The best Cornbread

The Best CornBread

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup sour cream
3 Tbsp oil
2 eggs


Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl & then add the wet ingredients. Mix well & pour into a greased & floured 8x8 pan. (sometimes I am lazy and just grease it) Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until the top is golden, & firm, with no jiggles

Chocolate Torte

We recently had a couple of friends over for dinner. For dessert, I made a chocolate cake in a 9"x13" pan using an organic cake mix from Whole Foods. To my chagrin, the cake didn't rise. (I'm not sure why; maybe organic cakes aren't supposed to. Next time I'll stick with Duncan Hines.) So I cut the cake into thirds and stacked the pieces to make a triple layer tort. I made frosting from 1/3 cup butter, powdered sugar, a little milk, and a melted Ghirardelli 60% cocoa bar. My presentation distracted from the leavening failure, and our guests were very impressed.

Greg's artistic photograph of dessert, complete with cow pepper shaker

Crepes, anyone?

I made crepes for Greg's birthday breakfast, stuffed with clementine oranges, strawberries, and bananas. I used Alton Brown's recipe (ingredients below), but I like Mom's Swedish Pancakes recipe better. Brown says to let the batter rest in the fridge for 1 hour to let the bubbles subside. He says this makes the crepes less likely to tear when turning them.

Alton Brown's Crepes

• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup flour
• 3 tablespoons melted butter