Skillet Corn Bread (Page 600)

• Date: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 -- 8pm
• Location: Cutler, Maine
• Kitchen: Somerled House
• Fellow Chef: Matty
• Dining Companions: Brad, Deniz, Wes, Karen H, Dave, Serrana, Nicholas, and Enzo
• Recipe Rating: B
  

I have been wanting to make this cornbread for ages (I love cornbread!) but I couldn't because I don't have a big cast iron pan. However, the vacation house in Somerled that we were in last week did! So I made this cornbread, and some chili to go with it, for dinner one night. This cornbread was good, but not amazing. The texture was spot on: moist and a little bit crumbly on the inside, and just slightly crunchy around the edges. I found the flavor a bit lacking though. I like cornbread to have the wonderful, deep cornmeal flavor. I found this recipe to be a little bland. It made me wonder if it just needed a bit more salt to bring out the flavor of the cornmeal. I wouldn't make this recipe again, but I did eat a bunch of it the next day, warmed up and drizzled with honey, which wasn't bad at all!

Here is the recipe.

As I write this, I am making my first recipe from The Book in my new apartment. It's a chicken. Chicken with forty cloves of garlic actually. I have now been to 4 different grocery stores in Bloomington, carefully examining what can be purchased in each one. The one thing I haven't found so far is a grocery store with a good butcher. But, I did find some nice looking chickens, hence the selection of recipe this evening. My new kitchen is fancier than anywhere I have lived before. I am still marveling at having a dishwasher. I can't decide which I like better: the dishwasher, or the crushed ice dispenser on the door of my refrigerator. Probably the dishwasher is a bigger thing, but I love having my beverages really cold, so I am pretty excited about the ice.

If you walked into my apartment right now, you would find that my priorities are pretty clear: the only room in my apartment that is completely unpacked is the kitchen. There are boxes strewn throughout the rest of the place, but the kitchen is completely clean -- dishes in cupboards, food on shelves -- everything in its place. It's important to be able to cook (and eat)! Speaking of, my oven timer is beeping. My chicken is ready to be eaten!