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
Since you have been in pursuit of perfect cornbread for quite some time- you would love to have seen me make “hot water” corn-bread, I remembered tasting it as a kid and thinking it was the best. As an adult a few years ago, maybe 2, I commenced to making the best corn bread batter I could and boiled that pot of water and to my dismay when I dropped the cornbread batter into the water it totally dissapated. I have never seen cornbread the same since!=)
Hi, Carol — I have been meaning to write you re your pursuit of cornbread perfection, and also your love of “the little blue box.” Listen, I’m a cornbread evangelical — for people who love to bake and are in pursuit of the sweet life, nothing but nothing is easier and more satisfying than homemade from scratch cornbread. I’m enough of a fanatic on this that I actually wrote a book, The Cornbread Gospels (you can check it on amazon, and okay, it does have muffins and stuff to go with cornbread). My publisher has been kind abt sending review copies out if I grovel a little and plead the case of particular food bloggers. Honey, I think you NEED this book. I’ll have ‘em send you one if you e me your snailmail address. I’m at crescentATdragonwagonDOTcom. Meanwhile, thanks for sharing your life and the fruits of your oven with us! CD