A toast to fancy treats and 2014!

Seemingly miraculously, we have survived the awful Christmas stomach bug. All of our family has had it and we're some of the first to see an end within reach. For the past week, we've been eating mostly applesauce, bland potatoes and the occasional frozen White Castle slider.

Traditionally, in my Southern family, we eat a big meal of collard greens, black eyed peas and hog jowls on New Years Day to bring in the new year with food symbols of health, wealth and happiness. But that is not happening tomorrow in this family. Obviously, we're still playing it safe with food - limiting grease, spice and for the most part, flavor.

To safely celebrate New Years Eve, we're having a wild feast of Idahoan instant golden potatoes and mini chicken sliders, but since it's NYE we're having a few treats.

We have a few chocolate-covered strawberries made at a local chocolatier, a champagne cocktail and I made a new festive dish - champagne custard and chantilly cream parfaits.

I am a lover of custards - both making and eating them. Often, custards - especially dishes like creme brulee - get a bad rap for being tricky and temperamental; but that is not the case. The recipes for custard dishes are strict and do include specific measurements and steps but these are generally easy-to-follow and make for a good texture (without scrambled eggs).

This custard recipe does not undergo a baking process and is completed on the stove top and cooled in the fridge (you could also eat it warm). Cooling aside, it takes only 10 minutes. It is a fairly standard recipe that makes a thick, smooth and silky custard. If you like this recipe, and the feel and texture of this custard, consider making your own custards for dishes like banana pudding. The difference from boxed or pre-made pudding and homemade custard is unbelievable and totally worth the few extra steps and minutes.

This little dessert is so decadent. The custard is thick and the champagne flavor is not at all lost and the chantilly is the the most heavenly whipped cream you'll ever eat. The two paired together make for the perfect elegant treat; and be sure to scoop (or lick) a little sugar off of the side to add a crunch and spike of pure sweetness mimicking the champagne's former sparkling bubbles.

You can also take the dish - and it's presentation - in several directions. I topped ours with pomegranate arils, but shaved dark chocolate would also be delicious and extravagant. The custard would suffice as a pastry cream and piping it into a puffed pastry shell or choux pastry would make an even more elegant eclair or classier cream puff. And if you're a lover of the brulee cracking sound, like Jordan and Amelie, you could pour this into ramekins, top with sugar and place under the broiler or use a blowtorch to make the perfect glassy topping.

It's probably too late for you to make this dish before the clock strikes 12 tonight, but if you have any left-over champagne (it'll last for about three days refrigerated with a cork) or have a fancy party, I suggest you make this dish. It will certainly wow your guests without breaking your neck or the bank to prepare.

We have had a wonderful year and are looking forward to so many wonderful, new experiences in 2014. 

Thank you for being with us through 2013 and we are excited to share more meals, recipes, ideas and stories with you in the following year!

Happy New Year!

Champagne Custard and Chantilly Cream Parfaits

To rim glasses:

Ingredients:

-large gold or colored crystal sugar or other large crystal sugar (I used demerara sugar)

-corn syrup or piping gel

- 4-6 glass shooters or champagne flutes

Method:

Pour a little corn syrup or piping gel into a saucer. Pour large crystal sugar into another saucer. 

Lightly dip the rips of the glasses into the corn syrup then into the sugar. Don't dip them too deeply into the syrup or sugar or they will be too heavy and drip. Keep the glasses at room temperature while you continue the rest. 

Ingredients:

For custard:

- 1/2 c heavy whipping cream, divided

- 1/2 c champagne (I used Andre 

- 2 T cornstarch

- 5 T granulated sugar

- 1 whole egg

- 2 egg yolks

- 2 T unsalted butter

- 1 t vanilla

For cream:

- 1/2 c heavy whipping cream

- 2 T granulated sugar

- 1/2 t vanilla

Method:

In a medium bowl, whisk cornstarch in 1/4 c of heavy cream. Set aside. 

Combine the rest of the cream, sugar, and 1/2 c champagne in a sauce pan; heat until the mixture just starts to bubble or will lose the champagne flavor. Remove from heat. 

Beat the whole egg or egg yolks into the cornstarch/heavy cream mixture. Pour 1/3 of hot champagne into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. If you don't whisk, the eggs will scramble! Return champagne in pot to a boil. Pour in the egg mixture in a narrow stream, whisking constantly until the mixture visibly thickens (it will start to look and feel like real pudding). Remove from heat and whisk in butter and vanilla. 

Divide evenly among glasses. Refrigerate until firm; at least a few hours. 

In a medium bowl, beat heavy cream with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form, add vanilla and beat again.

Transfer to a piping bag with decorator tip or a zip-top bag and cut a small corner out. Pipe whipped cream into each glass.

After tasting the chantilly, we filled these to the brim with cream and more arils. 

Holidays: Part Ewww

Sorry guys, we're down-and-out with a stomach bug - possibly this violent, highly contagious Australian norovirus. And right now thinking, eating and even blogging about food is far from our minds.

Our words of wisdom:

• Stay hydrated, but don't overdo it with drinks like Pedialyte or Gatorade, they can intensify your symptoms. 
• Try my Mom's secret weapon - Italian ice. It's a cool treat without dairy and it takes ages to eat, so your stomach doesn't panic at food
• Stick to the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce and toast) for very bland foods. Avoid spice, grease and dairy. 
• Of course, wash your hands!! They say hand sanitizer and Lysol just aren't cutting it with this bug. It takes diligent handwashing with soap and warm water and bleach to clean hard surfaces. 
• And finally, and I think I'm learning this the hard way - don't be too confident in your wellness. You can easily overdo it and make yourself ill; thanks tuna melt!

Be careful and enjoy a meal for us!

Merry Christmas and Cider!

Two of our goodies from this years' LEGO Friends and Star Wars advent calendars 

We just finished our second family Christmas celebration - cookie swap on Sunday and dinner tonight - with at least two more to go - country breakfast and afternoon snack binge tomorrow. This is a super busy time of year what with the shopping and the parties and other obligations, but we're blessed to have so many people to visit and things to do.

We want to wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season for whatever you celebrate and with whomever you make memories with. We hope that you take the time today, tomorrow and every day - holiday or not - to slow down and take the time to be with, talk to or think of the ones you love. And  of course, to cook, share or eat something delicious.

In the spirit of the season and general deliciousness, I'll share the recipe for the hot spice apple cider (also called wassail) we took to tonight's event. This beverage is a great seasonal drink - it just tastes like the holidays - with cloves, cinnamon and citrus. Like most of my recipes, it's very customizeable to your palate - use more or less spice as you'd like. It's a good make-and-take beverage too; we made ours hours in advance and reheated and kept it piping hot in our Crock Pot.

Merry Christmas from our family and table to yours!

Hot Spiced Apple Cider

Ingredients:

1 gallon apple cider

1 c citrus-y juice (orange or pineapple; this time we used 50/50)

3 T brown sugar (+/- to taste)

8-10 whole cloves  (+/- to taste)
1 orange sliced in circles
1 T cinnamon (+/- to taste)
1/2 t ground nutmeg  (+/- to taste)

Method:
Pour all ingredients into a large pot and bring to a rolling boil. Continue boiling for at least 15 minutes (we boiled ours for about 20); the longer you boil it, the stronger the flavors will be. Strain and serve.

Note: I kept my orange slices intact and then put them back into the Crock Pot when we arrived; it made for a very pretty presentation.

Cookie Swap Part 2: Four-ingredient gluten-free peanut butter cookies

Getting ready for tomorrow's cookie swap at my Grandma's I've been making last week's linzer cookies and my mom's standby peanut butter cookies and fudge sandwiches.

If you're in a pinch for time and don't want to spend a lot of money on dried fruits, chips and oats try this four-ingredient recipe. It's quick, easy, and gluten-free. I have two family members with celiac disease (gluten intolerance) and this recipe is great for them without sacrificing any flavor.

Like most peanut butter cookies, these are dry not gooey and with the optional fudge filling make for a great sandwich. And of course, who doesn't love the classic combo of peanut butter and chocolate? From my unprofessional research into the vast universe of pre-made icings, most canned frostings are also gluten-free.

I hope you enjoy this recipe for your own cookie swaps or other special occasions - I actually made these in lieu of a cake for Jordan's birthday two years ago, and yes, I do think they played a special part in our love story. Take that, engagement chicken.

Peanut Butter (Fudge Sandwich) Cookies

Ingredients:

1 c peanut butter 

1 c granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 container chocolate icing of your choice (optional)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350. Mix peanut butter, sugar, egg and vanilla with a hand mixer. Scoop dough into tiny balls and place on a cookie sheet. Use a fork dipped into sugar to press an x into each cookie. Bake for 8 minutes. The cookies will seem underdone, but as long as the edges are lightly golden brown, they're done. They'll seem very soft, but will cool to the perfect texture. 

After they've cooled spread approximately 1 T icing between two cookies. If you're really trying to impress - swap the icing for only the best spreadable condiment ever, Nutella!

Note: These are great served at room temperature, but even better eaten from the fridge or after a few hours in the freezer. 

How to wow at this year's cookie swap: Linzer tart cookies

I think cookie swaps are one of the most adorable and accessible holiday party options. At the holidays, everyone is over-tasked, tired and broke; and the prospect of cooking a big meal for the entire family or bouquet of friends is daunting and exhausting. And too often, menu traditions can become old and we grow tired of cooking and eating the same things year after year. Cookie swaps allow for quick, inexpensive prep and countless recipe options.

I have a few trusty cookie recipes that I love and can always fall back on - mom's (unintentionally) gluten-free peanut butter cookies (which can be made into delicious fudge sandwiches), red velvet gooey butter cookies, and a classic chocolate chip cookie. However, ever since my parents bought a hard-backed 100+ page cookie cookbook when I was a child, I've loved experimenting with new recipes. And today, as a holiday gift for my boss and a test-run for my grandmother's cookie swap this weekend, I made raspberry linzer tart cookies.

My boss is a Brooklyn native through-and-through who has opened my eyes to many Yankee foods and culinary words (red sauce = gravy? what?), and linzer tarts are one of his favorite obsessions. I've looked for a year for a bakery making linzer tarts, but they they have no idea or contain either almond flour, almond extract or toasted almonds - and he has a serious nut allergy that I tirelessly protect him from. But today I found a delicious and incredibly easy nut-free recipe for the linzer cookies.

They do require several "resting" periods, but those respites actually allowed me time to clean up and rearrange between steps. Chilling times, excluded, these cookies are no more time consuming than any other recipe; because really, making uniform "dump cookies" where everything's mixed in one bowl and dropped onto sheets is pain in the ass.

The dough for this recipe makes a flaky, drier-than-most, subtly sweet shortbread-like cookie. If you enjoy shortbread, this is a great recipe - just nix the filling and cut it into any shapes you like. Also, this would be a wonderful base for those who love the Girl Scouts' Samoas/Caramel deLites. All you'd need to do is a top with a caramel/coconut mix (as easy as mixing shredded coconut with caramel ice cream topping) and drizzle with chocolate.

The filling is traditionally raspberry or strawberry preserves (with or without seeds, it's up to you) but this could be done to suit your palate. Apricot, currant or fig preserves would be great between the two cookies; just make sure it is a very thick, not watery jam, jelly or preserve. And imagine how impressed your friends would be if you'd made the preserves yourself too (that's next year's goal).

With linzer tarts, you cut the dough into circles and then cut a shape of your choice (traditionally a heart or spade) into half of the circles (I didn't have small shape cutter, so I used a tiny shot glass), so that when you sandwich the jam in between two cookies you have a pretty window to view the preserves. This stacking gives you a perfectly balanced cookie - the dough is very plain and the jelly can really pop and hit sweet and/or tart notes without being overpowering.

And we eat first with our eyes, so let me just say that these are BEAUTIFUL cookies. Just look at them! They look old fashioned without being heavy-handed and they give this air of sophistication, as though they're from some high end bakery or someone's grandma spent hours slaving away over them. They look wonderful as large cookies, but I also made mini sandwiches out of the tiny cutouts and they were gorgeous too! (And perfectly portioned for little kid tea parties).

If you're looking to impress and be the talk of the cookie swap this year, I highly recommend this recipe.

Nut-free Linzer Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 lb (3 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 c granulated sugar
1 large egg at room temperature
3 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t kosher salt
1 t vanilla extract
3/4 c thick preserves (I used raspberry)
powdered sugar for dusting

Method

Preheat oven to 350 and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

With an electric mixer, blend sugar and butter together until light and creamy. Add the vanilla and egg, beat until blended.

In a separate bowl, mix the salt and flour, then add them slowly to the butter and sugar mixture, mixing on low until the dough starts to come together.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and shape into a flat disk. Split dough into two pieces, wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough into 1/4" thick and cut 2 3/4" rounds with a plain or fluted cutter. Try to make sure your dough is even, so that you don't have cookies which are thicker in different parts. The thinner cookies will be easier to eat, too.

With half of the rounds, cut a hole in the middle of each round. Place all cookies (even the cutouts) onto sheets and chill for 15 minutes. These cookies don't rise much, so you can really cram them onto the pan, just make sure they lay flat or they will be curled or angular.

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes, until the edges just begin to brown. You won't think they're done, but once the edges start to hint at golden color, pull them.

Allow to cool to room temp. Spread preserves on the flat side of each solid cookie - around 1 T per cookie - and sandwich with a cookie with a cutout. Press gently to make sure they stick.

Dust the top of the cut-out cookies with powdered sugar.

Remember the warmer the cookies get, the more likely your preserves are to drip. I keep mine in the fridge until I'm ready to serve them or keep them in a cool place while left out.

Taste-Test Success: Magda's Cakes!

We are winding down to the last month of wedding planning for our upcoming nuptials on January 19th and today we took care of one of the most exciting parts - the cake, or cupcakes, rather!

Nothing can top my excitement over getting to marry my best friend, and I'll admit that picking out my wedding dress was one of those princess moments that girls look forward to, but making arrangements for our wedding cake was a close third.

We spent hours scouring the web for the perfect topper, which is so much harder than it looked thanks to gems like these all over Etsy. Thankfully, picking out our wedding cake and guests' cupcakes was so much easier - and delicious!

From the get-go we've wanted to do a locally-sourced wedding with catering from a wonderful restaurant in Bryson City, we've bought our table decorations from the Friends of the Library and hometown bookstore, City Lights and we've decided to order our sweets from Cherokee baker, Magda's Cakes.

Today we tried four varieties of cupcakes from Magda's and will be using three of them on our big day!

First, for my Reese's fiend - a chocolate cake with a peanut crunch topping. IWe'll be adding a ganache layer and using this for our personal wedding cake, in addition to cupcakes.

Next, we tried a Southern classic, hummingbird cake, with a hybrid cream cheese mascarpone icing. The mascarpone doubled the creaminess of the traditional cream cheese frosting and was perfectly decadent against the spice and sweetness of the cake. These beauties will be at our wedding.

Then a strawberry cake with another unique frosting that's a signature meringue/buttercream. This has a unique texture that's fluffy and subtly sweet and wonderfully creamy without the grit that can sometimes occur with powdered sugar. We love this cake and the freshness from the strawberry puree but are opting for a simple white/almond cake option for our "vanilla" guests.

And finally, what I think was the most surprisingly delicious cake with lemon curd, traditional buttercream and blueberries. The cake had the intense flavor of a lemon poppy seed muffin, without the fake, over-the-top taste (and aftertaste) that some lemon desserts can have. And the sweet, thick frosting countered the bitterness of the berries. I instantly loved this cake and was shocked I did - I hate those brash lemon sweets and conversely normally only like those blueberry lumps found in muffin mix. I think these will be a great choice for our more adventurous guests.

Having chosen this wonderful, scrumptious spread for our wedding I am feeling such a great sense of relief and a wonderful urge to eat our four remaining samples! 

National Food Insecurity

As you already know, food is a major fascination of mine. But an even more important part of my life is my dedication to service. I've spent a majority of my adult life involved in various volunteer leadership positions, service groups and projects dealing with issues such as HIV/AIDS, childhood education, cancer prevention and research, and poverty. And in recent years the intersection of these two passions - service and food - has become a working to end local food insecurity.

Oftentimes when we think of hunger and starving, undernourished children we think of foreign developing countries, not our own backyards. However, in Western North Carolina poverty, and especially hunger, are major issues. It is estimated that one in four children suffer from hunger and Asheville was recently named the 9th Hungriest City in the US.

There are many organizations working to alleviate these issues but they are under increasing stress from limited budgets and exponential need; and oftentimes they depend upon community donations to stay open. And this is why I am so excited about the work of my colleagues and the students at our institution.

This is the 2nd year we have hosted a food drive for MANNA Foodbank's MANNAPacks program. The MANNAPacks program packages bags of food for local K-12 students who receive free or reduced lunch and are at risk to go hungry over the weekends. They're given the bags on Friday afternoons which contain enough goodies and meal options - like instant oatmeal, rice, canned meat, powdered milk and peanut butter - to last them until Monday morning.

This year we were able to raise over 1,400 items for MANNA!

And at this year's employee holiday dinner we also collected hundreds of items for food assistance agencies in service area.

It's unfortunate, but true - food insecurity is everywhere in our country and we have to address it. But thankfully, there are food assistance organizations almost everywhere too - but they desperately need our support. Government funding is down, community giving is based upon the economic strength of the people and with more people in need of food that donation pool is smaller too.

Please seek out your local food pantries and soup kitchens to find a way to get involved - you can give of your pantry, your pocket or your time. Also, there are national organizations working to end hunger, especially in children. Share Our Strength is one of the front runners in alleviating childhood hunger nationally. Please consider making a donation or hosting your own fundraisers to feed families!

Expanding "following options" for Endlessly Delicious Life

We're happy to announce that we've expanded your options for following Endlessly Delicious Life!

You're welcome to religiously check for updates on our website, but you can also follow us by e-mail by entering your e-mail address into the box to the right of this post. You will receive notifications of any updates and new posts.

Also, we're available on the social media trifecta. You can follow EDL in the following places:

• On Facebook as Endlessly Delicious Life Blog  - Here we'll be able to do up-to-date posts and will be able to post and organize more photos (and add videos). Also, we'll easily be able to link up with other businesses, organizations and services for projects, reviews, interesting articles and giveaways. Join the community to share in the wealth of media! And invite your friends to "like" us, too.  

 

• On Twitter as @DliciousLife - Similarly to Facebook, we'll be giving you live posts about our food adventures; this will come in particularly handy with Taste Tests and Restaurant Reviews. Please follow, tweet and re-tweet us.  We're excited to offer condensed 140-character stories for you.

 

• On Pinterest as an Endlessly Delicious Life food and drink pin board. Pinterest has a wonderful ability to allow you to organize your favorite ideas, plans or inspirations. Here we're sharing our recipes and have intentions to share reviews for products and lists of hot tips. You will be able to pin these to your own boards and share them with your friends and fellow pinners - in a sense, this allows you to customize our blog to suit your needs and uses.

 

Please follow us and share our platforms with your friends! We will continue to offer steady coverage of the food world and the food on our table, but we hope that this will allow us to share more information with you from us and other sources, as well. Our goal is for us to be able to interact with you more - we want to hear from you - so please comment on our posts; re-tweet us; shoot things to #EndlesslyDeliciousLife on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter; like our links and share your own and more! 

"Family ate beans, I made Ramen" - My Cultural Connection to Cornbread

I read several blogs and visit online news sites regularly, but for my foodie fix I go to NPR's The Salt. This food portion of NPR's website collects all the food-related content from regular on-air shows like Morning Edition  and All Things Considered and also features like my favorite weekly post "Sandwich Monday."

Yesterday, at work, I made a Salt-heavy playlist including the "Found Recipes" series and random stories about the "dairy cliff," prohibition, high school lunches and this gem, which is a food-themed edition of The Race Card Project (listen here).

The Race Card Project asks participants to write six words that explain or are integral to their racial identity. They've showcased a variety of people whose experiences cover a vast spectrum of emotions and experiences. All of their short sentences are charged with emotion and give listeners (and readers) a visceral experience (such as "Black babies cost less to adopt." Whoa.)

This episode features a card by Melanie Vanderlipe Remil with the words "I ate pasta, family ate rice." Remil explained that as a child, she shunned her Filipino roots and refused to eat rice with every meal like her family. She recalled her mother rushing home from work to prepare dinner, but always making her a box of Pasta Roni. Her parents are immigrants and they wanted their children to fit in with American culture as much as the kids themselves did - so her mom went along with making multiple sides. But when she went to college, Remil took a Filipino American Contemporary Issues course and realized how valuable her culture was and how much she appreciated her family, it's traditions and food.

So, to preserve her history, she asked her grandmother to teach her how to cook traditional Filipino food. She's taking on the role of family food historian by teaching younger generations how to make traditional holiday dishes, and reminding them that our closest ties to our cultures are our foods (research shows that these are the cultural links that we are most likely to maintain).

My racial identity isn't tied to a menu, nor do I have any knowledge of what it's like to be a first generation American, but I certainly relate to Remil. My family has deep Southern roots and that food is a huge part of my identity.

Our area's regional cuisine consists of very simple and inexpensive food that will keep you full and can be made in such portions to feed a huge family or feed a few for several meals for next-to-nothing. The menu harkens back to when these mountains were much more impenetrable and you had to make do with that you had before traveling to town for only staples like flour, sugar and lard; the rest of your ingredients came from your own backyard.

As a child, I loathed many such foods. My parents loved to have soup beans (pinto beans cooked down with pork) and cornbread and a glass of milk with cornbread crumbled up inside. I had no desire to eat chicken livers or liver mush sandwiches (exactly what it sounds like) and wild game was out of the question. My mother has always been true to roots so, unlike Remil's mother, there were rarely alternatives made ahead - so this is how I learned to make Ramen.

But I too had an awakenening in college. I moved to the Triad area of NC where the barbeque was completely different, you're more likely to get corn pone than cakes of corn bread, and our college's cafeteria menu was designed by Sysco Foods - which has little to do with local ingredients or flavors. Although this wasn't a drastic change, I realized I missed home cooking and the food that only comes from my family.

I was going to school with hipsters and new-age hippies who thought pressure canning and gardening were new, trendy hobbies from the green movement. They'd never raised pigs and canned their own pork tenderloin, or grown their own green beans, or seen how molasses is made. But those are things I have done or know - they're part of my identity as a Southern woman. And so, like Remil, I'm trying to maintain my culture and my family's traditions to food. I've shared many of our family recipes and food traditions with Jordan already and they're dishes I know we'll continue to enjoy as a family.

There are traditional dishes I've always loved - like fried chicken, cube steak and gravy and biscuits - but have never made, and there are foods that I've come to appreciate and want to learn how to make "just like momma (and daddy and grandma and mamaw) used to make" - like cornbread. And learning these recipes is a major goal of mine.

Recently, I conquered my first cake of corn bread and from it made my very own cornbread salad (a staple of Southern potlucks). My grandma always says that cornbread sticking to the pan "is enough to make a preacher cuss"- and she'd know, she married one - and that alone made me fearful that this would not be easy. Furthermore, both of my parents make cornbread without a recipe and without actually measuring anything. They randomly pour unknown quantities of ingredients in a bowl, give it a quick stir and throw it in an ancient cast iron pan to bake for an indeterminate amount of time. My brain doesn't work like that and I actually called both of them and they "made up" a recipe for me to use to make my first cakes - and they turned out to be beautiful and delicious!

Here are a few quick cornbread tips I'd like to share with you:

• Traditional Southern cornbread is not sweet. This is a Northern invention (read: bastardization). Sweet cornbread (a la Jiffy mix or Boston Market) can be delicious, but I don't find it to be nearly as versatile as corn meal-, not sugar-flavored cornbread.
• Make sure you use a well-seasoned cast iron pan. These are like gold in the South and every girl has one in her hope chest. Also, do not scrub or use dish soap on cast iron - gently wipe it out with a wet cloth - they don't call it seasoning for nothing!
• My dad is of the school that you don't need to pre-heat your pan or melt lard into it. The cool pan with vegetable oil worked just fine.
• And when you flip it out and it doesn't stick, take a second to run your hand across that smooth underside - it's such a satisfying feeling of achievement!

Finally, here are the recipes for both the cornbread base and salad.

Traditional Cornbread

Ingredients:

2 c cornmeal (I used white)
3/4 c flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp (plus a smidge) white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c vegetable oil
1 c milk (water will work in a pinch, too)


Method:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a bowl, mix together ingredients. Pour 2-3 Tbs. vegetable oil into cast iron skillet (this recipe will make one "standard" sized cake, I made one medium and one small); swirl to coat bottom. Pour mixture into pan. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool for a few minutes and run a knife around the edge before flipping out onto plate.



Cornbread Salad

Ingredients:

1 cake cornbread, cooled
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 tomato, de-seeded and diced
1 small bottle Italian salad dressing
1 can corn, drained
2 c. shredded cheddar (or any flavor) cheese

Method:

Crumble the cornbread into a large bowl. Crumble it as thoroughly as you'd like; I enjoy mine fairly finely crumbled with a few "chunks."  Pour 1/3 of the cornbread into another bowl. Drizzle 1/3 of the dressing over the cornbread (start out with less, to get desired texture - I like mine to just be damp throughout). Layer vegetables and cheese on top. Repeat.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours. The longer you let it set, the deeper the flavors will become. This is a great make-ahead dish and can be served for days on end. Also, it is very customizable - you could use ranch dressing; add cucumbers, pimentos or black-eyed peas; or make it with Mexican cornbread etc.