Soup Beans And Cornbread

This title can mean different things depending upon where you live or were raised.  Since I grew up in the North, about 75 miles south of Pittsburgh, soup beans were white (navy in our house) and for my East Tennessee wife they were brown (pintos) and our cornbread was yellow while hers was white.  So the other day when Bev said she wanted beans, I was sure it meant pintos, but after a look in the pantry, she surprisingly decided on a mix of navy and great northern beans (we didn't have enough pintos and we're still trying to reduce our inventory in the pantry).

For me, regular cornbread is only good hot out of the oven smothered in butter or beans, but Mary’s recipe, from One Perfect Bite, for bacon and onion cornbread muffins sounded like it would be even good leftover, so it was the choice for this meal.

After an hour soak, we put the beans on about noon with some smoked ham hocks and minced garlic that had been cooking in water for the same hour, and let them cook until 6pm.  Bev made the cornbread using the inspiration from Mary’s recipe but used what we had on hand so her recipe became the following (remember, she’s the real cook in this family and pancakes is as close as I get to baking):

Ingredients:

6 thick slices of Benton’s smoked bacon, already cooked and crumbled

½ cup finely chopped onion

1 2/3 cup White Lily Cornmeal Mix

1 teaspoon baking powder (for additional raising)

2 large eggs

½ stick salted butter, melted and cooled

1¼ cups plain Greek yogurt (used due to not enough sour cream)

¼ sour cream

¼ cup milk 

Directions:

1) Melt 1 tbsp of bacon grease in a skillet, add onions, and cook over moderately low heat until softened and translucent (or leave 1 tbsp of grease in skillet if bacon is freshly fried).

2) Sift cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.

3) In another bowl whisk together eggs, butter, yogurt, sour cream, and milk, stir in the bacon, onion and the cornmeal mixture, and beat batter well. Divide batter among 12 well-buttered standard muffin cups and bake muffins in middle of a preheated 425-degree F oven for 20 minutes, or until they are golden.  Rather than well-buttered, Bev used bacon grease in the muffin tin wells.

4) Turn the muffins out onto a rack and let them cool. Yield: 12 muffins (Ours made 18 smaller muffins). 

Bev added no addition salt since she used salted butter and pretty salty country style bacon.

First of all, the beans were very good, but the highlight was the muffins, which were delicious.

The first 12 were made as described above and the final 6 had shredded pepper jack cheese added to them.

My meal of three muffins topped with beans and chopped green onion was outstanding.

But the last muffins with the cheese in them were to die for.  After Beverly, my buddy Joe and I ate our fill and sent some home with Joe for his wife, the muffins were gone and one of the things I wanted to find out was if they were still good the next day.  Oh well, guess we’ll just have to make another batch.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Chicken Chow Mein

Two years ago: Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese

Larry

01/12/2012 meal date