I think I found my new home!

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Frau K: "Shut up, belly!"

Belly: "No! You shut up! Better yet, feed me!"

Guess who wins?

Mmmmph umph mmmph.... sorry, Mom always said I shouldn't type with my mouth full.

[Wolferz]

Now you've made me hungry too. What to have? I can't get any decent cornbread mix this far north of the Mason-Dixon line. So that's out. White beans cooked up with some slab bacon for taste and served with fresh cut onions and cornbread would be great though.

Only one problem with that recipe....
Toooot! Excuse me.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Now you've made me hungry too. What to have? I can't get any decent cornbread mix this far north of the Mason-Dixon line. So that's out.

You do realize you can just buy cornmeal and make it without a mix, right?

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

You do realize you can just buy cornmeal and make it without a mix, right?

Not around hyere.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Not around hyere.

That's what I'm doing. It's pretty basic - if you've got flour, eggs, milk or buttermilk, sugar and salt & pepper around, pretty much all you need to get is the cornmeal and baking powder. Oh and some bacon to fry to grease up the skillet. And you need a recipe. The one I'm using includes a recipe for homemade cornmeal mix that you can whip up and keep on hand for future batches.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

That's what I'm doing. It's pretty basic - if you've got flour, eggs, milk or buttermilk, sugar and salt & pepper around, pretty much all you need to get is the cornmeal and baking powder. Oh and some bacon to fry to grease up the skillet. And you need a recipe. The one I'm using includes a recipe for homemade cornmeal mix that you can whip up and keep on hand for future batches.

What'cha waiting for? PM that hush puppy. Pretty Please with a cherry on top.

I grew up on foods fried in bacon grease in iron skillets. Yes I did buy the wife a set of iron skillets. She didn't have a single iron skillet when I arrived. (brave or stupid?) We don' need no steenking Teflon!
That's the problem with store bought mixes up here. They like sweet cornbread. YUCK! My son got his hands on all of my moms' recipes and he guards them like they're made of gold. The whipper snapper!

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

What'cha waiting for? PM that hush puppy. Pretty Please with a cherry on top.

This is the recipe I'm gonna try:

http://chickensintheroad.com/cooking/my-cornbread/

She gives the one for the do-it-yourself cornbread mix at the end.

I'm with you, I grew up eating what I guess is the "southern" style cornbread - baked in a cast iron skillet or mold. I do like the sweeter kind, particularly for corn muffins - but when I think of big slices of cornbread from a pan I think of what I grew up with. And of course most store-bought mixes (at least around her) are for the sweeter kind.

Recipe for green beans came from the same place:

http://chickensintheroad.com/cooking...e-green-beans/

I grew up on foods fried in bacon grease in iron skillets. Yes I did buy the wife a set of iron skillets. She didn't have a single iron skillet when I arrived. (brave or stupid?) We don' need no steenking Teflon!

Don't knock the nonstick pans, they definitely have their uses... and they've come a long way since the first Teflon pans. But there are some things for which only cast iron will do.

My son got his hands on all of my moms' recipes and he guards them like they're made of gold. The whipper snapper!

My mom had a kitchen drawer that was jammed full of a few old cookbooks and about a million little slips of paper with recipes scrawled on them. At some point many years ago when I still lived at home and got bored one day I went through the drawer and copied down every recipe I found that I knew was something she made on a regular basis, or that I really liked, or that was a family tradition or whatever. I may have her cornbread recipe filed away somewhere but trying to root it out now would take forever, lol.

OTOH for all I know it was one of the many things she didn't use or need a recipe for because she'd done it so many times for so long that the whole process was thoroughly etched in her brain. A lot of the written recipes I did find were little more than a list of ingredients with no clear measurements and maybe a couple vague directions - because that's all she needed to jog her memory when she made something.

I *still* don't know how she made her meatloaf, which I loved, and I've never found a recipe anywhere that was even close to how she made it (hint: there was no ketchup involved). Her meatloaf was just a loaf of ground meat baked in a large round... I guess it was a pie plate, lol. But it was a round, shallow, metal oven pan. Not a loaf pan. There was no sauce or anything goopy slathered on top of it but it was always moist so I presume she basted it with the drippings in the pan. After it was done she'd take the pan out of the oven, put the meatloaf on a platter, and then make the most delicious gravy from what was left in the pan. We'd have plain white rice as a side and put the gravy over that and the meatloaf. IT WAS AWESOME.

[Sailor Steve]

My mom lived by the frying pan. I'm not sure if she ever baked anything. I know nothing about her cornbread other than that she baked it (I just contradicted myself, didn't I?) in one of those pans with individual molds that looked like an ear of corn. It was a steel pan, not cast iron, but I always loved it. I've always loved to dip cornbread in chili, but I've been too lazy to actually cook anything for real, so I've never learned how to make it myself.

[Wolferz]

mmm mmm Southern style cookin.

My mom was a central Kentucky farm girl and boy could she cook! She too didn't really use recipes. Always measured from memory or just by eye. Timed everything using Jedi powers or something. I'm a perfectionist and always time my cooking to the second. Something she made fun of me for.

She had a mantra when it came to cooking. Be careful with your ingredient amounts because "You can always add but you can't take away"

If anyone wants to know the secret to good down home cooking, it's bacon grease. I know I know, you're worried about the health risk. Pfffttt!
My dear old paternal grandmother made bacon, eggs and fresh shortening biscuits every morning of her adult life. All of her recipes used bacon grease as the cooking lubricant of choice. She lived to the ripe old age of 93. If you want to live longer than that, well, you're just being selfish. Besides, I'm almost to the six decade mark and food isn't really a passion anymore after having about everything there is over and over and over again. Although, some of my mommas' scrambled eggs, sausage, white milk gravy and biscuits would really hit the spot at the moment.

Funny story: I was out on a two day trip into central and western Kentucky for work. I stayed in a motel in Central City (The area where me mum was from) before heading west and I popped into a little diner the next morning for breakfast. I had sausage and eggs with white milk gravy and biscuits. The meal was so much like my moms' that I asked the waitress if my mom was back in the kitchen cooking. She giggled and said "No, it's my momma."
I left her a good tip and a Yankee dime before departing.

PS:
I thank you kindly for the link. I owe you a Yankee dime.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

My mom lived by the frying pan. I'm not sure if she ever baked anything. I know nothing about her cornbread other than that she baked it (I just contradicted myself, didn't I?) in one of those pans with individual molds that looked like an ear of corn. It was a steel pan, not cast iron, but I always loved it. I've always loved to dip cornbread in chili, but I've been too lazy to actually cook anything for real, so I've never learned how to make it myself.

Oh yes, the cornbread mold. We either had it like that or a big round cake from the skillet, cut in wedges like pie.

Note to self: buy one of those cornbread molds.

If you like to dip it in chili you probably prefer the less sweet, more savory style as well.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Recipe for green beans came from the same place:

That opened my eyes to something. I get free canned stuff, don't have the space to grow anything and never think to shop for fresh. I have several cans of green beans and peas, and I never open them. I think that link told my why. I never had to be told to eat my veggies. My mom was from Texas and, as said previously, knew how to cook, especially with a pan. I think now I don't like eating veggies because I don't know how to cook them. Bacon and onions? Who knew? I'm betting even the canned stuff I have stored would benefit from a little of that. Now I get to try it.

I say I never cook, but I once had a roommate who did. He made everything by guess and by golly, and he never failed to make something worth the effort of showing up. I was talking about chili one day, and he told me I was going to make some and I was going to make it right. So we gathered the bags of several kinds of beans he had lying around, got several pounds of ground beef, tomatoes and other stuff, and the right spices for chili. That pot lasted us all week, and it was certainly the best chili I ever made. I haven't done anything like it since, mainly because I live alone and am too lazy to spend all day cooking. Now I'm wondering...

[Wolferz]

Sorry, Steve. You won't catch me making Chili Con Carne. It's no beans all the way for authentic chili. The hotter the better. With skillet fried cornbread to boot.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

That opened my eyes to something. I get free canned stuff, don't have the space to grow anything and never think to shop for fresh. I have several cans of green beans and peas, and I never open them. I think that link told my why. I never had to be told to eat my veggies. My mom was from Texas and, as said previously, knew how to cook, especially with a pan. I think now I don't like eating veggies because I don't know how to cook them. Bacon and onions? Who knew? I'm betting even the canned stuff I have stored would benefit from a little of that. Now I get to try it.

You don't even need to put the bacon and onions in the pot. My mom never did, but she DID put bacon grease in with the beans. I'm only putting in the bacon because I had to buy it anyway to fry it to get the grease. And the onion because why not? It sounds good. But if you like the onion flavor you could just toss a little onion powder in the pot, or buy a can of those french fried onions and sprinkle some on top when you dish the beans out.

If you have canned beans naturally you're not going to have to cook them down but toss them in the pot and make sure there's enough liquid to cover (either from the can, or add water as needed) and then put your bacon grease in there and then put it on the burner until it's all heated through and the grease is completely liquified and distributed throughout.

Heck, for all I know they now sell bacon flavored Crisco or some such that can be used for the flavor element and you don't even need to buy the bacon and fry it.

I always wondered why beans and greens like spinach in other places never tasted as good as what we got at home... then one day my sister said, "duh, mom put bacon grease in all that stuff."

I haven't done anything like it since, mainly because I live alone and am too lazy to spend all day cooking. Now I'm wondering...

If you have room for it, you might want to think about getting a slow cooker (aka a crock pot). You can do pot roast, chili, soups and stews, and all manner of things in one of those. The only time investmest is for prepping the ingredients and once they're in the pot you turn it on and it cooks for several hours and the whole point is that you DON'T mess with it until it's done, and when it is all you do is take out your food and eat it and put the leftovers away for later.

I make pot roast in mine all the time, I prep everything the day before and put it in the pot and stick that in the fridge overnight. The next morning it goes in the cooker on low and it takes 9-10 hours so by the time I get home from work and am ready to eat it's done. It's maybe an hour at most getting the taters and carrots ready and browning the roast, and if I didn't insist on browning the roast (which isn't necessary) it wouldn't even be that much -just whatever it takes to dice up the potatoes and peel and chop the carrots.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Sorry, Steve. You won't catch me making Chili Con Carne. It's no beans all the way for authentic chili. The hotter the better. With skillet fried cornbread to boot.

Sorry yourself. Chili by nature has no meat. "Chili con carne" means "chili with meat", as in extra. I always use meat, but the correct beans are essential.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

If you have room for it, you might want to think about getting a slow cooker (aka a crock pot). You can do pot roast, chili, soups and stews, and all manner of things in one of those.

D'OH! Years ago I bought a little mini Crock-Pot for 1. I've never even taken it out of the box!