some research I decided that I'd replace my phone with an iPhone 4S which I could get for half the price of the newest one.  However, I wasn't in any hurry to take care of the project.

We've always gotten our phones directly from the wireless carrier, either from a corporate store or the company Website.  A couple of weeks ago I was walking around the mall before I opened the Customer Service desk and stopped to talk to someone who worked at one of the third-party phone stores.  I told him I was in the market for a new phone and jokingly said I'd have to come check out his selection when I decided it was time.

One day last week when the mall was very slow the salesperson came to find me at the desk. He showed me the Windows 8 phone he used, and told me all about its features.  He even used the phone to take a couple of pictures of the store across from the desk so I could see how well the camera (both standard and front-facing) worked.  At the end of his demo, he mentioned that if I bought one of the phones from his store it wouldn't cost as much as it would from the wireless carrier.

I was intrigued, but needed to think about it.  The Windows 8 system is completely different from what I'm used to, but I didn't know anything about iPhones before I became the owner of one.  I could learn.  Over the weekend I did some research and Monday after work I stopped by the store to make the purchase.

Since I wasn't buying from the carrier, everything took a little longer to complete.  The salesperson had to pull out a three-ring binder that contained directions for third party vendors.  It took him a couple of tries to log into the system, and in the middle of the process had to change his password.   Since I had to wait around so long, he threw in a free phone cover as an offering for my trouble.

It's been a few days now and I'm still getting used to the phone, but it can do some pretty nifty things.  You can personalize the start screen with tiles, which you can rearrange and resize.  One of the coolest features is the ability to sync information wirelessly with the Windows Outlook calendar on my home computer.  The biggest negative I've found is the paucity of apps.  I've had to give up my beloved Words With Friends, but I hope with the game's popularity that will be temporary.

Five years ago today: New Thing #6--The Power of Pine

Just Perfect

Instead of exchanging presents with each person in our extended family at Christmas, everyone brings one wrapped present and after dinner we play a rowdy game of Rob Your Neighbor.

This year I ended up with this plaque, which is perfect for my kitchen in all ways... sentiment, style, and color.

Five years ago today: New Thing #4--It's a Mystery to Me