Friday, July 10, 2009

Hell YES! Corn Bread.



I HATE dry cornbread, but I love the grittiness and sweetness of it.
So, I decided to mess around with a cobbler recipe I have and see if I could just switch it up to make it more savory. This is what I came up with.

It is so good you'll have to fight the urge to just eat the whole thing with a spoon by yourself- just a warning for those of you dieting!

So, here is the recipe:

1/2 C. yellow cornmeal
1/2 C. all purpose flour
1/2 C. evaporated milk
1/2 C. room temp water
1 C. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 oz. canned green chilies
1 Tbsp. cold butter chopped
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. fresh minced cilantro

Of course, if you aren't into the spicy thing, you can drop the cumin, cilantro and red pepper. But at least TRY the green chilies. They add something special and they taste amazing. They also give a little bit of excitement to the texture.

Grease a deep dish with something like Pam and sift some cornmeal on the dish.

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl except for the butter.
Stir until the batter is nice and well mixed

Drop in the butter chunks. They will show up nicely in the finished product as bursts of flavor.

Put the batter in the dish, put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour.
I didn't watch the time closely, so you'll have to babysit it after 45 minutes. Sorry.

Don't forget to butter the top as soon as it comes out of the oven. It adds calories, but just makes the dish heavenly!

It comes out moist and springs back at the touch and is just amazing.

If you want to spice it up even more, you can put a little white pepper in the corn meal that you sprinkle on the dish prior to pouring in the batter.

Let me know if any of you try it, I would love to hear your feelings about this "bread".

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Asian inspired Chicken and Couscous Dinner

The chicken in this dinner was marinated in a soy/orange juice mixture and then seared on each side on the grill. I then left it to finish cooking at a low temp to keep the moisture in.

The side dish of honey, sesame oil and sesame seed glazed baby carrots, with a hint of red pepper for heat, really highlighted the saltiness of the soy in the chicken.

For the grain, I made couscous with some dried cranberries, pine nuts and red onion folded in and then accented it with a hint of orange zest to compliment the citrus in the chicken.

NUM YUMMY!