Biscuit Cornbread

[eema.gray]

Ranger Daddy is the sort of person who does not like to leave much food of any sort in the house when leaving for more than a couple days.  Thus, for an entire month before our vacation in August, we avoided maintaining a stockpile of essential goods.  Four weeks after our return, we still have not really replenished our supplies and boy, is it becoming a problem.  I'm predicting a $400 shopping week this week and that's close to double a normal MONTH's expenditure.

We had spaghetti for dinner last night.  I deliberately made enough to have it again tonight.  But I got the sauce a bit wrong and it was rather, well, soupy.  There weren't enough noodles left to really deal with the amount of sauce either.  What to do, what to do.  I know!  I'll make cornbread!  Only to realize five minutes later Chance and I ate the last of the eggs for lunch today.  Even as I was scrambling them, I was thinking "I KNOW I'm going to regret this by tomorrow morning."  

Scrambling through my personal kitchen book, I saw the biscuit recipe I never look at any more because I've changed the proportions to deal with altitude and it only has five ingredients anyway, how hard can that be to remember, and realized it doesn't have eggs!  If I use cornmeal for some of the flour, I can cook it like cornbread and it'll be super yummy.  By the time dinner was over, I realized why thick sauces served over hearty cornbread or polenta are a staple of Italian peasant cooking:  It was a VERY filling meal.  I'm posting the recipe as I use it here at 6,000 feet plus.  Assuming you live below that altitude, you'll have to adjust up the amount of baking soda needed.  Once upon a time, it was a baking powder-fueled recipe for "normal" altitude, using 2 teaspoons of B.P.  I almost never buy B.P. anymore (unless I'm making big batches of pantry mixes) so between altitude and subbing in baking soda, the proportions have changed.  In this house, we like our cornbread sweet and a bit moist, you can eliminate the sweetener if you like but be  aware that the results will be much drier and more crumbly as a result.  Unless you have an egg available; an egg can sub in for the sweetener just fine.

Biscuit-style Cornbread

1 C Wheat Flour

1 C Corn Flour

3/4 t. Baking Soda

1/4 t. Salt

4 T. Butter, Shortening, or Margarine (you could use lard also but I keep a kosher kitchen so that's not an option for us)

1 C Milk

3 T Honey or Agave Necter or (or 1 egg, lightly beaten)

Preheat the oven to 350 F

Blend the dry ingredients together in a medium size bowl.  Cut in shortening with a pastry cutter; mix should look like bread crumbs when thoroughly combined.  Add the milk and sweetener or egg.  Beat to just to combine all ingredients.

Pour into an ungreased 8 x 8 pan.  At our altitude, this takes around 35 minutes to bake; it will probably take less time closer to sea level so keep an eye on it after 15 minutes or so.  Cornbread is done when a wood pick comes clean at the center.

[Lb128f]

Sep. 9, 2009 at 8:28 AM

Thanks!