Best Ever Back-country Cornbread. ~not the dry southern style they seem to serve round these parts.

There is more to cornbread than just using the recipe on the back of the box of jiffy mix. This cornbread is a sweet and tasty moist cornbread from scratch. I am so very disappointed in the 'southern' style of cornbread served in restaurants and bbq joints... it is dry and crumbly and just plain terrible. Avoid those cornbread 'mixes' they sell alongside the flour and cornmeal, get just plain ol yellow cornmeal for this recipe.

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup YELLOW plain and strait up corn meal .. the white stuff just is not the same.
1/2 cup sugar - adjust to taste if you want
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons dry buttermilk (find it next to powder milk in the store)

combine all dry ingredients in large bowl

create a bit of a 'bowl' in the dry ingredients then add in the center
1/4 cup oil - vegetable, corn or canola.. whatever you prefer
1 cup cold water
1 egg

take a fork and mix the egg around the wet ingredients till mixed, then gently stir into dry ingredients untill just mixed, excessive mixing will cause gluten to form and will result in a hard dry cornbread. do not use an electric mixer.

use a 10 inch cast iron skillet, cold greased liberally with shortening or lard, pour in prepared batter and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes, until wood pick inserted into center comes out clean.
Or... fry up like a pancake on cast iron griddle for a fried cornbread.

Serve hot.

Note: if you don't own cast iron I suggest getting some as soon as possible, but use a round pan to avoid dry overcooked corners.

You can use fresh buttermilk in this recipe instead of the mix + 1 cup water but I never keep fresh buttermilk around, I just don't use it enough.

After years of nothing... I feel the need to blog again. Not sure why. Today's topic is food. Growing up in a catholic family frugality was always on the menu.. in fact I could never understand how my parents liked steaks so much when I was served a dry hunk of chuck steak meat with no fat or flavor whatsoever... no there was flavor, a ton of pepper. That is just the way my dad cooked. I grew up thinking I did not like steak. When I would ask what was for dinner and my mom would say "steak" I would just groan, yuk. You see my parents insisted I 'clean my plate' when I was growing up and having to choke down a dry overdone steak that burned my throat with pepper was next to torture, I learned to hate steak. One day, in my mid 30's no less there was a rib eye steaks in the markdown bin, now being on a budget and not really caring for steaks anyway I got the meat expecting to make a meal for my 5 kids. Needless to say I grilled the steaks on a little electric indoor grill and they actually tasted very good. It occurred to me that my parents were buying the better cuts of steaks for themselves and giving me the cheap meat to save money, thanks Mom and Dad.

So this brings on my reason for blogging again. my recipes, some I taught my kids, some just never had the chance for me to teach them... so here it is. I have always been on a grocery budget so this is a very skinny gourmand way of cooking great nutritious food on the cheap, I hope you can get some use out if it. I will try to add pictures when I get a chance.