Toasted Cornmeal "Dutch Pancake"

It's been unseasonably warm lately. The dogs are learning to play Frisbee and I am learning to play Monopoly (I haven't won, but I have a rematch with Nolan tonight). We ordered a rug; we are decorating slowly. We are researching composting and burned all of our trash in the firepit just off the trail to our creek. The smoke still stuck to his hair while we watched TV last night, I could smell it on my fingertips this morning, too.

Or maybe it was the brand of Camel he likes to smoke. A pile of them, stubbed out at different angles, hide under rocks and in porch crevasses like small mushrooms. He'll stop when things slow down. I only smoke to look cool to strangers. It's never worked, but I keep trying.

I'm writing to the local papers more, telling them how I feel about the world these days. My best friend is going to London in May. I traced my mother's grandmother's grandmother back to Ireland and bought three pairs of reading glasses with a coupon I had in my email. Life keeps moving forward, slowly but surely. I keep baking, I keep drinking more coffee than I should. I keep forgetting to pay bills and I sleep to pass the time. But I'm happy. Happier than I have been in years and years and years.

Toasted Cornmeal Dutch Pancake

This recipe is if a Dutch Baby and a cornbread had an affair in a skillet. It's eggy, sweet, nutty, and light. It's not dense, but is denser than it's dutch baby cousins, so will not puff up to the same extent. It's perfect with lemon, cherry jam, or even just more sugar on top.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup cornmeal, as fine ground as you can get (but not flour)
• 2 TB butter, unsalted
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425*F
2. Pour your cornmeal into a dry cast iron skillet (11 or 12 inches) and heat on medium-high
3. Stir once or twice so as to prevent browning, but allow your cornmeal to toast and give off a nutty-sweet scent
4. Now, pour your toasted cornmeal into a bowl and replace with your butter in the pan
5. Put pan into oven to melt butter
6. Whisk all remaining ingredients together vigorously. Remove pan from oven for only a second to pour batter into skillet and then return to oven
7. Bake for 20 minutes. As the ingredients are slightly heavier, they will not puff up, but dish will still be light
8. Enjoy immediately

COOKIE EXCHANGE!

There are many things I love about the holidays, but at the top of my list is baking cookies with my mother. Now that I am home, this will be at the top of my list. Two years ago, she taught me how to make candies from her shop. This year, we will be baking at my sister's, balancing a baby in one hand and a cookie tray in another.

These Cornmeal and Cherry Shortbread Cookies are the first of many cookies that I'll be baking here soon. They're a taste of home, and one that I have used a couple times before (here and here). I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, but I wanted to share my world with Rachel of Bakerita, as part of our blogger cookie exchange that was coordinated by one of my absolute FAVORITE blogger friends, Rebecca of Displaced Housewife. See the rest of those participating by following the hashtag #holidaycookieparty2016 on Instagram!

Cornmeal and Cherry Shortbread Cookies

Makes roughly 18 cookies, depending on your cutter size.

Ingredients:

• 16 TB unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cup AP flour
• 1/2 cup fine cornmeal 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 TB dried cherries
• 12 oz good quality white chocolate, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper
2. In a food processor, pulse together butter, sugars, flour, cornmeal, and salt until it is fine and crumbly
3. Dump out onto a floured work surface and knead in dried cherries
4. Pat into a rectangle
5. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out until dough is about 3/4 inch thick
6. Cut into desired shapes and transfer shapes onto your prepared baking sheet
7. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden and edges are only slightly browned
8. Allow to cool, then dip in chocolate and sprinkle with a bit of white sugar or salt
9. Can be kept for up to 5 days or a week in an airtight container

And here is the list of everyone else participating this year!

Wife Mama Foodie | Gluten Free Icebox Cookie

Now Forager | Vanilla Bean Marshmallow & Pink Peppercorn Shortbread Cookies

DisplacedHousewife | Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles

Tutti Dolci | Brown Butter Chai Snickerdoodles

The Daley Plate | Romany Creams

Cloudy Kitchen | Anzac Biscuits

The Beach House Kitchen | Double Chocolate Peppermint Sugar Cookies

Vanilla and Bean | Cocoa Nibby Pecan Shortbread Cookies

Chez LaRae | White Rollout Cookies

Husbands That Cook | Apple Cider Snickerdoodles

Rainy Day Bites | Melody Cookies

Bakeritablog | Brown Butter Shortbreads With Dark Chocolate

The Jam Lab | Thandai Shortbread Cookies

Katie Clova | Espresso Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

Food Fashion Party | Stuffed Shortbread Cookies

My Kitchen Love | Chocolate Toffee Shortbread

No Crumbs Left | Peanut Butter Blossoms

Peach and Cornmeal Cake: Inspired by the local flea market

I go to flea markets now and fill a spare closet with things I don’t need.  A blanket from the 1800’s, a cookie jar from Jerusalem. I get cash out of the ATM and buy a coffee to keep my hands idol while I’m walking around. I chat with my mom as she buys toys for her first grandchild, my unborn niece. She’ll be spoiled before she gets here, we joke.

They’re interesting places, flea markets. But, then again, everything has been interesting moving back, feeling like a stranger with a shared zip code. We mill through someone’s trash. I found a love letter to a woman named Ellen once. A lady wanted ten cents for it. Nothing is kept, most things are fingerprinted or cracked; and yet, still I come back. I bring others, I buy gifts.

It’s the promise that I can buy someone’s heritage, someone’s family history. That my own is easily supplemented with that of strangers. That, somehow by buying these jars and napkins and old, old butter knives, I can authenticate myself in this town of mine. At its heart, it’s imperialistic. At its heart, I am lonely here, a foreigner who moved back into his childhood home in February of this year.

 But I’ll stay in this house until the baby is born. Until she can wear the sweater I got her. Until she plays with the blocks my mother found in a cardboard box marked a quarter by a vendor’s red truck. They’ll spell out her initials – LGW, Lana Grace Williams. And I’ll keep making cakes in the meantime, from old cookbooks I found on card tables next to a pile of tangled costume jewelry. And I’ll make my own memories while I’m home. They may not be much, but they’re ours to keep.

Peach Cornmeal Cake

This cake is inspired by one such recipe I found in an old spiral-bound community cookbook. It's probably the simplest cake I have ever posted. Makes one 6-inch cake.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cup AP flour
• ¾ cup fine-ground cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup whole milk
• ½ cup crème fraiche
• 1 TB white vinegar
• 1 TB honey
• 1 TB pure vanilla extract
• 2 TB butter
• 2 TB shortening
• ½ cup sugar (I used the amazing Sweet Revenge Sugar for an aromatic and mellow flavor to the cake) for this recipe, but regular white would be fine
• 1 egg + 1 yolk
• 2 TB dark brown sugar
• 1 peach, sliced

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375*F
2. Prepare a 6-inch round cake pan with parchment paper and butter
3. Sift together AP flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Set aside
4. In a measuring cup, whisk together milk, crème fraiche, vinegar, honey and vanilla extract and set aside
5. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream your fats with your sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice with a rubber spatula
6. Add egg and yolk, mixture will look a little curdled
7. Alternate between the flour and your milk mixtures until a thick batter forms
8. Scrape again with your rubber spatula
9. At this point, sprinkle your brown sugar at the bottom of your prepared pan, right on top of the parchment
10. Arrange your peach slices any way you’d like
11. Gently pour batter over your peaches and smooth top. Tap the bottom of your cake pan gently on your counter a few times to settle any air in the batter
12. Bake for about 45-50 minutes, until golden brown and slightly puffed

This cake was made through a partnership with Sweet Revenge Sugar Co. All opinions are my own.

Corn and Cherry Blondies: in Partnership with Bob's Red Mill

The summer days I’ve slept through sit at the periphery of my mind. I like when the sheets are untucked. I like when a boy is curled up next to me. I like when the sunlight wakes me up. I drink some water, fall back to sleep. I don’t do it much anymore. I have too much on my plate, but not that hungry anymore.

I think of goosebumps as marginalia. I think they’re a secret language I haven’t learned to read yet, scribbled in the corners of someone else’s mind. I think about all the secrets I’ve kept—how I used to hide cigarettes underneath a bridge by my house, how I kept warm beer in my closet and threw the cans away at work, how I’ve forgotten my grandmother’s name and the last thing my grandfather said to me was when he called me the wrong name.

I’ve learned to be someone else while home in Pennsylvania. Cautious, careful. I’m alone more often than I should admit. I may eat chips for dinner one day; then barely rinse out my coffee cup. I don’t think much of my future right now, I just like the idea of being free.

So that’s how I’m spending my weekend—independent. Cautious. Lazy. Alone. Secretive. Curled up. Smoking. I’ll spend a day at a lake and a day at a river. I’ll spend it eating what I want and hardly rinsing the dishes off. And I’ll be grateful for the three-day weekend. Grateful for who I am today. Grateful to be more myself than ever before. And grateful to make food that represents who I’ve always been: cornfed and Appalachian. Born in the Rust Belt, a little freer than I thought I would be this time last year. 

And below is a recipe for a corn and cherry blondie. But first, a couple reminders...

•  I will be taking over the feed feed snapchat on Sunday at 10:00 am EST. Make sure to watch me tour the JQ Dickinson Salt Works in West Virginia! Snapchat username: @thefeedfeed. Make sure to follow along and see this amazing company in action. And if you are interested in learning about the JQ Dickinson Salt Works, I suggest the Southern Foodways Alliance's Gravy podcast they did, found here.
• Secondly, have you all nominated this blog for the Saveur Blog Awards? If not, please do so! It would mean so much to me!

Corn and Cherry Blondies

These are cakey, crumbly, and a cross between a cornbread and a brownie and perfect for the 4th of July. Makes 9 in an 8x8 inch pan.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup AP flour
• ½ cup Bob’s Red Mill corn flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed + more for sprinkling
• ¼ cup white sugar
• 8 TB unsalted butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• ½ TB clear imitation vanilla (can use pure vanilla extract, but I like the palatable kitsch this brings to the blondies)
• 1 ear of corn, grated with pulp and liquid reserved
• 2 TB whole milk
• ¼ cup dried cherries (I do not recommend fresh cherries for this recipe solely due to the amount of liquid the cherries bleed)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prep an 8x8 cake pan with butter and parchment paper
2. Sift together flours, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together sugars and butter until light
4. Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla
5. Add the pulp and liquid of one ear of grated corn. Some kernels may get into this mixture and that is expected and even welcomed for this dish
6. Your mixture may look a little curdled, but it will come together when you add your dry ingredients
7. With mixer on low, slowly add your flour mixture, a little at a time
8. Dough will form, but may be a little dry; add your milk
9. Turn mixer off and use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to ensure everything is fully mixed, but make sure not to over mix or your dough may get tough
10. Fold in dried cherries
11. Turn dough out into your prepared pan and smooth out with spatula. You may want to pat it into the pan with floured fingers
12. Sprinkle a little more brown sugar on top and bake for 25-30 minutes
13. Blondies are done when golden brown, the brown sugar is slightly caramelized, and the middle is puffed but set
14. Serve immediately or store for up to 3 days

Note: I am fortunate enough to be a Bob's Red Mill brand ambassador this year and will be partnering with them more and more throughout the year. While Bob's Red Mill supplied the ingredient, corn flour for this post, all opinions are my own. Check out their website for more information on all the amazing products they have to offer! You can also find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Blue Cornmeal and Smoked Cheddar Popovers: In Partnership with Bob's Red Mill

It’s now been sixty-eight days sine I last heard a coyote in the backyard. Three years since they were so close you could hear their breath on the windowpane. The coyote tricked me once, hunched and hungry, but I won’t be in California again for a long, long time.

My people aren’t like those on the West Coast; or, at the very least, those I met. There are burn marks on my mother’s arm, cat scratches on the edges of her knuckles. She makes a dollar stretch and my dad drinks his Diet Pepsi on the couch for hours at night. Nursing it, letting the ice melt to a more toothsome bite. The dogs play in the backyard and bark at nothing but the dried grapevines that appear to have died from a disease and not the harsh Northeastern winter that we’re still shaking off. I keep my window open some nights, and the frogs act like a Greek chorus, explaining things in a language I do not know yet, a dialect so deep-rooted in creekbeds and unemployment checks, I’m still getting an ear for it.

I come from families sustained on peasant food. Meat, potatoes, fats when we could get them. I am the apex of generations of farmers and truck drivers, stay-at-home moms and divorcees who never quite got their bearings. My dad said he’s never tried cauliflower, my mother bought produce at the dollar store when we lived in Kentucky. My sister slept in the laundry room then. I shared a room with my brother.

These popovers are a product of my heritage. Where the leavening is from the earth and a little elbow grease to boot. Where the grit of the cornmeal, unbleached and rugged, grinds on the tooth while you daydream of a beach in your land-locked state. Where the fat is light and the oven is hot and the days are shorter than when you were a child. It’s everything and nothing, an illusion of a simple life because I never realized how tough it must have been to feed a family of five while working night shifts at the Walmart in town. I’ll never hear a coyote again out here in Pennsylvania, but I surround myself with like me now. Family, in every sense of the word.

Blue Cornmeal and Smoked Cheddar Popovers

Yields six popovers using proper pan, or roughly 10-14 popovers made with a muffin tin

Ingredients:

• ½ cup Bob's Red Mill blue cornmeal (or yellow, if not available)
• 1 cup AP flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 ½ cup whole milk, room temperature
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• ½ cup grated smoked chedda

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450*F and prepare your pan by spraying with oil (I used a traditional non-stick popover pan, but a muffin pan will work, but will not yield the same height)
2. Sift together cornmeal, flour, and salt
3. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and milk together vigorously until yolks are broken up and mixture is foaming
4. Continue whisking slowly, adding your cornmeal mixture slowly into the milk mixture
5. When mixture has the consistency of a thick (albeit lumpy) cream, stir in the butter
6. Allow to rest for 30 minutes
7. When resting is complete, spoon batter into prepared tins, about three-quarters full
8. Top with cheese
9. Bake for 20 minutes on 450*F, then reduce oven to 350*F and bake for an additional 17-20 minutes. During this time do not open the oven door until you have hit the 17-minute mark
10. When popovers have a solid center and the edges are crisp, remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before removing from pan
11. Immediately pierce sides with a knife to allow for steam to escape (this will prevent popovers from deflating)
12. Serve immediately for best tast

Note: I am fortunate enough to be a Bob's Red Mill brand ambassador this year and will be partnering with them more and more throughout the year. While Bob's Red Mill supplied the ingredient, coconut flour, for this post, all opinions are my own. Check out their website for more information on all the amazing products they have to offer!