7.25.2011

INSIDE








Stupid hot. That's all I have to say about this weeks weather. Staying indoors does allow for more cooking, and after the Nashville trip and eating out every single meal, home cooked meals were welcome.


I'm so thrilled our girls enjoy cooking. Now that they are older, it's cute to see how the oldest has started to really understand it and take matters into her own hands. Just this week she made her own French Toast, cheesy scrambled eggs, Caesar salad dressing, homemade marinara and chicken parmesan, and smitten kitchen's lime-yogurt cake with berry sauce. They also helped me with the hoe cakes.

I have to admit that the lime-yogurt cake was good straight out of the oven, but the next day it was inedible. It was tough. Not stale and dry but hard to get a fork through tough. That cake goes into the trash, along with the recipe. The flavor was great but I will just use lime juice and zest in my next sour cream pound cake.

The hoe cakes were the star of the week. We had them as part of our breakfast-for-dinner tradition with a swiss & bacon omelette and fruit. Make sure you get your griddle/pan really, really well preheated because you want the heat to blast that baking powder/soda in the flour & cornmeal mix to give you a really high rise. Just so you know, placing cheesy eggs or a fried egg and a slice of canadian bacon or ham between two hoe cakes makes a delicious breakfast sandwich.














Hoe Cakes
Yield: 14 (4-inch) cakes

1/2 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup self-rising white or yellow cornmeal mix
1 egg
1/2-1 Tbsp. sugar or agave
1/4-1/3 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. oil or melted butter
Melted butter (for griddle)

Preheat the griddle to 375. Mix together the egg, sugar, buttermilk, water, and oil. Stir in the flour and cornmeal mix until smooth. Add more buttermilk if needed. The batter should look like a thick pancake batter. Melt some butter onto the griddle and place a small ice cream scoop of the hoe cake batter onto the griddle (about 1/4 cup or less). These should be about 3-4 inches in diameter. Cook for about 2-4 minutes on each side or until you start to see lots of bubbles form inside the hoe cake. Flip and cook for another 2-4 minutes. These should be crispy-crunchy and golden brown on both sides like a piece of toast. Serve with melted butter and maple syrup or with tomato marmalade and crumbled bacon or with whatever floats your boat.

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