Southern Cornbread

Aaron made jambalaya for dinner the other night for our friends Chris and Sarah and I wanted to add something to it. I recently got a copy of Baking Illustrated from Title Wave, where I volunteer on Fridays. It has several variations of cornbread, but when I saw Southern style, I knew that’s what I had to do for jambalaya. It just makes sense.

What I love about this cookbook already is all of the helpful hints and tips for every recipe. For example, I didn’t have the right type of pan to cook the cornbread in, so it told me to double the recipe and put it in bread pan. And I did and it was tasty. Below is the doubled recipe.

Southern Cornbread from Baking Illustrated:

Makes one 9” loaf

8 tsp. bacon droppings or 2 tsp. vegetable oil plus 2 Tb. melted butter (I went with the latter option)
2 c. yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
4 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
2/3 c. rapidly boiling water
1½ c. buttermilk
2 large egg, beaten lightly

Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle portion and heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Measure 2/3 cup cornmeal into a medium bowl. Whisk the remaining cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a small bowl; set aside.

Pour the boiling water all at once into the 2/3 cup cornmeal; stir to make a stiff mush. Whisk in the buttermilk gradually, breaking up lumps until smooth, then whisk in the egg. When the oven is preheated, stir the dry ingredients into the mush mixture until just moistened. Pour the oil and butter mixture into the batter and stir to incorporate, then pour the batter into the pan.

Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and instantly turn the cornbread onto a wire rack; cool for 5 minutes, then serve immediately.

This is the first time I’ve made a different style cornbread and I have to say I’m impressed. It’s dense and moist and worked really well with the jambalaya. This week I’ve been mixing it in with my soup, which I’m eating a lot of. It works because this bread rocks.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

Look what Aaron got me for Christmas!

He is so awesome! And, as it turns out, really into getting me stuff for cooking. Even before I had made this post, he had already purchased me my very first Le Creuset. So there it was, beautiful and blue, and I needed to come up with something to cook in it. Soup, obviously, because it's a soup pot and you shouldn't cook something non-soup the first time. Not in this pretty French baby, oh no.

Anyway, last week it was very cold and we were very hungry. Based on what we had in the house and the very low temperature outside, I decided that instead of just having roasted veggies, which I love, we should have roasted vegetable soup. It's delicious, pretty quick, and you will be so happy and warm.

Roasted Vegetable Soup:

Serves 6

½ onion, diced
3-4 garlic cloves
1 ridiculously large potato, chopped
2 small sweet potatoes, chopped
3 c. broccoli
1 c. corn
½ c. peas
2 Tb. butter (optional)
3-4 c. veggie stock
Large pinch herbs de provence
Olive oil
Grated parmesan (optional)

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Take chopped potato, sweet potato, and broccoli and spread on a large baking sheet. Sprinkle with olive oil. Bake for about 20 minutes. You don’t want these to be all the way cooked through, but getting soft and the broccoli should be looking slightly browned and crispy. Set aside.

In your amazing Le Creuset or other heavy bottomed soup pot, heat butter and a little bit of olive oil over medium-low heat. I like the flavor combination of butter and oil, but you can make totally vegan without it and it will taste fine. Add onion and cook, 3-4 minutes or until softened and slightly brown. Add in garlic, corn, and peas. Add in roasted vegetables and herbs de provence (French herbs for my French pot!) and cook for another couple of minutes. Add in veggie stock, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes. It’s done when you can get a fork easily into the potato pieces.

Serve immediately with bread and a little grated parmesan.

I love vegetable soup and I think roasting the veggies first makes it just that much more delicious. A good veggie stock is key to a good soup and I think my veggie stock is awesome. Make a bunch and freeze it. It's not hard and making your own is just that much better. I had two large bowls that day and then two more the next day. It’s perfect for these cold winter nights and is flexible enough to match the produce you have in your house.

Plus, it’s a great way to break in your soup pot. Clearly I am very happy about this!

Salmon Chowder

What would you say if I told you I made chowder just because I had already purchased oyster crackers? Because yeah, I made chowder because Trader Joe’s was selling boxes of oyster crackers. This chowder, though, is quite worthy of all those crackers. The original recipe is here and it has been modified quite a bit. I do like the note in it that says preferably wild on the salmon filet. I’m from Alaska. Aaron’s from Alaska. We only eat wild salmon in this house. Whenever we go out, we check if the salmon on the menu is wild. If not, we don’t eat it. I even make sure my friends ask (if they’re not from AK. If they are, they already do).

Anyway, not the point. Salmon is delicious and wonderful though and sockeye has always been my favorite. I just love the color and the taste. Plus, it makes for amazing lox. And apparently chowder too.

Salmon Chowder modified from Gourmet via epicurious.com:

Makes 6 servings

About 1 lb. red potatoes
6 oz. sliced bacon (we used about 2 oz. regular thick cut bacon and the rest turkey bacon)
2-3 Tb. butter
1 bunch scallions
¼ sweet onion
6 cloves garlic (they said 3. Ha!)
1 c. frozen corn
Dash of thyme
1 bay leaf
Few dashes of crushed red pepper
3 c. whole milk
2/3 c. heavy cream
1 lb. sockeye salmon filet (always wild. Always), skin discarded and fish cut into 1” pieces
Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste
Roux



Accidentally dice up ¾ lb of red potatoes. Cut remaining potatoes into ½” cubes. Boil water in pot and add potatoes, cooking until the large pieces are tender. Drain in colander and set aside.

Add scallions, onion and garlic into a food processor and pulse until diced (about 5-6 pulses).







Cook bacon in heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp, about 8 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain. If you use mostly turkey bacon, add in butter with the bacon fat, otherwise there won’t be enough fat to cook with. Cook scallions, corn, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and red-pepper flakes in fat in pot over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until scallions are tender, about 5 minutes. Add milk and cream and bring just to a boil. Reduce heat to moderately low, then add potatoes, salmon, bacon, salt, and pepper and cook, gently stirring occasionally, until salmon is just cooked through and begins to break up as you stir, 5 to 8 minutes.

At this point, Aaron and I realized that the chowder, while smelling and tasting delicious, wasn’t really thick enough to call chowder. So I threw together a roux and we mixed that in and it thickened right up. So delicious. Discard bay leaf before serving.





Ladle into individual bowls and cover with an insane number of oyster crackers.

This chowder (or should I say chowda?) was so delicious, I can’t believe I ever stopped eating it. It’s got just the right amount of salt, salmon, potato. It is perfect in every way. Next time, it’s going in a bread bowl!

Roasted Corn and Herbed Goat Cheese Quesadilla

One of my most favorite things in the world of food is goat cheese. I’ve mentioned it a few times in the last couple of weeks and I have something awesome planned for goat cheese in the near future.

Anyway, I’m not really sure what inspired this recipe other than being hungry and loving corn, goat cheese, and quesadillas. It’s really easy (and inexact, as my recipes tend to be) and very tasty.

This is what I did:

2 c.-ish of corn kernels (frozen-defrosted okay)
2 oz.-ish herbed goat cheese, room temperature (or regular or some other flavor. Whatever you like is awesome.)
2 small corn tortillas
Olive oil





In a medium saucepan, dry roast the corn over medium heat until browned spots appear on all sides, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

Spread warm goat cheese over one side of the corn tortilla. Sprinkle on corn, reserving a few for garnish and cover with other tortilla. I would’ve had more corn for mine, but I kept eating it because it’s just that good. Corn is awesome.

Heat a bit of olive oil in the same saucepan over medium-low heat. Gently place quesadilla in warmed oil and cook until browned on both sides, about 5-8 minutes each. Goat cheese takes a bit longer to warm up than other cheeses, so the medium-low heat is to make sure the tortilla doesn’t burn while the cheese is warming up.



Slide gently off pan and onto plate. Garnish with remaining corn and a few sprinkles of goat cheese. Serve immediately. This is a great appetizer or, if you’re like me and don’t want to share any of that delicious goat cheese, light meal, especially with some salad greens. Yum!