Sunday, December 05, 2010

Thanksgiving - sans pictures

What did I make for our Thanksgiving potluck the Saturday after other than the aforementioned ridiculously delicious chunky apple cranberry sauce?

Well after taking over SM's and AB's kitchen since they have an oven and I don't (although my hatred of electric stovetops has been renewed), I made some gravy which we ate with mashed potatoes, some brown butter caramelized butternut squash (yum!), some pumpkin pie pops (which I left at AB's apartment because they were pretty awful), super-easy pumpkin cinnamon rolls (which, by the way were a perfect alternative to pumpkin pie) and Dovetail's (NYC) cornbread. JP and I went to Dovetail for my birthday one year and I was ridiculously sick and didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to, but the one thing I do remember really liking was the cornbread. Sorry, I failed at pictures but trust me, its really really really ridiculously good - try it next time.

Sweet Cornbread
adapted from Dovetail (with some help from Homesick Texan)

3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup coarse cornmeal (I think I used regular...it worked pretty well)
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks cold, cubed butter
1/2 cup grated cheddar (optional)
1 cup buttermilk + 1/2 cup extra

Preheat oven to 400

Mix all the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into the flour mixture with your hands or a pastry blender until it resembles pea-sized crumbs. Or you can whir it in a food processor if you're really lazy. If you're using cheese, add it now. Add the buttermilk and stir until dough comes together. Mine didn't come together so I added another 1/3 cup about 2 tbsp at a time or so until I got the mix into a ball

Chill for one hour. Roll out into 3/4 inch thickness and cut out desired shapes. I made circles but Dovetail serves them as rectangles

Brush the tops lightly with some more buttermilk (I think this is what gave my cornbread a nice browned top) and bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned

Note: You can cut down the sugar to make them less sweet and also mess around with ingredients like jalapenos or rosemary. Personally, I'd double the amount of cheese next time. Also, don't buy pre-shredded cheese because they toss it with cornstarch or something like that which basically makes it harder to melt the cheese

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