We attended a party this week in honour of our friend Joe’s birthday, and  had a wonderful time. As is the case for most of our celebrations here in Quartzsite, the menu was pot luck. As we were aware that the main dish would be chili, I decided to bring a pan of home made cornbread. Usually when I go to make this favourite, I use the muffin recipe on the bag of cornmeal. Fortunately, I had jotted down the ingredients list at some moment in the past, as the current bag of meal is a different brand from that I normally use, and does not have this most basic of recipes on it. It is also fortunate that the method is very basic as well: mix dry ingredients and wet in separate bowls, combine, bake.

For this event I wanted to make it a bit special, so in addition to doubling the recipe for a crowd, I substituted a can of creamed corn for an equal amount of liquids and added two ground dried cayenne peppers. Optional additions would be sauteed onions, bell peppers or sausage meat. Or use your imagination to personalise this bread. once all ingredients are combined (by hand – do NOT overmix) I poured the batter into a greased 9X13 inch baking pan and baked it at 425 F for about 40 minutes. Honestly, I don’t know what time my husband took it out of the oven for me, and neither does he. The resulting bread was moist and flavourful, with just a touch of spicy heat. Sorry, no picture of the whole pan…we took it to the party immediately, but I did get a shot of some of the leftovers.