Sunday Supper

When I was growing up the meal we ate Sunday evening was called Sunday dinner.  It was a big deal.  Usually it consisted of a roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, asparagus with cheese sauce, hot rolls, iced tea, and some kind of pie for dessert.  I'm lazier than my mother.  I don't want to work that hard on Sunday.  I would rather read, mess around the house, or on rainy Sunday afternoons watch TV with Matt, so the meal we eat on Sunday is called Sunday supper.  We usually have something easy that either is quick to prepare or cooks in the crockpot all day.  Tonight's menu consists of Taco Chili, cornbread, and cherry/peach cobbler.

The Taco Chili I already had in the freezer.  I got it from a wonderful web site called Baked in the South, Crockpot freezer meals part 3.   The only thing I have to add is that I will not use my crockpot without Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners.  It makes clean up so easy.

Probably one of the things that my mother made that I loved the most was cornbread.  When Matt and I were first married, Momma's cornbread recipe was one of the first ones I copied down and started using.  I still have the original that I wrote out almost 30 years ago.  I've used it so much that the bottom half of the card is missing.

The recipe calls for 
1 cup of flour
1tsp. salt
3tsp. baking powder
2 tbl. sugar ( but I only use one, because cornbread in the South is not supposed to be sweet)
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal (you can use white, but I think it looks weird)
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
(yes, I see the 1/4 cup of melted shortening, but I don't put that in the batter)

A crucial part of a making good cornbread is using a well seasoned cast iron skillet.  

This is mine.  I don't know how old it is.  It was Momma's, and it may have even been her momma's.  I guess Wesley and Brett will have to flip for it when I'm pushing up daises.

Now, remember when I said I didn't put the 1/4 cup of melted shortening in the batter?  Well this is what I do with it instead. This is strictly something that Momma taught me to do. Before I start mixing up the ingredients, I pour just enough canola oil in the cold skillet to cover the bottom and put it in a cold oven.  I turn the oven on to 400 degrees and let the oven, the oil, and the skillet all heat together.  If you don't have a cast iron skillet, any oven-proof baking dish will do.

The official recipe calls for mixing the wet ingredients in one bowl and sifting the dry ingredients together in another bowl and then adding the wet to the dry.  That's too many steps and too many bowls for me.  My method is called "Everyone in the pool together".

When oven has heated to 400 degrees, I leave the skillet in for about 5 more minutes to make sure that the oil is good and hot. Then I take the skillet with the hot oil out of the oven and pour the batter in it.  You should see little bubbles around the edges as the batter hits the hot oil.  This step gives your cornbread a crunchy edge and bottom crust.

Bake the cornbread in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.  It should be golden brown when you take it out.

Now for dessert, the cherry/peach cobbler is just something I make up as I go.  You can use any kind of fruit in any form.  I've used cherry or apple pie filling; I've used canned peaches; and I've used fresh peaches. Today I happen to have a package of frozen peaches and a package of frozen cherries in the freezer, so that's what I'm using.  You can also use any kind of cake mix for the topping.  I've used white cake mix, yellow cake mix, butter pecan cake mix, but wouldn't you know it, today I didn't have any cake mix at all.  I didn't want to go to the store, so I looked around in the pantry to see what I could substitute.  I found a package of Snickerdoodle cookie mix, so I used that.

I put the cherries and peaches in a bowl and tossed them with 1/2 a cup of sugar and 2 tbl. of flour and then transferred them to a pyrex baking dish.  Next, I spread the cookie mix on top of the fruit, and since the snickerdoodle mix had this nifty little packet of cinnamon and sugar, I sprinkled that on top too.  

Finally, I melt a stick of butter and pour that over the top.  I cover it with foil and bake it at 375 degrees for about an hour since the fruit was frozen.  If it was fresh or canned, I bake it about 30 minutes.  When the covered baking time is up, the juices should be bubbling up through the topping.  Then I remove the foil and let it back for another 5-10 minutes to get brown.

Enjoy!