Down Home Cookin’: Ten Recipes

Az the Husband and I have been trying to stick to a budget lately. One of the consequences of this is that I am cooking from scratch a lot more. I used to be a good cook before I had children, but pregnancy exhausts me, and babies interrupt me, and now I manage only the basics.

The good news is that the basics taste pretty good. The bad news is that they are usually NOT good for you. I married a southerner, and southern cooking seems to operate on two assumptions: vegetables can never be too cooked, and anything tastes better with a little bacon fat in it. Nevertheless, here are ten foods that we commonly eat around here, and whose ingredients I can usually find in my kitchen.

1. Cornbread
Like many southerners, Az the Husband is snobbish about cornbread. Real, old-style cornbread is not sweet. That is a Yankee innovation (”You put the sugar in the tea“). You also need a cast-iron skillet to make real cornbread. Here it is.

1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup oil

Preheat oven to 425 F. Grease a cast-iron skillet. Put skillet in the hot oven for five minutes. Mix all ingredients and pour into hot pan. Cook 30 minutes or until golden brown.

We sometimes double this recipe and use the leftover cornbread for the next recipe.

2. Chicken with Cornbread Dressing

Four cups cornbread, two cups chopped apples, and one pound cooked bulk sausage. Mix them together, add a little salt, and put it in a greased casserole dish. The stuffing can get dry easily, so bake it covered, with the chicken, or if separately from the chicken, add 1/2 cup of chicken broth.

3. Buttermilk Pancakes

Our recipe is here. I make this about once a week for the kids. They like theirs with syrup and butter. I like mine with fruit and whipped cream.

4. Onion Pie

Recipe here.

5. Red Beans and Rice

In one pot I start the rice. We usually eat basmati rice, because it is relatively inexpensive while still having flavor (unlike the horrible minute rice you find at Kroger). The surefire way to cook rice is this: Put one cup rice in two cups water. Stir occasionally on high heat until it begins to boil. Then cover the pot and turn off the heat. Leave it completely undisturbed for twenty minutes. Perfect.

While the rice is cooking, I warm up canned red beans in another pot with a little cumin and salt.

In a pan I saute onions and bell peppers over medium high heat. If I feel like meat, too, we add sausage.

Also good with cornbread.

6. Tamale Pot Pie

This recipe comes from Scribbit. Our girls love beans. We give the masses what they want.

7. Chicken with peppers.

Easiest meal possible. I make rice (as described above). I get some frozen boneless chicken out of the freezer, chop some red bell peppers and onions, put them in a baking dish with a tablespoon or two of olive oil and some salt and oregano or thyme, and bake it at 425 for twenty to thirty minutes, stirring once. No need to defrost, and it all comes out tender. Also low fat.

8. Piaz Chicken

Saute four or five onions (chopped) in olive oil with four cinnamon sticks and a 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamon. Add chicken breasts. Remove cinnamon sticks before serving. Serve over rice.

9. Roasted Root Vegetables

I chop potatoes, carrots and parsnips (ooh, I love parsnips) and put them in a baking dish with a tablespoon or so of oil, a little salt, and whatever spices strike me at the time. Bake at 450 F for 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Yummy.

10. Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

This is a heart attack on a plate. It is really only suitable if you plan to spend the day hiking, or if it is your birthday. Or your in-laws are visiting on vacation. Or you had a really bad day the day before. Or your children are too skinny. But that’s it. Otherwise, you should never eat this.

I won’t include a biscuit recipe, though my favorite is Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits from my Kansas Cookbook.

Cook a pound of bulk sausage. Add 1/4 cup of flour and cook for one minute. Gradually add cream or half-n-half or milk (depending on how soon you want to have that heart attack), stirring constantly, until sausage is covered. Cook and stir constantly over medium-low heat until gravy thickens (If it boils or cooks too fast, the gravy will break, and it will be unpleasantly grainy). Serve over biscuits.

There they are, my ten old reliables (well, the one from Scribbit is relatively new). If you survive these, maybe sometime I’ll give you my favorite recipes for dessert.