Lemonade Syrup

Yesterday's Menu- Breakfast: grits with a fried egg, Lunch: Leftovers from dinner, Dinner: Lentil vegetable soup (water with beef bouillon, lentils, onions, peppers, tomatoes), cornbread, salad (romaine lettuce, cucumber, tomato).
I made the lemon curd while my husband made cornbread for dinner. The triple batch of lemon curd used far more eggs than I planned (I don't know why but my brain refuses to acknowledge how many eggs are in a batch) so I only made a triple batch (instead of 2 triple batches). This worked out perfectly though. I got four 8 oz jars and a little leftover for dinner. I canned the jars so I can send one to a friend. The lemon curd was amazing on the cornbread.
I went on to use the remaining lemon juice in Lemonade syrup. I used only 2 cups of sugar since these lemons were rather sweet and 3 cups just seemed excessive. The flavor is great and it made about 1 1/2 quarts (I just poured into to canning jars to store in the fridge). It was still warm so we didn't try it as lemonade but as syrup it is so tasty. It's not thick enough to use on something like pancakes but I was tempted to just drink it out of the bottle. Once again I skipped the zest - all my lemon peel is now nicely frozen for future projects (like lemoncello). I used a pot to make this syrup and even heated the water/sugar mix just a little to make sure all the sugar dissolved.

Lemonade Syrup
3 cups sugar
1 cup boiling water
3 cups fresh lemon juice (about 16 lemons)
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
Measure sugar into 1½ quart bowl. Pour boiling water over sugar and stir until dissolved. Let mixture cool before adding lemon juice and zest. Blend well and store in covered jar in refrigerator. To make lemonade, blend ¼-1/3 cup lemonade syrup with ¾ cup cold water. For a sparkling, fizzy lemonade, use club soda or seltzer in place of water.

Hushpuppies

My husband loves hushpuppies and I just don't make them but I have decided they are worth the effort. These are deep fried in oil but we want to experiment with making them in the abelskiver pan which would reduce the calories and fat but I didn't have enough dough to experiment with when I came up with this recipe.
Normally, hushpuppies are made with baking powder but I was out that day and since I was using yeast for the beignets I thought it would be easy to make them with yeast. The result was awesome.

Hushpuppies
1/3 cup onion, diced
1 cup cornmeal
4 TB flour
1 TB yeast
½ cup buttermilk (whey)
1 TB sugar
¼ teas pepper
Cooking oil
Heat buttermilk to about 100 degrees. Add yeast and sugar and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile add onions, cornmeal, flour and pepper to a medium sized bowl. Add buttermilk. Mix gently until completely wet. Pour oil into cast iron skillet, about 2-3 inches deep. Heat to 375. Form 1 inch patties and cook until golden.

Peaches and Cornbread

This wasn't a perfect experiment but it used the last of my peaches making it difficult to try it again. The taste was really good but the cooking was difficult. However, I thought I'd share the idea for those who want to continue experimenting. I believe my biggest problem was using the entire batch of cornbread, cutting it in half would have saved a lot of headache.
I've shared cornbread recipes before so I won't give you the instructions here - I just used the recipe on the back of the cornmeal bag.

Peaches and cornbread
1 batch of cornbread batter (use recipe on back of cornmeal but double sugar and use 1 stick butter)
Peaches - about 2 pounds frozen
1 cup sugar
2 teas cinnamon

Melt stick of butter in a casserole dish (I used a 9" round dish). Swish butter around pan and pour remaining in cornbread batter. Layer peaches over butter, sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon. Mix in bowl.
Spoon 1/2 of cornbread batter on peaches (full batter was far too much). Bake at 350 for up to an hour.
(I baked this at 450 and it nearly burnt the outside and left the inside doughy so a lower temperature would have faired better.)
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

I know that I usually hold off my experiments until I have them nearly perfected but this recipe was really tasty once I removed the top half of the cornbread. The cornbread absorbs a good deal of peach juice which makes it moist and tasty but the peaches were still moist. This was not a good fruit year here in Washington so there wasn't extra peaches. I may try this with canned fruit and share again. However I loved the idea behind this experiment. Cornbread can easily be made gluten-free and accented the peaches perfectly.

Mini Vegetable Cakes

I have to admit I have no idea where this recipe came from but I was intrigued when I discovered it amongst my recipes. I had originally planned to make this with carrots until I found two cucumber sized zucchinis in the bottom of my basket (I had thought they were cucumbers when I first saw them). I opted to use the entire Jiffy Cornbread box and make these like muffins which came out great. I, also, used pickled beets which weren't bad but I think my son would have liked them better with some other vegetable.

Mini Vegetable Cakes
1 package (8.5 ounces) corn-muffin mix
1 egg white
3 tablespoons water
3/4 cup shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chopped canned beets
2 tablespoons canola oil
Combine half corn-muffin mix with egg white and water. Stir in shredded zucchini and beets. Drop batter by the tablespoon in hot canola oil. Cook 2 minutes; turn and cook 1 to 2 minutes more, until browned.

My version:
1 package corn-muffin mix (Jiffy)
1 egg
2 med. sized zucchini (cucumber sized) shredded
1/2 cup chopped pickled beets
Mix egg into muffin mix. Mix in vegetables. Drop into muffin tins (I use silicone liners in my tins). Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until done.

Corn Dogs

A year ago (or so) my husband bought me a corn dog maker for about $20 at Shopko. I still see these around and highly recommend them. They look like waffle makers with six depressions to make the corn dogs. They are not big enough for a whole hot dog but if you buy the bun size hot dogs and cut them in half - it's about perfect. I have bought regular sized dogs and cut off the excess and then used the little pieces in a corn dog and it worked out fine.
I have noticed that pretty much any corn bread recipe will work. We use the recipe that I shared in an October 2009 post (I'm not savvy enough to know how to link that to here).
You start with oiling the compartments and putting a spoonful of corn bread batter in. You can spread the batter evenly or press a hot dog into the batter to spread it. Top with a little more batter and close the machine. After about 5-6 minutes the corn dogs are cooked. It does take some trial and error to get it right but they are a great treat.
I have even put cake batter in the maker and made a version of "Twinkies". I sliced a line down the cakes and put vanilla frosting in the center and then frosted the top over the split. They tasted great but Chocolate versions get a lot of jokes which made me really not want to do that again.

Xavier's Dutch Oven Contest

My son entered the annual dutch oven contest for the second year this year (it's also the second year of the contest). Last year he did the one pot competition but this year he strove for the 3 pot division.
I promised I would share his recipes - I have shared the cornbread recipe before and it didn't quite work in the dutch oven (sadly costing him a ribbon) but the other two recipes were well received.
Low Country Boil
6 quart Dutch oven
Serves 6
Ingredients
• 8 teaspoons Bay Seasoning (or to taste)
• 12 red new potatoes
• 6 (4-inch) smoked link sausage (good high quality sausages will add better flavor)
• 6 ears corn
• 3 pounds fresh shrimp, peeled (I prefer peeled shrimp but you can use unpeeled for more flavor)
• 4 quarts water
Directions
Add water to Dutch Oven. Add Bay Seasoning and bring to a boil over hot coals. Add potatoes and sausage. Boil for 20 minutes. Add corn and cook for 10 more minutes. Add Shrimp and let cook for 1-2 minutes or until the shrimp is just done. Drain off water and serve.
*note – you can boil the sausages for 10 minutes prior to adding potatoes to give the water more flavor and then boil them 20 minutes.

*We used Andouille sausage which is slightly spicy but held up really well. Cheap sausages will lose their flavor so use a good quality sausage. Also be aware that shrimp shrinks so you want to use a larger size - we used Thai Shrimp which was a good size shrimp. We also ended up using only 2 pounds since it comes in 2 pound bags and it was plenty of shrimp.

Corn Bread
6 quart Dutch Oven
Serves 6
Ingredients
• ½ stick of butter
• 2 cups corn meal
• 2 teas baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups milk
Directions
Melt butter in Dutch Oven. In a bowl, combine corn meal and baking powder. Add eggs and milk. Mix together. Pour most of the melted butter into the batter, leaving a good film on the Dutch Oven. Pour batter into Dutch Oven. Cover with flat lid and top with coals (should have coals top and bottom, want to replicate a 350 – 400 degree oven). Bake 20 minutes or until Corn Bread is firm to the touch and browned.


Peach Caramel Cake
6 quart Dutch Oven
Serves 6
Ingredients
• 1 box White or Yellow Cake Mix
• 1 can of ginger ale
• 1 large can peaches with juice
• 1 cup brown sugar
• Oil
Directions
Lightly oil Dutch Oven. Sprinkle brown sugar around bottom of pot evenly. Top with peaches. Layer on cake mix but do not stir. Pour over ginger ale. You can press down on cake mix to moisten but do not stir. Cover with flat lid and coals. Set on additional coals (you want to replicate about a 400 degree oven). Bake 45 minutes or until cake is firm. Careful not to overcook the bottom.

*We experimented with this recipe in the oven with a regular cake mix and it worked fine. This past weekend I made a version of this with fresh apples instead of canned peaches and the Betty Crocker gluten-free white cake mix. It worked really well - I had to add a little more soda to compensate for the apples not being canned. It had good flavor and texture, even though the Betty Crocker mix is 1/2 a normal cake mix.

Cornbread as a side dish

The hardest part of a gluten free diet is having enough interesting carbs in your meal. A GF diet pretty much ruins pasta (GF pasta is expensive and not very tasty) and reduces bread carbs - stuffings and the like. A lot of our meals center around rice or potatoes and even though we love them they get tiresome. I discovered a cornbread recipe in a Civil War cookbook that doesn't have flour in it. It's a great cornbread - cold or hot.
The recipe as written:
1 TB butter for greasing pan
2 cups corn meal
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1/4 cup oil

Grease 9x9" pan. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Combine flour and baking powder. Add eggs and mix together. Add milk and oil and mix until combined. Pour into pan. Bake 20-25 minutes.

This is easy to make dairy free by using Nucoa and soy milk. What I do is use Nucoa for the oil - I put a little more than half a stick in the pan and melt it in the oven as it preheats. When it is melted I pour most of it into the batter in place of the oil. I am sure that I leave more than a tablespoon in the pan which creates a buttery salty crust on the cornbread.

Last night we used the cornbread as a base for our meal. I fried ground pork and onions in a deep skillet. Added canned tomatoes (I used ones I canned but you can use any kind that you like). I seasoned it with mexican pepper and we served it over the cornbread. The tomatoes were very wet so the sauce soaked into the cornbread. I also ate some bread with Nucoa and jam. The bread is very firm so it would make a great stuffing and it's a quick recipe so you can use it any time.
It did take a little longer than 25 minutes to cook. I am not sure why but remember that the times are estimates so always start with the least amount of time and check it on a regular basis after.