Cornbread.

To go with some cozy chili for dinner, I made these adorable cornbread sticks.  The recipe comes from another book I picked up in North Carolina last month called "Making Do: How to Cook Like a Mountain MeMa," and you can imagine why I had to buy it!

 

It's filled with recipes like "Daddy's Hoecake," "Real Honest-to-Goodness Butter,""Roasted Possum," and even has a chapter called "For Medicinal Purposes - Really!"  It's definitely one of the most authentic southern cookbooks I own!  This cornbread recipe is called "Cornbread Cake" in the book and I theorize this is because it includes some sugar, therefore not making it regular cornbread.  But I've asked southerners before about putting sugar in their cornbread, and perhaps it's just because they're being nice, but they say if you want sugar, add sugar!  It doesn't make it any less of a "real" cornbread.

I used my cast iron cornbread stick pan for this recipe and got exactly 21 (3 batches), and the recipe doesn't state what size pan to use ("Pour into a greased skillet and bake at 475 degrees for 20 minutes.") but a 9x9, 8x8, any smallish baking pan would work just fine, and I imagine you could get about 12 regular-sized muffins out of this recipe.

Cornbread

Adapted from Making Do: How to Cook Like a Mountain MeMa

1 cup self-rising flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 heaping tablespoons sugar

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup water

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F.  Grease a baking pan and set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking soda and sugar.  In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk and water.  Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until everything is incorporated, but don't overmix.  Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake until the cornbread puffs up in the middle and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.