The Best Cornbread Ever

When I was a home-schooled child, we did a unit on The Little House on the Prarie. And we kept reading about cornbread. My mom got it into her head to try and find the perfect cornbread recipe; so for weeks she baked different types of cornbread until we happened upon this recipe and now we make nothing else. It is always moist (it's essentially cake) and perfect. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups yellow cornmeal
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 Tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 can (15-16 oz.) cream-style corn
1 cup milk (any kind, I use almond milk) or buttermilk
1/3 cup butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, grease a 9x9x2 baking pan.

In large bowl, stir together cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder & salt.

In a medium-sized bowl, beat the eggs, stir in cream corn, milk, and butter until completely combined.

Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until just blended. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake 40-50 minutes; or until the top is golden & toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Tamale Pie

Filling:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1½ pounds ground beef
1½ cups corn kernels
1 can diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons chili powder
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons kosher salt
½ cup sliced black olives
1 cup Mexican blend shredded cheese







Cornbread Topping:

1 1/3 cups yellow cornmeal
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 Tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 can cream-style corn
1 cup milk or buttermilk
1/3 cup butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a very large frying pan warm the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, green pepper, and chili powder. Cook until softened (about 10 minutes).

In another skillet, brown the ground beef (about 5-10 minutes). Add the meat to the onion mixture along with corn, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, olives, and salt. Stir well and simmer for 20 minutes while you prepare the cornbread topping.

Whisk together the cornmeal, flour*, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the creamed corn, eggs, milk, and melted butter. Pour the wet ingredients over the cornmeal mixture and stir together until just mixed.

Stir the shredded cheese into the beef mixture and pour it into a 9x13-inch baking dish (you may need an extra dish if beef mixture is too voluminous) and smooth the top. Pour the cornbread batter over the filling, using a spatula to spread it into an even layer. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the pie to rest for 15 minutes before serving.

*For high altitude baking, add 1-2 tablespoons more flour.

Slow Cooked Teriyaki Chicken

I have been having so much fun with my crock pot! And I am thrilled to find that so-called "Chinese" dishes are actually pretty easy to make. I hated buying pre-made sauces in the past. This is just so much better.

2 chicken breasts
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
6 tablespoons cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
3 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
1/4 cup honey
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water
Hot cooked jasmine rice

Whisk ingredients (chicken through pepper) together in a bowl. Place chicken breasts in crock pot and pour sauce over them. Set your crock pot to cook 5 hours on low. When done, remove chicken and set aside. Pour sauce into saucepan and mix cornstarch and water in a bowl to create your roux. Heat sauce on high till boiling and add roux. Continue to whisk until thickened. If still too thin, add more roux. Set sauce aside and shred chicken. It will be so tender that it practically falls apart. Put shredded chicken back in slow cooker, pour sauce over the top. Serve warm over jasmine rice, and steamed veggies if so desired.

Corn Pudding

My absolute favorite side dish of all time!

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups milk
4 eggs
1 stick butter, melted
1 bag (20 oz) frozen corn kernels, or 2.5 cups fresh corn kernels
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Dash Tabasco

Directions:

In a small saucepan, heat milk and gently melt the butter. Allow this to cool for a bit while you beat the eggs and mash up the corn a bit. I usually do this by hand because I'm lazy like that. I just grab handfuls of corn and eggs and squeeze it through my palms. You want a bit of a rough texture. If using frozen corn, allow it to melt first in a colander. Mix all the ingredients together and partially puree it with an immersion blender. Place in a buttered 2-quart baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees for 1.25 hours. The top should be lightly browned.

Crock Pot Steel Cut Oatmeal

I freaking hate waiting for steel cut oats to cook. It's literally the worst. THE WORST! And it boils over no matter what I do. So pre-cooking it in a crock pot rocks. You can turn it on before bed and wake up to done (unmessy) oatmeal or you can let it cook, cool, and congeal and "slice" pieces to heat in the microwave as wanted.

And listen, you must use steel cut oats for this recipe, not regular rolled oats. You should be eating steel cut oats anyway, they're better for you because they're the least processed type of oat cereal.

Ingredients:

1 cup steel cut oats
4 cups water
1/2 cup milk (I use soy)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp maple extract
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon (or nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice or whatever ever other spice you may prefer)

Directions:

Simple. Put all ingredients in crock pot and set on low for 8 hours. When done, mix.

More directions:

When ready to eat, spoon or slice out a serving size of oatmeal into a bowl. Add more milk and a little butter and brown sugar to taste. If re-heating, put oatmeal in a bowl and microwave for 1.5 minutes, remove from microwave and stir in milk. Heat for another 1.5 minutes and add butter and brown sugar. Serve.

Sausage Butternut Squash Pasta

Guys, I had my doubts about how this would taste. I am poor and wanted to make my boyfriend an anniversary dinner without having to buy a lot of extra things, and I had a Butternut Squash so what could I do with it? I looked at a few pasta recipes but they were "healthy" and I was concerned they would have no taste. So I did some tweaking (a lot of tweaking) and the final product was super good! Praise from the boy too :)



Ingredients:

1 Butternut Squash
2 tbsp minced garlic
Olive oil
2 tbsp butter
Salt & pepper to taste
1 tsp dried sage
1/2 cup cream (or half & half)
2 leeks
2 cups water
2 links apple gouda sausage
Linguine
Fresh sage
Parmesan

Directions:

Halve squash, scoop out seeds and gunk. Put 1 tsp of minced garlic in each scooped out hole and spray or coat the entire squash halves with olive oil. Bake at 400 till fork pierces without trouble (about 40 min - 1 hour). Scoop out squash and garlic and put into large mixing bowl. Slice white parts of leeks and boil with water and butter till soft. Add leek mixture, cream, and dried sage to squash and blend until smooth with immersion blender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook linguine al dente. Slice sausage and brown in a skillet. Top pasta with squash sauce and sausage. Serve with fresh sage and Parmesan cheese.

Sweet & Sour Chicken

So happy with this recipe, you guys! I figured that when I gave up non-organic meat that my old favorite American-Chinese dishes would be lost to me forever. Never imagined that I could make sweet & sour chicken better myself. Is that totally arrogant? Whatevs. I suggest two chicken breasts because once the coating is on it makes so much!

Ingredients:

2 boneless chicken breasts
salt + pepper
1.5 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup olive oil

Sweet & Sour Sauce ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
4 tbs ketchup
3 tbs sweet chili sauce
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tbs low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325. Rinse chicken and cut into cubes, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. In a separate bowl dip chicken pieces into flour, then in another bowl whip both eggs. Dip chicken pieces in eggs and then re-dip in flour. This is very messy. Deal with it. Heat your olive oil in skillet and brown chicken pieces till almost cooked through. Put the chicken in a greased baking dish. Now whisk together sauce ingredients in separate bowl and pour over chicken. Bake for 20-30 min. During this time you can make rice and steam veggies to go with the chicken. And by "you can" I of course mean "you should." Finish with a sprinkling of sesame seeds!