Corn Bread

In the words of the immortal Jesse "This week I have mostly been eating Cherokee Trail of Tears beans" [this is a reference that only fans of The Fast Show will understand!], so a couple of Mexican  / Texan style dishes have been on the menu. One of them was that pork casserole with chipotle chillies (about which I wrote about the other day), and this absolutely HAD to be accompanied by corn bread, so I made some...

My recipe is adapted from one which appears in the Good Housekeeping Step-by-Step Cookery Book, first published in 1980. (Our well-used copy dates from about then!)

Ingredients:

• 200g fine corn meal (polenta)
• 50g plain flour
• 15ml (3 level tsp) baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 200ml milk
• 60ml (4 tbsp) vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp crushed dried oregano
• 1 large red chilli, de-seeded and finely diced

Method:

Heat the oven to 200C.
Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl:

In another suitable receptacle (I used the jug in which I measured the milk), mix the milk, oil and eggs, and then add them to the dry ingredients. Lightly stir the whole lot until everything is well mixed together, and then pour the mixture into a greased loaf-tin. (Mine was a 26cm one).

Cook for approx 30 mins, or until done (check after 25mins). If a skewer inserted into the bread comes out clean, the bread is done. This is what you get:-

This close-up shows the lovely golden yellow colour of the loaf, with its fine crumbly texture and nicely-distributed little flecks of oregano and chilli.

I don't often bake, so I'm quite proud of that!  It went really well not only with my pork-and-chipotle casserole, but also with a creamy Butternut Squash soup that Jane made. Yummmmmm!

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Here's something else yummy, in the making - my Sloe Gin. It has now reached the colour of a robust Rosé wine.

I invert each bottle every day, to encourage the Sloe juice to seep out.

When it's ready I will need to filter it to remove the cloudiness. I usually use a coffee filter-paper for the task. It won't be ready for that until mid-December, but it's already looking promising...