Rhode Island Johnnycakes

Terrible cakes, more like. This is based off of a Martha recipe from the July issue. Something about regional specialties. And I was like "cornmeal pancakes! What could be better?" But I was wrong. I was so wrong.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups cornmeal
• 1.25 tsp coarse salt
• 4 cups boiling water
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• neutral oil, for griddle

Heat a medium skillet over medium heat. Toast the cornmeal, stirring often, until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and add salt.
Gradually add boiling water to cornmeal. When it's completely incorporated, stir in the milk. Heat griddle over medium heat and coat with a thin layer of oil. Drop batter like pancakes. Flip them when the edges look crisp and "lacy" (whatever that means). These take a little longer to cook than normal pancakes.
Serve with syrup?

Thoughts: Like I said, you'd think there would be plenty to like here. But there wasn't. There was nothing to like. It's possible that it's all about the user error, and that this is an otherwise delicious recipe. The original calls for "Johnnycake cornmeal" (as if we could just go around to our local grocer and pick that up. Please) or white cornmeal. Our "grocer," if you can call Giant a grocer, only has yellow. But my research indicates that there is no real difference between yellow and white other than the fact that yellow MIGHT be a little bit sweeter. But you'd think that would help this recipe. Toasting the cornmeal might also sound like a good idea, but really, "fragrant" means "burned smelling." Cornmeal doesn't get "fragrant." Your kitchen just starts to smell like popcorn. Maybe our pans were too thin for this endeavor. But we strained out the burned bits anyway. I'm not sure how you can avoid burning it -- it's like saying "put all this powdery stuff in your saute pan and turn it on." How do you not burn powder? Anyway.
So despite all these misadventures, we did make a batter. And Dan was like "so this is pretty much just polenta. You are making polenta pancakes." And I was like "Says YOU. These are JOHNNYCAKES. Totally different y'all." But guess what? They're not different. They tasted REALLY bland. Like, there was no flavor in here whatsoever. I tried to put a whole bunch of syrup on them, but just imagine putting syrup on polenta. Gross. It did not help in the slightest.
I'm just going to stop right here. These were a travesty. We made one batch, ate half of it (mostly because I was still in denial), then threw the rest out. We let the batter sit in the fridge for a while (again, denial), and then just threw that out too.

Disaster Index: 10/10 -- it's been a while since we've had to whip out a 10. But it had to happen.

Cornmeal Waffles

Ingredients

• 1.25 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• 3 tbsp + 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1.5 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
  

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.
In a smaller bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla.
Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Add oil and butter and whisk until smooth.

Make waffles. The waffle iron will tell you what to do.

Thoughts: Awesome. The cornmeal gives a crunchy texture to the outside of the waffle, while the inside stays fluffy. What else is there to say? This waffle recipe is probably one of the best we've made. It's as good as my grandmother's recipe (see some earlier month -- I don't know, December?), but in a completely different way. The taste is totally awesome. Please make this recipe. That is all.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cornbread

This is a good cornbread recipe. I tried it out on all these poets who will probably eat anything and tell me it's good because, y'know, poets. LIARS. But it was actually awesome.


Ingredients

• 2c corn meal
  
• 1c flour
  
• 4tsp baking powder
  
• 3/4tsp salt
  
• 6tbsp butter
  
• 1/4c sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2c milk
  

Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add the butter, softened, and the eggs and milk. Whisk thoroughly. Pour into something with 64 square inches, like a 9" round cast-iron pan, or a 9" other round thing, or an 8x8 square pan. Or make a double batch and pour it into a 9x13 pan, like I did.

ANYWAY, bake it at 450 for about 30 minutes, then turn it to 350 and bake it until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean, about another 10 or 15 minutes in our oven.

Thoughts: This was really good. We were worried that the middle wasn't done because it was really soft even though a knife came out clean. Let it cool a little bit and you'll be rewarded for your patience. Awesome.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - this is really a turning point in our corn-bread career, I think.

Corn Bread Stuffing

Ingredients

• ~3c cornbread, crumbled
  
• 2tbsp butter
  
• 3/4c chopped celery
  
• 1 small onion, chopped
  
• 1 tbsp garlic
  
• 2c chicken stock (or vegetable stock, buhhh)
  
• 2 eggs, beaten
  
• herbs and seasonings - we used rosemary, salt, and pepper, but we didn't have any sage.
  

Preheat oven to 350. Toss the celery, onion, garlic, and butter into a pan and saute until softened, 8 minutes or so. In the mean time, crumble the cornbread into a bowl. To that, add the chicken stock, eggs, and herbs. When the vegetables are done, let them cool to the point where they won't cook the eggs, and then stir them into the cornbread/stock mixture. Spread this mixture out in a 9x13 baking dish. Bake for somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour, depending on how wet the stuffing is.

Thoughts: while the taste was great, there was WAY too much liquid. I would cut the liquid by 1/2, possibly more. It's better to be adding liquid if it's too dry than trying to cook off excess in the oven. Otherwise, the flavor was delicious. I would make this again if we had a ton of leftover cornbread.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Cheese grits

Courtesy of Alton Brown

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk (you may need more)
• 2 cups water
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 4 ounces cheddar cheese, grated/shredded

Place the milk, water, and salt in a large pot over medium/high heat and bring to a boil. Stir often, so that the milk does not burn. You don't want that.
Once the milk mixture comes to a boil, gradually add the cornmeal while continually whisking. Be careful with this step, because this is when clumps are most likely to form. It might be helpful to use two people for this one, so that one person can whisk violently while the other person delicately sifts the cornmeal into the milk. Whatever.
Once all the cornmeal has been incorporated, decrease the heat to low and cover.
Remove lid and whisk frequently (every 3-4 minutes) to prevent grits from sticking and clumping. You may find that you need to add more liquid. We couldn't bring ourselves to add more whole milk, so we added skim (about 1/2 cup total), and that worked fine.
Cook for 20-25 minutes, until mixture is creamy.
Remove from heat, add the pepper and butter, and whisk to combine. Once the butter is melted, gradually whisk in the cheese a little at a time. Serve immediately.

VARIATION: Add some steamed corn into the grits. It is delicious. I highly recommend it.

Thoughts: Fantastic. The grits sort of have a subtle flavor, but it is a delicious flavor. I can't really imagine them without cheese, but we'll try some variations later, I imagine. Again, we have some pretty major clumps in ours because we didn't add the cornmeal slowly enough, but with some frantic whisking, we managed to make them unnoticeable. Just be careful on this one. Don't eat too much of this in one sitting, or you'll become a fatty. To be completely honest, it pairs nicely with Sauvignon Blanc. How dare you doubt me? Try it.

Disaster index: 1/10