FRIENDS & CORNBREAD.
Slowly but surely, we are starting to make friends! Going to the farmer’s market and visiting some local-food-type places around town has helped us to meet like-minded folks around Danville…even some young farmers! We were invited by these new friends to an AG LEGACY pot luck tomorrow….meeting with other farmers, young and old, to talk about what we do, sharing ideas and information, and connecting. Exciting! We are taking a bottle of Jesse’s wine and some cornbread muffins that I am currently baking. They are smelling prettydelicious, and so I thought I’d share the recipe. I know it is quick and easy to buy that Jiffy cornbread box, but it is truly SO simple to make it yourself….and way better for you. Promise.And as a BONUS, last year at Bugtussle, Jesse fermented garlic scapes and some habeneros early in the season. The result was a sort of spicy, garlicy, hot sauce wine that we have been using to flavor our food. I mixed some of that in with the cornbread and it is DELICIOUS – a very slight kick. Obviously, if you want to make some of the garlic scape stuff, it is going to take a couple weeks or so for it to get really good and fermented. But adding spice to cornbread is always a good idea in my book..
HANNAH’S SPICY CORNBREAD(makes about 25 corn muffins, or 2 pans of cornbread)ingredients:
- 2 ¼ cups corn meal
- 2 ¼ cups flour
- 5 tbsp honey (or sugar, if that floats your boat)
- 3 tbsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 ½ cups sour milk or yogurt (SOUR MILK MAKES AWESOME BAKED GOODS)
- 10 oz butter or lard (I used half butter and half lard), melted
- 2 eggs, slightly beaten
- 1 cup garlic scape hot stuff (optional, just add another cup of milk if you don’t want to use hot sauce)
Mix all your dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the butter, eggs and milk as you stir. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees.
JESSE’S FERMENTED GARLIC SCAPE SALSA(makes half a gallon)ingredients:
- 1 lb garlic scapes, chopped
- ½ cup salt
- ½ gallon water (or enough to cover the scapes)
Stir the salt into the water. Put the scapes in a glass jar. Pour the water into the jar until they are completely covered, leaving a few inches of space between top of the jar.Let sit for three days in a cool, dark space, making sure the scapes stay submerged. Bubbling and ocassional foam is a GOOD thing! Put lid on jar losely and over the next few days, make sure and unscrew lid enough to relieve pressure in jar. Let sit for a couple weeks in fridge or cellar, until fresh hot peppers are available. Add several hot peppers—at least 5, but as many as you want––and let sit for additional week. Blend together and put in clean jar, still making sure solids are submerged. Serve and ENJOY!
