Cornbread.... it's what's for supper!

I am a Southern girl through and through.  There are a number of Southern foods that course through my veins.. turnip greens, biscuits with fresh cane syrup, peach cobbler, chicken and dumplings, butter beans,..... the list goes on and on... and you can be sure that cornbread is a big part of it.

I was not a bit fan of cornbread as a kid. Probably because we had it sooo often. It was my mother's go-to bread.  Yeast rolls were a huge treat and came at restaurants or when we had company over and had roast. Biscuits were at least once a week, but I never grew tired of them.. how can you grow tired of biscuits!

I never remember having sliced bread at the table like so many families did. Nope, mother would throw together a pone of cornbread without thinking.. it was the most natural thing for her. I can close my eyes and see her in our little kitchen mixing it all together and later flipping it in the hot cast iron skillet. Pure Magic!

I married a fella who loves cornbread... would eat it every meal I think!  But I never learned to make it, so for the first 10 years or so of our marriage he got Cornbread muffins from Jiffy Mix. He never complained, but I know he relished those meals at Mother's and in restaurants where there was real cornbread.  After 10 years of marriage and the birth of our 2nd child, I came home and our income took a dive. I started learning to cook from scratch.. the way my mother and grandmother's did.  And I fell in love with it and, I might add, took to it like a duck takes to water. I saw unabashedly that I am a good cook.  You need only look at our waistlines to know that!

One of those from scratch things I learned to make was cornbread and with it came a new found love for it. I was no longer a kid bored with it over and over. I will eat it with a regular meal, but I really love it with soups and stews.  Oh my!  Soooo good!

Last night's supper was one of those meals... I discovered a wonderful easy to make soup / stew online this year.. Hobo Stew.  I love a dish where you toss stuff in a pot, let it cook and voila! You have a yummy meal!  And, of course, there had to be cornbread. It goes perfect with this!

Decided to document the process... phone pictures not perfect. I do not have photo worthy lighting in my kitchen... but they work...

I have no recipe (true to many things I cook)... and while I have lovely vintage Pyrex bowls I use for so many things, I always.. always make cornbread in a Pyrex measuring cup. No idea why since I never measure anything when making it. I just do.  I also have plenty of whisks, spoons, spatulas etc but I always mix it with a fork... my mom mixed hers with a fork... it's a family thing.

I have made cornbread for years in a skillet, but when my husband and his sisters were going through their parents estate, they came across cast iron that had belonged to their grandmother. I ended up with a few pieces including a corn bread stick pan. I had one before but the sticks were skinny and shallow and burned easily. This one is perfect!  Just the right size. And it is now seasoned to perfection! So in the batter goes.


And 20 minutes later out it comes...













Let's flip these babies over and see how they look...

        Ready to dip into some stew!