Day 3: Enjoying the Bounties of Someone Else's Pantry

Today I was invited to join some friends for a chili dinner.  When the cook heard about my blog, he laughed and said that that was how he decided what to put in the pot. He scrounged around in his refrigerator and pantry and added the things that needed to be used up. The end result was a delicious turkey chili loaded with beans and vegetables.

My contribution to dinner was Double-Corn Cornbread, a recipe from one of my favorite cooking sites, http://www.cookscountry.com/.  

The recipe calls for 1 cup of sour cream and I was out. Since it was raining and I wasn't in the mood to go to the grocery store (what can I say, I live in Southern California!), I decided to make-do with what I could find in my fridge. I will frequently use yogurt as a substitute for sour cream in cooking but was out of that too. So I combined half a cup of mayonnaise with half a cup of cream cheese. While not quite as sour as sour cream, the texture and fat content was about equivalent and seemed to work out just fine.

To round out the meal, The Geek made bananas flambé, a delicious concoction of sugar, butter, three types of alcohol, and lemon and orange zest  and juice reduced to a tangy, flavorful sauce in which bananas are then simmered. For a guy who is "not licensed to cook indoors," he knows how to finish out a meal.

Busy Mom Modifications and Tips

• As I mentioned above, I substituted 1/2 cup Mayo + 1/2 c cream cheese for the sour cream.
• I was running late for dinner and so I decided to take a shower while the cornbread was baking. Unfortunately, the bread over-baked in the fifteen minutes I was away. (The recipe lists 25 minutes as the baking time.) You'll definitely want to keep an eye on this the first few times you make it.
• The cornbread turned out a bit dry and crumbly. While it could have been because I baked it too long, I suspect I also stirred it too much. Cornbread is a "quick bread" and like muffin batter, should only be mixed until the ingredients are just combined.This recipe calls for two rounds of stirring. Next time I will fold in the wet ingredients until they are just barely mixed and then swirl in (as opposed to mixing in) the melted butter.

The Results

Depending on where you live, cornbread recipes tend to be sweet or savory. This recipe falls right in the middle - just a hint of sweetness while being hearty. Dryness aside, the flavor of the cornbread was delicious. Very flavorful and "corn-y." The dry, crumbly texture worked to our advantage when we crumbled it into the chili.

Ratings

• Crowd Comments: Everyone said the cornbread was good, that it went well with the chili
• I rate this medium difficulty because it requires a practiced eye for determining when you have mixed enough and it is easy to over-bake. The recipe also calls for a food processor.
• Time to prepare: 35 minutes plus 20 minutes of cooling time.
• Prognosis: Not sure it's worth the effort; will give it one more try

My Shopping List

Nothing - I made do with what I had on hand.

The Tally

The day's tally: $0
Total this week so far: $7.77