Baking with the Boys

Our first Barefoot Bloggers installment for July is Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread chosen by Sabrina and Alexander of Cooking with the Kids.  Apparently, there is some ongoing feud between people who like sweet cornbread and those who think the very idea is blasphemy.  I think the latter folks are generally from the South.  I grew up eating cornbread out of the Jiffy box so I have no dog in this fight.  This is a long way to say that I am open to cornbread of any variety and have no go to recipe.  But I do especially like it with peppers.  So, I was excited to try this version.

So excited that I put it off until the VERY last minute (it is Wednesday night…).  I don’t know what I was thinking but I made this whole process far more complicated than it needed to be.  I planned to make it with some beans and rice for dinner.  Then I decided that, after pasta for lunch, I didn’t need rice and bread for dinner.  So I made some black beans and grilled some fajita spiced vegetables. 

Meanwhile, I also decided that, after my last miserable attempt at making something with cornmeal eggless, I would make these with the eggs.  BUT I wanted to give some to my spouse so came up with bright idea to make half with and half without…on Wednesday night.  Well, of course, as is the case with everything, it took longer than I thought.  Even with rushing around, there was no way to let it rest for 20 minutes as Ina instructs. 

I subbed monterey jack for the cheddar.  I don’t really like cheddar but I am a fan of pepper jack.  I figured it would be a good combo.  I skipped the cheese and scallions on top.  I was too lazy to chop more scallions and too rushed to read the recipe correctly.  I threw all the cheese right into the batter.  I also halved the butter.  There was no way I was using two sticks.  I barely made it through the Tuesdays with Dorie pie last week.   

The regular version.

 The egg free version.  If you can see the specks, I used ground flax seeds in this version.

The end result:  Really really good.  Does NOT need more butter.  I am sure It will be really good when we actually get to eat it with dinner.  Despite flying through the kitchen at warp speed my two cornbreads didn’t make it time for the beans tonight.  After photographing them, I did try both.  I would eat either one.  And will when I defrost them.

Check out everyone else’s cornbreads here.