Mom Win or Mom Fail - You Decide

After a night of fun at Urban Grub and over sleeping this morning, I realized there was no way to get everyone ready, lunches packed, kids to camp and me to my hair appointment in a timely manner.  Whats a mom to do?  Did I mention the two peach bellinis I had last night or the fact that I got home at 12:30 am?  Thank goodness there is a Subway on the way to camp.  Mom fail or mom of the year?   You  decide. Luckily the kids are voting me mom of the year and that is all that matters.

Cornbread - the real Staff of Life

Last night was a Pinterest kinda night.  I've made these recipes before but thought I would share with you.  If you are like me  you are always looking for new recipes to add to your repertoire.  I give you Irish Stew with Mashed Potatoes and Firehouse Cornbread. 

Cornbread is a funny thing.  I grew up on beans, cornbread, mashed potatoes, traditional Southern foods.  Mama's cornbread was simple and dry.  Eggs, buttermilk, corn meal, bacon grease.  That's it.  It was mixed and poured into a cast iron skillet that was only used for that sacred bread.  I ate it each night (literally) covered with mounds of butter in an effort to moisten it.  Though my mama was an amazing cook and I rarely turned anything down she made, I longed for the sweet moist cornbread served at school.  This may explain why, as an adult, despite mastering most of what she made for us (and more), I cannot master her cornbread recipe and have been for years on the search for the perfect cornbread.  This one is close, friends.  Very close.

Oh!  If you know me, you know that I often adjust recipes to suit my needs.  With that said, the Irish Stew recipe is perfect as is.   I changed Bisquick to Pamela's Baking Mix in the Cornbread and I reduced the sugar from 1/2 cup to 1/8.  Future recipes I'll only reduce it to 1/4.  It needed just a little more sweetness! 

“Her corn-cake, in all its varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins and other species too numerous to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1852)

Back to Basics

Do you ever just want something really simple?  Or, want your life to be really simple?  I do.  A lot!  When I woke up yesterday and contemplated what I would be bringing to the dinner table for my family, simple and homestyle was what I wanted.  So, I took out my trusty crockpot and poured in two bags of dried pinto beans.   I added a little salt (to your preference) and two tablespoons of bacon grease (yes, I said it) and turned the crock pot on low for 10 hours.  When we arrived home last night I made a 8x8 pan of cornbread and voila, simple and homestyle just like that.  

"What most moved him was a certain meal on beans." - Robert Browning