Classic Buttermilk Cornbread 5/5 Spoons

Sometimes I love sides more than I love full "real" meals.

I love to go to a restaurant and order 3 sides and gobble them up with gusto. The thing is, they have to individually be so good and different from each other that it constitutes a meal (in my mind and in my belly). I need some sort of bread product (corn bread in this instance), some sort of protein (I made organic cumin-laced black refried beans to go along with this) and a veggie (homemade guacamole! I have my own recipe, if you want it, let me know!)

(Photo courtesy of Fine Cooking)

The problem with cornbread (which I admittedly don't have a lot of experience at making) is that it can be SO DRY. I mean you can put as much butter on a dry hunk of bread as you want but you still know it's not very good. I think using buttermilk (did you know it is actually low in fat?) really moistened the bread and it is even quite tender today. I wanted to make sure to find a recipe that a. was tender (check) b. not chock full of sugar (check) and c. doesn't contain an entire stick of butter (check). I think this recipe is my new winner! Here are my notes (there are barely any!):

-- Instead of table salt, I used kosher salt and bumped it up to 1 t. because kosher salt weighs less than table salt. Interesting, huh?
-- I used low-fat sour cream without any problem.
-- Because I had it, I added about 1 c. of frozen corn kernels. I feel like this part is totally necessary.

(I'm definitely not from Alabama, but I love cornbread!)

I of course couldn't wait. So I flipped this bread out of the pan and cut it into weird chunks and gobbled it up with some butter substitute. It was the perfect amount of sweetness and had a wonderful intense corn taste that a lot of cornbreads do not have. This is a great recipe because it uses so much cornmeal and very little all-purpose flour for a super authentic taste. This *technically* is not that bad for you. There is some butter yeah, but this bread will serve a lot of people. And I'm not always so worried about butter as I appear on here, I love me some sweet cream unsalted butter. This would go great with this Vegetarian Chili or Cincinnati Chili Mac.

Coming up soon......

Red Velvet Waffles with Cream Cheese Coconut Butter

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting


and other things I'm totally making up like BBQ Beefless Tips with Mashed Potatoes and Roasted Asparagus and a White Pizza. See you soon!

Kentucky Biscuits Recipe 5/5 Spoons

So once again, I decided to make these at like midnight last night. I always have a hankering to bake in the middle of the night. I will say that when I wake up in the morning with fresh biscuits it really starts your day off right.



(photo courtesy of TheLitterbox101 at allrecipes.com)

I honestly don't have much to say about these biscuits besides praising them highly. The only thing I changed is putting 1/2 t. of kosher salt instead of a dash. At first I thought they weren't salty enough (I used unsalted butter) but this morning when they were at room temp, I thought they had the best flavor. So if you can stand letting them come to room temp, you won't be sorry. The biscuit is super easy to make (about 30 minutes total mixing and baking) and it is so tender on the inside and crispy on the outside.

You could easily make these vegan by using about 1/2 - 1 t. of vinegar or lemon juice and filling it up to 3/4 c. with soymilk and Earth Balance for a butter substitute. I haven't tried it because it is hard to find Earth Balance sticks here unless it is at Whole Foods. If any one of my vegan friends/readers make these, please let me know. I would be curious to know how they turn out.

I give this recipe:

5/5 Spoons!

You will hear from me soon with the Buttermilk Lemon Bars I mentioned in the previous post. Obviously at this point I'm trying to use up the rest of the buttermilk in my fridge, haha. I hope they are worth the wait!