my yummy corn bread

I lost 5 pounds while I was away.  It’s funny, when I’m away from my family, eating is harder somehow.  Not so much fun.  Anyway, the minute I arrived home I was suddenly ravenous and have been indulging my belly ever since.  And tonight, rather than make a bit of pasta to serve the pot roast over, I had a craving for my yummy corn bread.  THIS IS NOT A RECIPE FOR DIETERS!  If you are trying to lose weight, don’t walk, RUN away from this recipe! 

For those of you who are not on a diet, feel free to continue reading.

I am posting this recipe because my husband said, “What did you do?  This is my favorite corn bread you’ve ever made!“ 
“Um…I’m not really sure,“ I said.  “I better go write it down on my blog so I don’t forget.“  See that’s what happens to me.  I play with recipes, find a mix of things that everyone loves and then, the next time I go to make it, I have no idea what I did.  Either that, or I forget the recipe entirely and it never graces our table again.  So this posting is as much for me as for you!

my yummy corn bread

ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, buttermilk, eggs, bacon, ham, onion, Parmesan cheese, sharp cheddar cheese, fresh rosemary, 9x13 glass baking pan.
-pre-heat oven (if you have convection, use that for this recipe.  If not, no worries, plain bake will do) to 425 degrees
-fry 5-6 slices of thick bacon in a pan over medium heat until nicely browned on both sides.
-Remove from frying pan and dice.
-pour bacon grease into a mug for later.
-dice 1/3 an onion and fry in the bacon pan on low.
-strip the rosemary off a sprig, mince and add to onion in pan.  (It should be around a tablespoon, don’t bother measuring, just eyeball it.)
-grate sharp cheddar cheese, so that when you cup both your hands together both hands are full and it heaps into a gently sloping hill in your hands.
-grate Parmesan cheese, until it fills both your hands cupped together but is flat like a plain instead of rounding.
-remove onion and rosemary from pan and set aside to cool.
- dice 4-5 slices of ham.
-pour some of the bacon grease into the baking pan.  Make sure you grease the bottom and sides well.  Pour excess grease back into the mug.
-put the greased pan into the oven.

mix together in a bowl
- 1 cup of flour
-1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
-1 tablespoon of white sugar
-1 teaspoon of salt
-3/4 cup of cornmeal (Make sure you use cornmeal and not cornflour!  Big difference in the texture.)
-mix the above ingredients well.
-mix in the cheddar, Parmesan, onion & rosemary, diced ham and bacon.

mix well in another bowl
-1 1/2 cup of buttermilk
-2 eggs
-around 2 tablespoons of bacon grease. (Just eyeball it.  I just poured a dolp in and am guessing as to how much it looked like.)

-Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture.  And blend just until all the dry mixture is moist. (Don’t over blend, it’s supposed to look a little lumpy.)
-take the piping hot pan out of the oven (Don’t worry if it’s smoking a little that’s good) 
-Pour the cornbread mixture into the hot pan and spread it out so it’s sort of even and pop back into the oven.

It should take between 20-25 minutes to cook.  Take it out at 20 min.  and poke a fork, or a little wood skewer into the middle and if it comes out clean, cut corn bread in to squares and serve pipping hot!

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did tonight.  I’m embarrassed to admit that I ate three huge squares of it and I was trying to be restrained!

(And for all you vegetarians out there.  Just delete the bacon and ham.  Maybe jack up the onion and use 1/2 instead of 1/3.  Use an oil to grease the pan, and when you take the hot pan out of the oven, throw a tablespoon of butter on it before you add the batter.  And use 3 tablespoons of melted butter in the liquid mixture instead of the 2 tablespoons of bacon grease.  Also I bet you could chop up a little jalapeno pepper and throw that in as well, if you wanted a bit of a zing.)

Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, October 14, 2007 in Recipes