Everyone loves cornbread and I am no exception. There are basically two types: savory and sweet. I have always preferred the sweeter cornbread. The real trick it to get it moist enough where it doesn’t taste like you are just eating formed cornmeal. 🙂 Here is the recipe I usually make and it is a HIT!

Ingredients:

2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 cup creamed corn
2 tablespoons either canola or vegetable oil
4 tablespoons of butter
4 tablespoons of honey

Preheat the oven to 425 and let your 12 inch cast iron skillet heat up inside the oven at the same time.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and except the oil, honey and butter, mix all the wet ingredients in another bowl.? Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined.? Add the oil to the heated skillet.? Pour the batter into the skillet and then cook in the oven for 20 minutes.

While the cornbread is cooking, melt the butter and honey in a small sauce pan until the butter is just melted.? Remove from heat and stir until combined.

When you take the cornbread out of the oven, pour the butter and honey mixture over the top of the cornbread and slather all over the top so every part of the bread gets coated.

Let cool for 10 minutes and then serve with butter.

For me, this is the summer of the grill. My poor neglected stove barely cooks a meal anymore. Lately I have been trying different recipes for side dishes. I finally decided to start playing with grilling potatoes.

It has been my experience when it comes to potatoes on the grill, that many people just wrap them in foil and throw them on long before they cook the meat so they will be done in time. Well, sorry, that just bores the heck out of me.

After tinkering a bit, I came up with a simple recipe that will cook just a little longer than a steak and is at least 3 times more delicious (by all accounts) than plain old potatoes.

4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed.
1 1/2 sprigs of rosemary, stem removed, lightly chopped.
About 8 – 10 sprigs of thyme, roughly chopped. (leave stems on).
1 tablespoon of salt.
About 15 turns of the pepper mill (fresh pepper).
3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil.
1 small bag of baby red potatoes (about 20 potatoes).

In a large glass bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients except for the potatoes.

Cut the potatoes in half, if there are some really large baby potatoes, cut them into thirds. Add them to the glass bowl and toss completely into the marinade. Let sit at room temperature for at least 1/2 hour, stirring from time to time to make sure all the potatoes – (More…)

One of my favorite vegetables is zucchini. I have a lot of different ways to prepare it, but the most flavorful way is by deep frying. They come out golden brown and crispy and the real trick is in the batter.

For anyone with even 10 minutes of deep frying experience knows that the batter is everything. Batter usually consists mostly of flour, spices and a liquid. The strongest “spice” in batter is the flour. It is challenging to add spice to batter because the taste of flour is so strong. This is why you must use more spice than you would think.

1 cup all purpose white flour.
1/2 cup all purpose white flour.
1/4 cup smoked paprika, regular will work too.
1/8 cup garlic salt. (or 1/16 garlic powder and 1/16 kosher salt).
2 tablespoons of black pepper.
Vegetable oil for frying.
Up to 1 can (12 oz) of beer.
Zucchini.

Heat deep fryer to 350 degrees.

Mix together the 1 cup of flour, paprika, garlic salt, and pepper. Whisk in the beer a little at a time until the mixture has the consistency of pancake batter. Drink the remaining beer. 🙂

Lay out the 1/2 cup of flour on a separate dish.

Slice the zucchini thin, about 1/4 inch per slice. Dredge the chips in the flour and then add to the batter.

Working in batches, add them to the deep fryer and cook for about 4 minutes, turning half way through. – (More…)

This little recipe I whipped up the other night came about by just thinking what I was going to do with some remaining ingredients from a few past recipes. After using some puff pastry for a bread stick recipe, I found I had an entire box of it left over. I love the fact that most of your major supermarket chains now carry these ready made puff pastry sheets. Who wants to make that by hand anymore?

Anyway, I also had some Gorgonzola cheese left over from the steak sandwiches I made for the Super-bowl party. I also have had this London broil steak in my freezer for about a month and after a bit of thought, I whipped this together and we had it (along with some other stuff) for dinner.

This cheesy steak puffs will probably go better as an appetizer, but I had made so many I actually incorporated them into dinner.

1 box (two sheets) of puff pastry, thawed.
1 average size London broil steak, FROZEN.
About 1/4 cup Gorgonzola cheese.
1 small onion, loosely chopped.
Garlic powder.
Onion powder.
Dried basil.
Fresh ground pepper.

You can use any marinade that you like to use for your London broil. Here is what I used:

1/4 cup of each: Worchestshire sauce, Soy sauce, and Balsamic vinegar.
1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard.

Set your frozen steak on the cutting board for about 15 minutes, covered with some plastic wrap. The idea here is for – (More…)

One of my favorite recipes is Stuffed Mushrooms. There really is not an event where you can’t serve these! I have made this recipe for just about every occasion. Mind you, this is not a health food, but as a side dish who can it hurt?

There really is only two things that are a must in this recipe, first the mushrooms. The mushrooms need to be as fresh as possible and as large as possible. Your supermarket should have stuffing mushrooms in their vegetable isle. These are just basic white mushrooms but they are very large. They need to be as big as possible so they can fit the stuffing. You want them fresh so they do not fall apart or become mush when you cook them. DO NOT use canned mushrooms, it just will not work with this recipe.

Second, you need good hot Italian sausage. Not breakfast sausage, not Jimmy Deans, nor any sweet sausage. Preferably you should get the links. Although this recipe could be adopted using sweet Italian sausage, I cannot be held responsible for the taste. 🙂

This recipe is for two trays (15 X 10 casserole dishes)

Ingredients

1 pound of hot Italian sausage. The links are better. Remove the sausage from the skin.
1 large white onion – (More…)