FEED YOUR FACE: Corn Bread

My side of the family has always been the meat and 'taters kind of family. A lot of the family are from the south, so a lot of our meals reflect that heritage. A lot of our family were farmers. They really did live off of what they raised, and what they could sell for things they needed. Mamma and Poppa, my great grandparents, had a farm in Scout County, Missouri. They had the usual animals -- cows chickens, pigs, a couple of mules for plowing. And they had several acres of watermelons, corn, and several other crops.

Mamma could cook just about anything. Give her a couple of cast iron skillets and a few dutch ovens, and she could cook up a storm on her old wood cook stove. One of my favorite things was her home made corn bread, cooked in a big cast iron skillet. She always made all of her recipes from scratch. I love to cook in cast iron myself. I have skillets from my grandparents and great-grandparents. One or two are from great-great-grandparents.

So, it holds something special to me to cook in them. 'Course, I don't always cook from scratch, as there are things that make cooking a lot easier now that are (almost) as good. Like corn bread. Packaged corn bread is fine. But sometimes you need to add a little extra something to make it your own. Here is one of my great grandmother's cornbread recipes. (She had several.)

1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1 cup creamed corn
1/2 cups butter, melted

Heat your oven to 425 degrees.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk well.
Now in a larger bowl, mix the eggs, buttermilk,creamed corn, and butter. Stir thoroughly.

Now add the dry ingredients to the buttermilk mixture, stir and combine it all together.

If you want, you can pour into cupcake papers in your muffin pan. Or, like I do, grease up your big cast iron skillet and pour it in.

If you use the muffin pan, it takes about 12 minutes or so to bake. This will make 18 muffins.

If you use your cast iron, cooking time will be increased. When the top of corn bread is brown and a tooth pick comes out clean when poked into the corn bread. Set muffins or skillet aside to cool for just a few minutes.

Hope this is a recipe you will like and use. Great for holidays or Sunday supper. Slather some butter and jam on your corn bread, or try using some sorghum.

I've mixed up the dry ingredients and placed in a bag. And the wet ingredients in a jar. And taken on hunting and fishing trips. I've also, on fishing trips, dipped the fish once they've been cleaned, in the batter and fried them in my dutch oven that has oil in it.

So, enjoy. And FEED YOUR FACE!