Cornbread Supper

Bitter outside, packed and sweet inside: that was January 10, 2011. One of the largest suppers ever filled 250 Campsie with standing diners, and sent seated ones most of the way up the front hall steps. Fun! Some of what we enjoyed, from the food description slips left behind:  Chili Meat + Cashews Reed Valley Applesauce canned with love Chicken Veggie Soup Potato Salad Guac: cilantro, onion, tom, lil heat Spicy Rice: Veggie friendly Liver Paté Rice and Jerk Chicken Pimiento Cheese  Apples, Cinnamon, Butter, Maple Syrup Mushroom Bean Deer Sausage Chili Broccoli Cauliflower Peanut Salad SPICY Pumpkin Enchilada Casserole with Green Chili Cilantro Salsa; vegetarian, gluten-free Bacon-Cheddar Cornbread Pudding. no gluten Black Bean Brownies On January 17, after a wonderful MLK Day -- one of Lexington's best days each year -- about 35 people gathered, many of them people who cannot come regularly on Monday nights because of classes or other activities that were not...

The reddest of red soups. The greenest of green salads. The sweetest of sweets on the dessert table. And underlying everything, plenty of cornbread. That's how Cornbread Suppers went during the 2010 year-end holidays. Smaller crowds in late December, followed by a whopper supper to launch the brand new baby year, 2011. For December 20, we had these left-behind food description slips: Baked Artichoke Dip; contains dairy Roasted Potato; herbs, some heat Hummus Baba ghanouj Local turnips, sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, carrot; Oliva Bella oil; Exotic rosemary, salt, pepper Chicken pot pie Turnip greens + onions + peppers Kentucky traditional black skillet cornbread Linda Blackford's Green Tomato Pickle from the London Ferrell Garden, and from her great-grandmother's recipe Snappy vegetables Meyer Lemon/Almond Brittle David Lebovitz's Chocolate Crack Cookies (almondy goodness) Homemade chocolate and peanut marshmallow fudge Banana nut cookies; ginger ...

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,...