Breaking Up

 After what she said to me

The salt was in the wound.

 

If I erased her from my mind

It would not be too soon.

 

She scorched me with her fiery tongue,

Laid waste with her blue eyes.

 

Those eyes which once in wonder seen,

I’ve now come to despise.

 

It’s not enough to say we’re through,

Much deeper goes the sword.

 

Cutting like Excalibur

Was every scabrous word.

 

But, she did smile in her goodbye,

And softer did she sound.

 

Perhaps she did not mean for me

To find a lake and drown.

 

I know I should not sit and dwell,

My mind is far too active.

 

Perhaps I’ll consider her best friend,

Whom I also find attractive.

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Rosemary-Maple Cornbread Muffin from The Careless Cook

 

Had enough of cornbread?  Maybe tired of muffins?  Let’s not dwell on silly notions!  Wipe away the drool and let’s tackle another simple and simply wonderful use for cornmeal.

 

With this recipe, the toughest job you’ll have is sliding the pans in the oven.  I take that back.  The toughest job is keeping the hungry hands from grabbing every last one before you get out of the kitchen.

 

I don’t want to scare you, but if word gets around that you baked for some and didn’t invite some….well…you’re on your own.  If I invite ten, I make two times that, so when some whiner beats on my door, I say:  “You didn’t get the email???  Gosh, I wondered, and I saved you some muffins.  Just sorry we’re out of Irish Coffee and just finished the last bottle of a rare and addictive brandy.  Will instant decaf do?”

 

Just lately, I baked these lightly sweetened buns for a group of older ladies in attendance at my wife’s weekly Bible Study class. I bake something different weekly and it seems attendance is constantly going up.  Probably coincidence.  Although I have heard words to the effect of “And bless the baker.” 

 

I baked a double batch for the ladies, just in case every Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John happened to stick his head in the classroom door.

 

 

Rosemary-Maple Cornbread Muffin from The Careless Cook

 

Ingredients

Heat Oven to 350ºF or 180ºC

Grease or spray a 12 pocket muffin tin

 

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt (I use sea salt)

2 heaping tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary

¾ cup milk (I used coconut milk from the milk aisle, not the canned) 

1 egg

2/3 cup maple syrup

½ cup vegetable oil (I used canola)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

 

Puttin’ It Together

 

 Large bowl. Mix the dry ingredients, cornmeal though rosemary. Stir.

In a separate large bowl, mix all the wet ingredients including the egg. I used an electric hand mixer.

 

With the mixer running, mix about a third of the dry ingredients at a time in the wet ingredients. 

 

The mixture will be loose, but not watery.  I used a 1/3 cup measuring cup to fill each muffin pocket about ¾ full.

 

Slide the muffin pan into the preheated oven.  Bake about 18-20 minutes, depending on your oven.  I use the “stick the knife in the muffin” technique to test for doneness.  The knife blade should come out cleanly.

 

I like to wait about 10-15 minutes before I take the muffins out of the muffin tin.  But, don’t wait too long.  Hot is best and besides you don’t want men, women, and children crowding the cook.

 

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Love and Lust

 

Lust crept in with tiger claws

 when I was in my youth.

Simple and uncomplicated, 

yet lacking shades of truth.

Love ignores lust’s clumsy growl

and saunters on soft paws

But youth bends rules and common sense

and fast embraces claws. 

Lust and love, such  different strains,

yet often are confused,  

And when they’re paired in youthful minds,

love will likely lose. 

For it’s a sweet and tender rose, 

still growing on and on

While lust has but a measured life

and  falters with the dawn. 

Lust owns pleasures

brightly glowing, 

While love creeps up

without your knowing, 

But if I dare

to tell the truth,  

I greatly miss

the claws of youth.

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Cornbread Muffins: When Cornbread isn’t Just Cornbread

  

I’m a southerner by birth and by God and my parents were the same, so meals meant cornbread, not just bread.  I know times have changed and so many southerners these days are from O-hi-ya or New-Yark.  Good for them, but just don’t let the newcomers complain about grits or cornbread!  That would cause more commotions than a sign offering Free Beer. 

 

And as you may know, those two, grits and cornbread, are first cousins, coming from the same stalks in a field of corn.  You blanch the skin off the kernels, dry them, grind them until they are as fine as you want, then you either make them sloppy with water (grits), or less sloppy, add a few more ingredients and bake them in the oven. Presto!  Cornbread.

 

Lately, diversity has become a touchstone word and I’m here to tell you cornbread can be as diverse as you want it.  Sometimes just cornmeal, sometime wheat-flour added, often with eggs or not, and anything else your fiery southern mind takes a hankering to toss in.  Not yet a southerner?  Well, find one and make a friend.  We’re friendly folk!

 

Finally, say my so-called friends, ”Are you finally going to get to making Cornbread Muffins?”  As they say in the deepest and dearest parts of the south, “Uh-Hu Honey.”

 

I started with a recipe on the back of a box of cornmeal, but as I often say, a recipe is just a suggestion, like an artist’s virgin canvas and pallet sitting on an easel, on a sunny day, overlooking a beautiful landscape.  The recipe is meant to give you the urge. What you smear on the canvas is up to the artist.  Hey, that’s you!

In another southern tradition, I was baking for a Sunday School room full of older Baptist ladies. I made a double recipe, cause those gals can eat and so can the preachers and anyone else who’s walking the halls. 

 

“Will you once and for all get back to the recipe???”  Ok!  Yes!  Amen!

 

To start

 

Heat the oven to 400ºF or 200ºC

Grease a 12 hole muffin pan

 

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cups cornmeal

1 tablespoon sugar (the ladies are watching their sugar intake)

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup skim milk (I used a cup of coconut milk from the grocery store’s milk aisle to keep the cholesterol down. The canned stuff is too thick.)

¼ cup vegetable oil

1-2 beaten eggs  (I used three eggs for the double recipe.  Fluffier.)

¼ cup Italian seasoning, or more

1 cup grated cheddar cheese, or more

½ can of corn, strained, rinsed

 

Puttin’ It te-gether

 

Use a large bowl for all the dry ingredients, including the corn, Italian seasoning, and cheese.  Stir well.  

 

In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients, including the egg (s).  Mix very well and add to the dry ingredients a third at a time.  I used a handheld electric mixer.

 

The “dough” will be thin, but not watery.

 

Spoon the dough into the muffin tins.  Using a half-cup measuring cup worked for me.

 

Bake for about 15-17 minutes. Test by poking with a knife.  If it comes out clean, the muffins are done.  Wait too long to take them out and they’re going to be too dry.

 

These muffins are good anytime, breakfast (split, buttered and toasted), lunch, dinner, or whenever you have a sack of ‘em, and find your southern drawl is making people stare and beg for some. 

Caution:  Baptists steal shamelessly when food is involved. They also beg.

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