Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Great use for cornmeal!!


I don't know about you but I LOVE anything made with cornmeal!

I really enjoy eating pizza where they have sprinkled the pan they cook the pizza on with cornmeal, or cornmeal on top of hamburger buns. There's just something about biting into the crunchy cornmeal
coating...
Yummy!



I really enjoy cooking from staple ingredients and
cornmeal is definitely
a staple ingredient in our house!

With all of the soups and bean dishes we make up Cornbread is delicious and so I alternate by making up either corn bread or any of my other homemade breads. (click here for Cornbread recipe AND Split Pea Soup recipe)


Until this year, I have only ever used cornmeal to make CORN BREAD, however we received a delicious recipe for Cornmeal Pancakes from some great friends of our family! We made them up one weekend and they were a great hit with our kids! However, we realized that we needed to cut the recipe in half since it made more pancakes than our family of four could eat for one breakfast and so we adjusted the recipe and also added an extra egg to the batter since we have chickens and it's always nice to use our Farm Fresh Eggs (since they are plentiful at our house) and we added in vanilla to the recipe as well.
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Last Tuesday, I had just gotten home from work and starting cooking up some split peas and then the power went out for the rest of the afternoon. Thank goodness my gas range still worked even though the power was off, but since the power was off all afternoon, it meant I couldn't bake up any bread to go with our Split Pea Soup.


When Tracy got home he whipped up a batch of "Cornmeal pancakes" and we spread some butter on them and folded them in half and ate them with our Split Pea Soup and they were delicious!
********
I often times think about the Pioneers and how they must have ate and compromised with things and I'm sure they would have thought this meal was delicious!
Once again my kids never complained, but commented how yummy it was! Oh, and after dinner Ethan asked me if we had any leftover pancakes so he could take a PB and J sandwich
to school for lunch the next day!

He thinks they are great and loves it on Monday when we have leftover pancakes from the weekend because that is what he wants in his lunch...
Pancake Sandwiches!
(I would love to be a fly on the wall when my kids open their lunches at school and wonder what people are thinking). (wink)
**********
I sure love and appreciate
my "easy to please" kids
and my hubby
who always pitches in and helps out
when things haven't gone well
with my afternoons!

How VERY lucky I am!

Cornmeal Pancakes
1 cup
yellow cornmeal

1/2 cup
flour

1/2 Tbsp
sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp
baking soda

1/2 tsp
baking powder

1 cup
buttermilk

1/4 cup
milk

1/8 cup
vegetable oil

2
eggs

1 tsp
vanilla

Combine
the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
Add the buttermilk, milk, oil, and eggs and stir until all ingredients are incorporated. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes.
Heat a griddle or large frying pan to medium hot and oil lightly.
Use a ¼ cup measuring cup to ladle the batter onto the griddle.
Cook until bubbles form on the surface;
turn to brown the second side. Serve with butter, syrup or jam!
Enjoy!!

7 comments:

CB said...

Pancake sandwiches - That is a great idea - that could be a new fad!! Cool :D

I have never cooked with much cornmeal although I do have to say that I have made cornbread with cornmeal and it was good. I also love the crunchiness or the grittiness when you eat it.

Sondra said...

I recently added cornmeal to my food storage. I saw some recipes to make your own hamburger buns/hotdog buns and french bread. They used cornmeal on the bottomof the loaves. I would like to start making my own too - so I got some cornmeal for my storage.

I excited to try the pancakes. A very interesting idea.

Pancake sandwiches makes me laugh. When we were little, we did the same thing - but not at school.. We were too cool - LOL.. I'd like to be a fly on the wall too!

Small House said...

You have no idea how excited I am about this! I love cornmeal. I like to put syrup over the top of mine. Well....my Relief Society counselors were talking about how cheap a large bucket of cornmeal was at Walmart. And what a great food storage item to have. I didn't think we would be able to use it up very fast. But...wanted a bucket of it. (rambling) ANYWAY...Now I'm picking up a bucket this weekend. You saved the DAY!

Have a great day.
Sandra

Ann Marie said...

You always go to alot of work to show your recipes on your blog.. They are appreciated!!

I hope I can get through the rest of this crazy-busy week and get back to blogging! I didn't get on very much yesterday and I missed it!!

wileyfamilyof5 said...

These sound fabuleous I amd so glad I found your blog. Come by for avisit sometime. Did you grind your own cornmeal?

JENNIFRO said...

This is AWESOME! I kid you not at least twice a week I look into my pantry at the cornmeal and think I should throw that away....I have no idea what to do with it. Now I know! Thanks for the recipe I am for sure going to try it...the soup looks REALLY good too!

Thanks so much for your nice, nice comments. I love hearing from you...you are so positive and refreshing. THANK YOU! Do you have your own chickens?? So cool if so! I'm going to add you to my sidebar if you don't mind. ; )

JENNIFRO said...

Whoa! I've just been reading your old posts...and your blog is a cooking goldmine! Seriously I can learn so much from you. Mostly with the broths, soups, roast, ideas etc. VERY good stuff!