"Cornbread Hating Yankee Converting Cornbread" {Food on Friday}

These photos are of the "shallower" version using the 9-inch skillet.  See below for info on my preferred "deeper" version. :)

So I married a yankee.  Not just a yankee...but a yankee who hates the Razorbacks.  Proof that love does crazy things to people, given that I'm a lifelong Southern Girl who came home from the hospital (in downtown Birmingham right after Arkansas beat Alabama in a bowl game, no less!) in a hand-crocheted Razorback sweater and booties. :)  The first song I learned to sing after "Jesus Loves Me" was Flatt and Scruggs's "Wabash Canonball", and I'm pretty sure that "WhooPigSooie" was among my first words. :)

Now, my yankee husband has lived in the South for 35 years.  He's picked up a few Southernisms along the way...particularly his love for chicken fried steak, sausage gravy and biscuits, fried okra, and pecan pie. But for all the years I've known him, he's turned up his nose at other southern favorites...grits,sweet tea (which I have to admit, I'm not fond of, either *blush*), and cornbread.

Cornbread, that is, until recently.  As I explained in my recent guest post on my friend Tauna's very cool blog, cornbread was one of the things I was most excited about baking when we were given an oven after a long period without one. And not just any cornbread, but our friend Diane's "Good Cornbread" recipe. Yummmm.

What I wasn't prepared for, though, was my husband's sudden affinity for the stuff.  He LOVES this cornbread. He's suggested I make it for dinner and insisted on taking leftovers in his lunch.  Last night he told me he liked it better than homemade chocolate chip cookies. That's pretty big, y'all. *Grin* 

So...although I've shared the recipe before, I thought I'd share it again, given its new status as "Cornbread Hating Yankee Converting Cornbread".  (I've always said it needed a better name than the "Good Cornbread" title that was on the recipe card our friend Diane gave us so many years ago.  Not sure if that's really what I had in mind, though. ;-D)

Here it is...

Diane's "Good Cornbread"

1 c. cornmeal

1/2 t. soda

1/2 t. salt

1 T. sugar

1 egg

1 cup buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients together. (She doesn't, and neither do I :)). Beat one egg and mix with buttermilk. Add to dry

ingredients just before putting in oven, as they will rise in the bowl if prepared too far in

advance.  Add a hunk of bacon grease to the pan, place in oven and heat oven to 450.  Keep pan in oven until grease is smoking. Add batter and bake about 20 minutes. Makes an 8 inch round skillet of cornbread.

A couple of notes...

(1) For more info (and an illustrated tutorial, especially particulars on the bacon grease part), see my guest post on Creative Confetti. 

(2) As I explained in that post, I don't currently have an 8-inch iron skillet, and I can't justify making this in my 8-inch glass pie plate anymore when I do have larger iron skillets.  As any good southern cook knows, cast iron makes anything better (and healthier, which I'm obviously quite concerned about when I post a recipe that begins with "Put a hunk of bacon grease in your pan." Gotta make up for that bacon grease somewhere! ;-))  I made it as written in a 9-inch iron skillet for the guest post tutorial, but I've since discovered that if I double it, it's perfect for my 10.25-inch iron skillet.  I like the thicker version better, for one thing, and for another, the bigger the better at the rate my people go through this stuff! 

Linking up today with Ann Kroeker for Food on Fridays.  Be sure to hop over there to see what foodie stuff others are talking about this week, as well as to check out Ann's blog.  (She's one of my long-time blog inspirations!)

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