Baking my way through the trials and triumphs of life!

Now that Halloween has passed, we’re officially entrenched in the fall season (whether or not your weather is cooperating).  That means it’s time for soups, chilis, and stews.  And where there’s slurpy food in a bowl, you know you need to bake something warm and mouth-watering alongside it.  And that something is cornbread.

I have been pursuing the perfect cornbread for a little over a decade now.  And I will let you off the hook now and tell you that you’re not going to do better than the thirty-nine-cent-goodness-in-a-Tiffany-blue-colored-box.  That’s right.  Jiffy.

That being said, you can’t just bake it up from the box.  Well, you can.  But you’ll run the risk of it being dry (it’s a wee bit temperamental) and/or boring.  Either of which will result in you just crumbling the cornbread into your soup, chili, or stew and why would you go to the trouble of baking when you can just crack open a box of wheat saltine crackers for a similar effect?

Instead you need to add three things:  frozen corn, shredded jalapeno jack cheese, and a grill seasoning.  Easy as pie.  Actually pie is really, really hard for me.  Easy as crumbling saltine crackers.  Follow the instructions below and enjoy some autumn goodness tonight!

P.S.  Don’t be alarmed by the picture.  It’s my Halloween/Harvest version where I add orange gel food coloring to the milk/egg mixture and then pop half a pretzel rod into the center of the cornbread muffins after they come out of the oven.  Thank you, Family Circle (I think) for the idea!

Autumn Cornbread

Pour one box Jiffy cornbread mix into a medium bowl.  Stir in ½ cup of frozen corn, 1 cup of shredded jalapeno jack cheese, and 1 Tablespoon of grill seasoning (recipe below).  Follow the remaining instructions on the Jiffy package.

Grill Seasoning

This is a lower-salt version of Emeril Lagasse’s Bayou Blast.  Don’t get me wrong:  I love salt.  I just prefer to add it to my dishes separately so I can better control the taste.  Save the extra grill seasoning for grilling (obviously) or any time you need that extra something to spice up your food.

2 ½ Tbsp paprika

2 Tbsp garlic powder

1 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp ground pepper (do it yourself; it’s worth it)

1 Tbsp onion powder

1 Tbsp cayenne pepper

1 Tbsp dried oregano

1 Tbsp dried thyme