Billie Jines' Jalapeno Cornbread

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and preheat your 10" castiron skillet, too.

1 cup cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 can cream style corn
2 eggs
jalapenos
2/3 c buttermilk
1/4 c oil
1 c shredded cheese (save some for topping).

Don't overmix batter.

USING HOTPAD (that's for E) remove your skillet, add a couple T oil and swish it around. Pour in batter, top with the extra cheese, and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Yum! So moist, this is almost like a spoonbread.


Billie Jines owned the newspaper my in-laws bought, and later sold to the Freemans. She lived right next to the newspaper office in Pea Ridge, Arkansas in a mobile home. She had a heart as big as a mansion and she introduced this recipe to me way back when.

Corn Bread

My friend Erin is over for the evening and she just mixed this up from my old, tattered Country Kitchen cookbook that was once produced by Tyndale House Publishers. This recipe has been a staple in our family forever. But I usually up the ratio of cornmeal to flour.

1 egg
1-1/2 c buttermilk (we were out of buttermilk so we mixed plain yogurt and milk. Works as well.)
1 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 c flour
1/2 c cornmeal
1 scant T sugar (or a heaping T of honey instead)
1 tsp salt
3 level tsp baking powder (that's one tablespoon, folks)
1/4 c shortening

Mix all ingredients and bake in long baking dish at 350 for 25 ninutes or until golden brown.

Recipe attributed to Edna Denlinger

Starbucks Lemon Loaf

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened.
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup oil (recommend coconut oil)

Lemon Icing:
1 cup and 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

Instructions:
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
Use a mixer to blend together the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, lemon extract and lemon juice in a medium bowl.
Pour wet ingredient into the dry ingredients and blend until smooth.
Add oil and mix well.
Pour batter into a well greased 9x5-inch loaf pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into center of the cake comes out clean.
Make the lemon icing by combining all the icing ingredients in a small bowl with an electric mixer on low speed.
When the loaf is cool, remove it from pan and frost the top with the icing.
Let the icing set up before slicing.

Yorkshire Pudding

Shamelessly lifted from my tattered wedding gift copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook this is a necessary item for our Christmas roast beef, shared here with all my offspring and the rest of you readers. This is basically a big cream puff flavored with meat drippings.

“Thirty minutes before rib or boneless rib roast is done, prepare Yorkshire Pudding. Heat square pan, 9x9x2 inches, in oven. Remove roast from oven; spoon off drippings and add melted shortening, if needed, to measure ½ cup.

“Increase oven temp to 425 degrees. Return roast to oven.

“Place hot drippings in heated square pan; pour in Yorkshire Pudding batter. Bake 10 mintues. Remove roast; continue baking pudding 25 to 30 minutes longer. Cut pudding into squares, serving with roast.”

6 to 9 servings.

Mix together just until smooth:

1 c all purpose flour

½ tsp salt

1 c milk

2 eggs

Starbucks Lemon Loaf

1 1/2 cup(s) FLOUR
1/2 teaspoon(s) BAKING SODA
1/2 teaspoon(s) BAKING POWDER
1/2 teaspoon(s) SALT
3 EGGS
1 cup(s) SUGAR
2 tablespoon(s) BUTTER; Softened.
1 teaspoon(s) VANILLA
1 teaspoon(s) LEMON EXTRACT
1/3 cup(s) LEMON JUICE
1/2 cup(s) OIL
LEMON ICING
1 cup(s) POWDERED SUGAR; Plus 1 Tablespoon.
2 tablespoon(s) WHOLE MILK; I Used 2%.
1/2 teaspoon(s) LEMON EXTRACT
Instructions
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
Use a mixer to blend together the eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, lemon extract and lemon juice in a medium bowl.
Pour wet ingredient into the dry ingredients and blend until smooth.
Add oil and mix well.
Pour batter into a well greased 9x5-inch loaf pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into center of the cake comes out clean.
Make the lemon icing by combining all the icing ingredients in a small bowl with an electric mixer on low speed.
When the loaf is cool, remove it from pan and frost the top with the icing.
Let the icing set up before slicing.

Marcia's Orange Cranberry Bread

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter, hardened and shredded into flour mixture.

3/4 orange juice, and add orange zest to make 1 cup total
1beaten egg

2 cups fresh cranberries
1/2 cup walnuts

Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter. Mix in orange juice mixture and beaten egg. Fold in cranberries and walnuts.

Pour into greased 9 x 5 loaf pan.

Bake 350 for one hour.

Top with melting butter and powdered sugar.

Slices best after refrigeration.

Zucchini Bread from an old Bon Appetit magazine

Caught in the early 80s, I LOVE this bread. Only it can be on the dry side if you bake it too long, or leave it out too long. Well worth the effort to toast the walnuts for the flavor it gives!


Mix together:
1 c whole wheat flour
3/4 c white flour
3 T raw wheat germ
2.5 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 c toasted walnuts

Combine with this mixture:
1 egg
1/2 c melted butter
1/2 c honey
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c grated zucchini

Bake in 9 x 5 greased loaf pan 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

Kilby's Whole Grain Pancakes

I found and tweaked a recipe online today for whole grain pancakes with Greek yogurt and they turned out absolutely wonderful. And easy! And healthy. The recipe makes about 10 medium pancakes, or more small ones, or fewer really big ones. Paul and I finished off the whole batch this morning. They didn't even need syrup they were so nice.

3/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c rolled oats (not instant)
1/8 c wheat bran (or you could do flax seed or some other grainy thing)
1 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
3/4 c Greek yogurt
1/2 c milk or water
2 large eggs

Follow the normal method of combining dry and wet ingredients separately, then mix together for a thick lumpy batter. Grease a hot skillet and cook till brown on either side. Because they're whole grain, they'll be much darker than your normal pancakes, but that doesn't mean they're burnt! These are very tender, fluffy, and tasty. Enjoy!

Coffee Banana Muffins

My sister, Sarah, just sent this which usesd leftover coffee and banana to make incredible coffee banana walnut muffins:

1 pkg Krusteaz Crumb Cake Mix
1 egg
2/3 c strong!!! Coffee
1 over ripe banana
Butter softened
Walnuts (optional)

Mix first three ingredients until lumpy and moistened. Add soft banana with fork and mash into lumpy batter.

Line muffin tin with paper cups. Spoon 1/3 batter into cup, top with some cinnamon topping (from box mix). Add pinch-1/8 t soft butter, chopped walnuts, layer with more batter, top with cinnamon topping and walnuts to fill cup.

Bake 350 for 23 minutes.

Corn Souffle

So Grace made this for us the other night to go with the chicken legs I baked with bacon:

1 can whole kernel corn, undrained

1 can cream style corn

3 beaten eggs

1/2 c melted butter

1 cup sour cream (She used Breakstone's new Jalapeno Sour Cream :-) )

1 pkg Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, 8 oz.

Mix and bake in 9 x 11 casserole 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Serve warm.

Kilby Austin's Accidental Chocolate Banana Cake with Cheating Chocolate Ganache

The story of my kitchen is much like the story of my life: "Ooh, that would be interesting, I'll try that." Thankfully, as my life has thus far not run into too many irrevocable misfortunes, my palate has not yet been utterly ruined by the continual stream of accidents coming from my oven. (Though I can remember a few brick breads in the recent past…)

Today, it was my failure to look at a recipe first while attempting to cook from a recipe. And now you know why I hate cooking from recipes. I had seven black bananas to use up before we leave on holiday in a week, and the obvious choice was banana bread--lovely, moist banana bread, ideally, flecked with chocolate chips, but here I've found that I can simply split the batter, add cocoa powder to half, and marble it. Well, to make a long story short, let's just say I didn't look at the recipe and wound up with slightly off proportions…slightly off…with a slightly loose definition of slightly…

So my next thought was brownies, but it was too late: I'd already added the baking powder. When it came out of the oven, it had puffed into the loveliest, softest chocolate cake you've ever seen, but nothing even anywhere near akin to brownies, in all their gooey glory. I despaired.

But suddenly I remembered the four guests coming for dinner and the lame plan I had concocted of serving them the last stale oatmeal cookies for a farcical dessert in a thinly veiled attempt to use up the rest of the food I've got stored in the house before leaving. By a trick of imagination, the failed banana-bread-turned-banana-brownies-turned-banana-cake became chocolate cake simply by the addition of icing.

Here's where it gets good: I also had a little tub of sweetened condensed milk in the fridge, too little to use for any decent recipe, too much to just eat up with a spoon. Well, for any normal human being to eat up with a spoon. Anyway, I decided maybe I could just add cocoa powder to that caramelly sludge…

And miraculously, it worked. It took two tablespoons of cocoa, thirty seconds in the microwave, and my banana chocolate cake is covered with thick, creamy chocolate ganache, the biggest cheat in the history of cooking.

So here's what I'm pretty sure is the recipe.


Chocolate Banana Cake
7 ripe or overripe bananas, mashed
1 cup sugar
.5 cup butter, softened or melted
4 eggs
.25 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1.5 cups flour
Preheat oven to 400º and grease or butter a 9x13 casserole or cake pan. Mix together bananas, sugar, butter, and eggs till well combined; stir in cocoa powder. Sift together dry ingredients, then add. Pour batter into pan, bake for 30 minutes, or until risen and set.


Chocolate Ganache
6-12 ounces sweetened condensed milk
1-2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Microwave the sweetened condensed milk on high for thirty seconds, then stir in cocoa powder with a spoon. Spread over the top of any cake for quick frosting.

Pecan Pie Muffins

Not sure, but I think I got this recipe from Jeni or Heather. Why the card is floating around my computer desk, I don't know, but maybe one of you will like to have it. If it is what I remember, they were very high calorie to die for muffins. Enjoy.

1 c chopped pecans

1 c firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 c flour

2 large eggs

1/2 c melted butter

Combine first three ingredients, make a well in center of mixture. Beat eggs until foamy. Stir together eggs & butter, add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Place foil baking cups in muffin pans and coat with cooking spray. Fill 2/3 full. Bake 350 degrees 20-25 minutes or done. Cool in wire racks. Yield: 9 muffins or 30 mini muffins.

Faux Currant Scones

Couldn't find my recipe for cream scones last night when I was planning today's breakfast and found this one on the internet. Posting it here as a fabulous success. Even doing it the food processor way (only I chopped my craisins before the flour & butter were added...) I also split the dough in half, making circles and cutting triangles: faster, less dough handling therefore softer, flakier.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/dream-a-little-dream-of-scone/

Shannon's sausage cheese muffins

The morning after we dropped Kilby in Yazoo City to live with Mrs. B and kids, Shannon served these delicious muffins to us. If you're hosting Jay Fontanini, make sure to make them. They also serve as great travel food.

3 c Bisquick mix
1 can cream of cheddar soup
1/2 can warm water
1 # browned sausage
1 c shredded cheddar cheese

Mix and spoon in to 20-24 greased muffin cups.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Katriona Trice's Baking Powder Biscuits

Katriona made these biscuits for our family when, as a Covenant College freshman, she spent some time in our home. Until then I had never known how to make biscuits. And these flaky ones are especially loved around here.

2 c flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 t salt

1/3 c shortening

3/4 c milk

Mix the first three ingredients. Cut the shortening in to the dry ingredients until it resembles coarse meal. Quickly stir in milk, not overmixing.

I dump this mixture onto a flour covered counter, folding the dough in upon itself about eight times, shaping dough as I go. Roll out dough and cut into biscuits.

The less you can handle the dough, the flakier the biscuits will be.

Bake 10 minutes or until golden brown at 450 degrees.

Scottish Scones

We spent nine months in Scotland and picked up a number of good scone recipes. Here's a basic.

2 c flour

2 t baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

2 T sugar

1/3 c butter

1/2 c buttermilk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Sift or whisk together dry ingredients.

Cut in butter (I push a cold stick of butter through a hand-held veggie shredder, tossing the flour as butter loads into flour mixture. If I had a pastry cutter I could do a similar thing. The deal is that you don't want the butter TOO mixed into things if you want a flaky pastry.)

Stir in buttermilk and egg, just until mixed.

Fold several times, using a little extra flour for easy handling.

Divide dough in half

Pat each half into a 6" circle.

Paint lightly with a few drops of milk and sprinkle with a bit of sugar, optional

Cut each half into 6-8 pieces and place on lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 425 degrees (preheated) for 12-15 minutes.

Aunt Pauley’s Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

My sister-in-law's aunt made this for us the morning of my brother's wedding in Kansas many many years ago. It was a keeper!

Cake:

3 c flour

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 cup oil

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup milk

Filling:

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup chopped nuts

½ cup chocolate chips (substitute chopped dates if desired)

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix just until smooth. Pour ½ batter into greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Sprinkle half of filling. Add remaining batter. Top with remaining filling. Dribble top with one stick melted butter. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This is the best banana bread recipe I've ever encountered. If you aren't a chocolate lover, leave out the chocolate chips. Add nuts and or dates or other fruit. My friend Diane Arnold taught me this one. And Pam has made it with all fresh-ground whole wheat and light tasting olive oil for a healthier and heartier version. It worked.

1 c sugar
½ c oil
2 eggs
pinch salt
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1-3/4 c flour
4 mashed bananas
1 c chocolate chips
(Walnuts optional)

Bake 325 50-60 minutes