Cornbread Supper

Each Cornbread Supper has its own firsts and distinctions. Tonight before Supper began, we found in the front door a gift of homemade flan -- that face-in-the-moon, above, is luscious caramel yummy goodness -- with a container of homemade whipped cream alongside. As if the universe or a kind anonymous friend had listened in to Rona talking over the weekend about flan being her favorite dessert -- and then delivered one in a pretty blue Pyrex pie plate that twins Rona's own. So - we had a mystery donor contributing to a bountiful dessert table, rich with tiny chocolate-frosted, cream-filled eclairs, and Pumpkin-Chocolate-Cranberry-Pecan-Pumpkin Seed COOKIES with Cinnamon frosting, below. On the coldest night for Cornbread Suppers so far this year -- temps around 20 degrees F., ice and snow crunching on Campsie and beyond -- people brought beautiful hearty stews, soups, and chili. Curried Carrot Soup w/Potatoes, dill, etc. Chicken broth Potato Soup Chicken Cacciatore ...

A good crowd came on a cold December night, and we ate heartily. Pinto beans cooked with a Kentucky ham hock, and multiple cornbreads with multiple add-ins - those were the basics. And then: Spring mix, strawberries, grapefruit, feta, walnuts, pomegranate, poppy seed dressing Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Banana Bread w/Pecans Collards & butter nut: tiny bit spicy Beet fries Homemade cheese curds sautéed in a little homemade butter (all KY!), salt, parsley, vegetarian A loaded dessert table, beginning with the peanut butter fudge, above, and including homemade chocolate ice cream with peppermint crush,

It's officially Eggnog Time! Supreme Eggnogster and neighbor Mick Jeffries brought a festive bottle across the street, and the season officially began. Thank you, Mick!   The bounty of Seedleaf greens, mixed with the Clear The Campsie Garden greens meant a huge offering, on top of polenta with homemade feta. And yes, we benefited from post-Turkey-ism, too. This beautiful dark soup was one of two that brilliantly and wisely used the flavors of the big holiday meal to make new, tasty foods. This popular dish of roast root vegetables arrives most Mondays in this season, thanks to faithful Supperian David Elbon. Its usual life span after arrival: about 3.5 minutes. Good foods from November 29 that were noted on left-behind Food Description Slips: Autumn Potatoes: Red and purple potatoes, herb & garlic infused cream & Parmesan on top: Baked Goodness (amen) Sweet Bourbon Corn Pudding Turkey, Basmati, Carrots, Onions, Greens Chunky Cinnamon Applesauce Turkey Soup ...

Cornbread Supper regular (and recipe sleuth) Elise Mandel brought this sweet dish to Supper on November 29, 2010. Here's the recipe. Thank you, Elise! Yum! Preheat oven to 350 and butter an 8 x 8 baking dish. 2 large eggs 3/4 c evap. milk MIX together. ADD all the rest: 2 cups creamed corn (i just used one whole can) 2 cups corn kernels 2 TB melted butter 3 TB brown sugar 3 TB cornstarch mixed w/ 2TB bourbon l/2 tsp nutmeg dash ground white pepper (Cajun spice) Bake 45 - 48 minutes or until lightly browned.  Serve warm.

With wonderful local milk, we sometimes make Butterscotch Pudding for Cornbread Suppers. David Lebovitz, former pastry chef at Chez Panisse and presently a cookbook author and food writer who lives in Paris (the one in France), developed and published  this Butterscotch Pudding recipe . You can cook the Lebovitz recipe just as printed and have good success. Here are ways we have tweaked it: 1. I have doubled and (almost unheard of) quintupled this recipe, cooking it in a slow cooker to avoid all the stirring. I do stir a lot, but I know it won't burn, at least. The end result is usually lumpy and weird in texture, and then it become silky smooth after I blend it for about 30 seconds (in batches) in my blender. Awesome. 2. As written, the recipe is unnecessarily sweet. Cut the brown sugar to a rounded 1/2 cup, and it seems wonderfully balanced. 3. For flavorings, lots of options. We have replaced the whiskey with vanilla. We have used two teaspoons each of Bourbon, dark rum,...

It isn't all cornbread at Cornbread Suppers. People make excellent homemade breads, bring beautiful bakery loaves, and honor the wheat impulse in all manner of ways. With the mostly warm fall, our heritage rose (Rona's grandmother's polyanthus type, name unknown) keeps on supplying beauty for our gatherings. And about wheat -- semolina, in fact -- the arrival of friends from Lexington Pasta Company carrying a bounty of their signature fresh pasta typically causes an all-ages rush to the table. Things get hectic around the Cornbread Supper table at about 6:15 PM, as the crowd arrives, many bearing hot dishes and needing trivets and ladles and scoops and so on - so sometimes the bearers never get to the little slips of paper and pens to complete their little Food Description Slips. But your documentarian enjoys those that are completed and left behind, and also enjoys sharing them, usually verbatim, with you. From this week: Venison Chipotle Beans Chelb (Czech) P...

Again. Two separate weeks' precious little Food Description Slips, dropped and commingled. Bad bad documentarian! So - one post for two weeks. Lots of people come to Cornbread Supper these days. On November 8, despite the date, perhaps 20 people sat on the front porch during Supper. Not so on chillier November 15, when people stayed indoors, filled all the chairs, some of the stairs, and sometimes sat in the floor, seeming to have a lively fine time no matter what. Certainly their hosts and documentarian are enjoying these fine groups. Foods have been hearty and beautiful. The cornbreads have been not quite bountiful enough, and that's about to change with a renewed commitment to Plenty of the Main Thing Going Forward. Looking backward one more time, here are the contents of the Food Description Slips, two weeks mixed together: Black Pepper-Parmesan Cornbread - vegetarian, no gluten Roasted local turnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, and sage; olive oil from...