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You may have noticed, by reading my weekly menus, that we frequently have bread with dinner in our house. Yes, we do. Not only are my children big bread eaters, my children are big eaters, period. And given the choice between having them eat more expensive, protein-rich foods (i.e. meat), and more bread, I choose bread. My first choice would be for them to eat large portions, and then seconds, of green leafy vegetables. But, get real -- that ain't happenin'. I'm lucky to get them to finish the greens I put on their plate the first time.
So the real choice is more meat or more bread. I pick more bread. If you remember the food pyramid, grains are where we should get the bulk of our calories, and even if my kids eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and a sandwich for lunch, they still haven't eaten all the grain they should. Even adults only need 5 to 6 ounces of protein a day -- and we get that easily.
The key to making bread a nutritious part of dinner is offering something besides white bread. We frequently have cornbread for dinner and this recipe is a favorite in our house. It's based on a recipe in The Martha Stewart Cookbook, but I altered it to lower the fat and to make it easier to mix and bake. If you are from the south, you may be appalled at the amount of sugar in the recipe (us Yankees like it this way). You could easily remove it, or just cut back to 3 tablespoons. And if you're used to making that cornbread out of the box -- just try this once and I bet you won't go back.
Moist and Delicious Cornbread
1/2 c. butter*
1 1/2 c. milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 c. yellow cornmeal
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. sugar
1 T. baking powder
1 t. salt
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl.
Add milk and stir. The add eggs and stir.
Add cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Stir well.
Pour batter into pan.
Bake for 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Serve warm.
*You can substitute applesauce for half the butter.
And I have also used canned pumpkin with great results
(it turns a light orange color, but the taste is the same).
1/2 c. butter*
1 1/2 c. milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 c. yellow cornmeal
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. sugar
1 T. baking powder
1 t. salt
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl.
Add milk and stir. The add eggs and stir.
Add cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Stir well.
Pour batter into pan.
Bake for 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Serve warm.
*You can substitute applesauce for half the butter.
And I have also used canned pumpkin with great results
(it turns a light orange color, but the taste is the same).
4 comments:
We'll be trying this! We yankees like our cornbread sweet :)
Ever try adding some maple syrup in place of the sugar? It's awesome!
I came on your blog today just for this reason...to dig up some bread recipes. I'm starting to have to do the same thing with my family, put out some good bread at every meal so they don't eat three chicken breasts a piece. Sheesh!
I'll try to dig up some more of our favorite bread recipes to post. I need to branch out a little from white baguettes.
We love bread in our house too!! I'm excited to try this cornbread recipe this week, we are having your white chili sometime this week, so it will go nice with that. Krusteaz used to have a honey cornbread (box) mix that we all loved (sweet enough, not greasy and not too dry), I can't find it anymore so we've been trying different ones, both homemade and box. We've liked none.
Thank you so much for always posting your delicious recipes and menus!
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