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Blue, Blue, Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins

September 6, 2008 by 2 Comments

 

In an earlier post this summer, I raved about The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon (that name always makes me smile) and the two versions of cornbread salad we had tried out, both receiving enthusiastic reviews. Well, since then, it’s been hard for me to NOT bake and cook without cornmeal. Cornmeal breads, muffins, pancakes, etc. And my latest favorite muffin is her recipe for Blue, Blue Blueberry Muffins.  All the blue is the result of using blue cornmeal  and serving the muffins with a Blueberry-Cream Cheese-Honey Butter. Okay, have I your attention now? Are you hooked? Shall I start reeling you in???

 

These are unbelievably tender and moist, and the main spice in the recipe, nutmeg, sets off the flavor of the blueberries and the cornmeal beautifully. (I am somewhat biased—most dishes are considered incomplete without at least a little nutmeg thrown in). And when you top the warm muffins with the meltingly delicious blueberry butter—moment of silence, please.

 

Now, if you are not able to find blue cornmeal, yellow is fine, and you end up with another lovely version, just less blue! Blue cornmeal is not easily accessible up here where I live in northern MI, so I’ve made these frequently with yellow cornmeal, as you can see here—

 

 

 

 

So if you have stockpiled a good amount of end-of-the-summer blueberries  AND you are a lover of corn AND need some muffins to warm you up on the crisp mornings arriving with the turn of the season, this recipe is for you. One note: When I made these muffins, I did notice that it only made 12 of what I would call standard sized muffins—if I had tried to make 18 muffins out of this, they would have definitely been on the small side.

 

 

Blue, Blue Blueberry Corn Muffins

From The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon

 

Vegetable Oil cooking spray or muffin papers

1 2/3 c. unbleached white flour, divided

1/3 c. stone-ground blue cornmeal

½ t. salt

1 T. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

1/3 cup butter, at room temperature

½  c. sugar

1 egg

½ t. pure vanilla extract

¼ t. freshly grated nutmeg

1 cup low-fat milk, plain or vanilla

    Soy milk, or a combination (see Note)

1 cup blueberries

½ c. chopped toasted walnuts (optional)

 

1.       Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Spray 18 standard-size or 12 large muffin-tin

      cups with oil, or line the cups with papers.

2.       Stir together the flour, blue cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda into a large bowl. Set aside.

3.       Cream together the butter and sugar in a small bowl, then beat in the egg, vanilla and nutmeg.

4.       Stir the creamed mixture into the dry mixture along with the milk, until not quite blended. Then add the blueberries and the walnuts, if using, with just a couple of strokes, so the mixture is just barely combined. Spoon into the prepared muffin cups.

5.       Bake until the edges of the muffins are golden brown and the caps are rounded and also golden, 22 to 27 minutes. Let cool for just a few minutes, then remove from the cups. Serve warm with blueberry-cream cheese-honey butter if you like.

Filed Under: Bread, Breakfast Foods, Valerie Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Cornbread Salad for the Weekly Cookbook Challenge – Part 3

June 29, 2008 by 5 Comments

As I mentioned earlier, I also made a half recipe of the vegetarian version of the salad this morning. If anything, it received an even warmer reception from my (expected and unexpected) audience. My husband and I work for a small church-related camp, and on Sunday, our next camper groups come in to begin their week. Which means lunch is the last meal our paid staff has alone together. Normally. So I thought I would bring these salads to share with everyone. Well, some of the campers arrived early, and so we had a lot folks who had a chance to try these out, and I have to say, I’ve had more requests for recipes after serving these than anything else I’ve made in a long time. And even more surprising—this vegetarian version seemed to be the favorite—seems to be the jalapeno!

 

So, here is the process for this version:

 

First, crumble the (nicely and unnecessarily cubed) cornbread into a large bowl:

Cover with all the chopped and shredded goodies:

Pour dressing over, mix and serve and devour again:

Here’s the actual recipe—in the cookbook, there is just a paragraph telling you which ingredients are added, which are left out, but I thought it might be easier if you just had it laid out like the other recipe. Oh, and Elayne is a friend of the author who came up with this variation.

 

ELAYNE’S VEGETARIAN VERSION OF PATSY’S CORNBREAD SALAD
 
 

 

 

1 skillet of cornbread

1 15 oz. can pinto beans, rinsed and drained

½ cup mayonnaise

½ cup sour cream

½ cup sweet pickle relish

2 T. juice from sweet pickle relish

2 T. chipotle barbecue sauce

1 bunch scallions, finely sliced

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded, and finely chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, cored, seeded, and finely chopped

4 to 5 juicy ripe tomatoes, cut into medium-size chunks

 

  1. Coarsely crumble the cornbread into a good big bowl and let it dry out for a few hours.
  2. Stir or whisk together the mayo, relish, relish juice and barbecue sauce. That’s your dressing. Set it aside.
  3. When the crumbled cornbread has dried slightly, toss in the scallions, peppers, tomatoes, cheese and pinto beans. Toss well, so that everything is well distributed.
  4. Spoon the dressing over the top and stir thoroughly. Cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to serve. It can be made up to 24 hours in advance.

My tweaks: Again, grape tomatoes were the tomatoes of choice. I could not find chipotle barbecue sauce, so I used a couple tablespoons of a spicy barbecue sauce and a couple tablespoons of a chipotle salsa. Also, since I know folks may not like biting down on a chunk of jalapeno, I tossed it into the small bowl of my food processor, chopped it up, and then added the rest of the dressing ingredients and blended it all together, pouring it over the salad at the end.

 

These are definitely keepers.

Filed Under: Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Main Dish, Valerie, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , ,

Cornbread Salad for the Weekly Cookbook Challenge – Part 2

June 29, 2008 by 5 Comments

Okay, so I should read recipes more carefully—in looking at the recipe for the original cornbread salad recipe, I see the instructions ‘coarsely crumble the cornbread into a good big bowl and let it dry for a few hours.’ So my careful slicing and cutting into cubes was definitely wasted effort. I salvaged it this morning by coarsely crumbling my nicely cubed bread into a bowl:

I then put the bacon on to fry, and while that was going on, I chopped all the veggies and made the dressing. Veggies done, bacon fried till crisp and drained on paper towel, dressing all mixed, I was good to go. First, add all the chopped veggies and bacon to the cornbread–Before:

 

And after being tossed together with my impeccably clean hands:

 

 

Next, pour on the dressing and mix (with an impeccably clean spoon!), place yummy portion on plate, decorate with a couple bits of reserved crispy bacon:

 

 

And devour. This is absolutely delicious, and definitely needs the southern cornbread to make it work. The johnnycake of my youth would utterly fail here. Unless, of course, you add it as a dessert course drizzle with melted butter and maple syrup….mmmm….getting dizzy….love that cornbread! But we’ll save that for another post…

 

I’ll follow up with the vegetarian version 2 later today… Oh, and here’s the recipe! Nearly forgot—and remember, for my purposes, I used half recipes so I could try both kinds of salad with one pan of cornbread!

 

PATSY’S CORNBREAD SALAD
 
 
 1 skillet of cornbread

¾ pound bacon

1 cup mayonnaise

½ cup sweet pickle relish

¼ cup juice from sweet pickle relish

1 T. sugar

2 sweet onions (Vidalia or other), finely chopped

2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded, and finely chopped

4 to 5 juicy ripe tomatoes, cut into medium-size chunks

 

  1. Coarsely crumble the cornbread into a good big bowl and let it dry out for a few hours.
  2. Cook the bacon, draining off all excess fat. “you want it cooked real brown and crispy,” Patsy says. When the bacon has cooled, crumble it coarsely and set aside.
  3. Stir or whisk together the mayo, relish, relish juice and sugar. That’s your dressing. Set it aside.
  4. When the crumbled cornbread has dried slightly, toss in the onions, peppers, tomatoes and crumbled bacon. Toss well, so that everything is well distributed.
  5. Spoon the dressing over the top and stir thoroughly. Cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to serve. It can be made up to 24 hours in advance.

 

SO good…okay, a couple tweaks: First, I did a small dice rather than the finely chopped thing, because we like our veggies a little on the larger side. Tomatoes—no good ripe regular tomatoes around here yet, so I used grape tomatoes cut in quarters. And an almost tweak that was not needed—I’m used to using salt and pepper in my dressings, and I’m glad I didn’t—the salad is plenty salty enough, and doesn’t need the pepper, unless you really want it. Enjoy!

Filed Under: Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Main Dish, Meat, Valerie Tagged With: , , ,