A classic Southern meal in the old days always included bread. Bread was a great meal stretcher and even the poorest of sharecroppers usually had the ingredients to make it thanks to the staples of 25 pound sack of flour provided by the land owners (look for a quote from my Great Grandmother Lela about this at the bottom of this post). Although I don’t have bread with every supper nowadays, more often than not we do. Here are some of my favorite dinnertime bread recipes, some classic and some new fangled. I hope you’ll find at least one or two new ones to make for those you love.

Drop Biscuits – And How Your Mama Did It Just Right

This is a recipe that is always considered a treat at my house, met with the same zeal as a dessert even though it is just a bread. A variation on my Mama’s hoe cake, she often mixed up the same batter and made drop biscuits instead.

Dixie Cornbread (Go Dawgs!)

This recipe is from friend and Southern Plate Family Member Terri. I have never had cornbread so moist in all of my born days. I feel certain that no small amount of my existance has been wasted up until tasting this.

Jordan Rolls – And why interruptions are the key to my success

This is my personal roll recipe, that I serve whenever an occasion calls for them.

I have GOT to remember to take a better photo next time I make these! This one is from three years ago, taken with my cell phone.

How To Make Buttermilk Biscuits

If you have had problems in the past with your biscuits turning out to be more like hockey pucks than our beloved southern staple, this recipe is the one for you.

Ten Minute Rolls

When you’ve got a family of rumbling stomachs and the meal about to go on the table these rolls come in handy. If you work fast, you can have them ready from start to finish in about ten minutes using ingredients you probably already have on hand.

When I first posted these lots of folks said they served them with butter and honey.

Hoe Cake

This bread is one of my dear favorites and I’d hate to think that some of you have never had it. It is among a list of recipes I love so much that I’d like to ask you to make them as a personal favor to me. My family’s hoe cake uses flour and produces a bread much like buttermilk biscuits in flavor only with a lighter and fluffier texture and crispy outsides.

Seeded Yeast Rolls, Ready From Your Freezer Anytime!

These rolls are absolutely delicious but my favorite part is the seeds. I LOVE wheaty bread with seeds inside, it’s my favorite. For this recipe, you can use what seeds you prefer or the combination I used. Everything is nicer when you customize it to your own tastes.

“Mama always said many a family would have starved to death back

then if not for biscuits and gravy.”

~My Grandmother, Lucille Pockrus, quoting my great grandmother, Lela Sanders.

My Katy Rose (Karo)  loves Chocolate. She especially loves double chocolate anything. The Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies earned me the title of the Best Mother In The Entire World and these muffins brought home a second honorary crown from the taste buds of my kids. After I got back from the Today Show, I was anxious to get up early the very next morning and make them a treat. I dearly love being home with my kids so I can do things like this for them.

Until I was twenty seven, I had never even flown on an airplane. That first time involved a trip to Disney World with two year old Brady, who was our only child at the time. We got airfare super cheap back then, $100 round trip for each of us, so it ended up being cheaper than driving. Ricky was also going for a conference so his portion was paid for along with our hotel room. All that was between me and getting to take my son to Disney for the first time was a little bit of gravity defying courtesy of Huntsville International.

Man was that some flight. I’ve never hidden terror so well. I spent the entire time mentally going over every possible crash scenario and how I would get little Brady out of it alive (Ricky was a big boy, he was on his own). I never dreamed in a million years that flying would become normal to me. Now, after this past year, I am one of those people who get on the plane and settle in for a nap before it even takes off. I’ve only seen a small fraction of the country in my book tour travels but its far more than I ever dreamed of or expected to see in my entire lifetime. I’ve met some wonderful people, gotten and given more hugs than I can count, and found that my theory about the world is true : The world is, by and large, made up of really good people.

But you know the main thing I learned on my travels? I do not have the wanderer’s soul I once thought I did. Hand me a globe and tell me to point out anyplace in the world I’d like to go and I’ll stick that thumbtack right smack dab on North Alabama every time. I used to not be like this. I used to want to see things an go places, but as I’ve grown older I’ve realized that there isn’t a place my heart wants to go unless I can turn and look into the eyes of my family and share it with them.

Call it blessed, call it luck, call it enlightenment, but either way you look at it I fully realize how much fuller my life will be for me having been given a chance to learn this lesson. You may not be able to visit twenty cities in a month like I did, but I bet if you take a moment to think about it, to imagine doing just that, you’ll find your arms aching to hold your family and your appreciation for them all the more greater.

Contentment. I think that is one of the greatest gifts and it is one that you have to give yourself, but it often comes for some people in wistful strains while looking through the rear view mirror. Today I want to urge you to turn around and check out what is right in front of you now. Because what is in your windshield now will surely pass you by, too. Moms, Dads, Grandparents, I know you’re tired. I know you work long days regardless of whether or not you get a paycheck, but these are the days. This is it. They’re eating and making messes and distracting you and dancing and talking nonstop, but before you know it that house will go silent and that refrigerator could be holding just enough food for one.

So take a breath, in and out. Close your eyes. Feel the love around you.

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” ~Frederick Keonig

Now go make ‘em some double chocolate muffins.

You’ll need: Vanilla (not a gallon like I have pictured though), Milk, Chocolate Chips, Margarine, Cocoa Powder, Self Rising Flour, Egg, and Sugar.

I’m using semi sweet chips but you can use any kind you want, really. You can also use butter if the thought of using margarine makes you feel as if you will most certainly go to some horrid place where folks who use hydrogenated oils and such go. Personally, I know a lot of people in that place and I happen to know that if I go there we’re gonna have some fine eatin’!

Place your sugar, flour, and cocoa powder in a bowl.

Don’t worry if your cocoa powder is lumpy, mine was so its in good company

Melt your margarine in the microwave. You can use butter if you prefer.

To the margarine, add your milk, vanilla, and egg and stir that up.

**If your margarine is fresh from the microwave you need to add your milk first so it will cool the margarine on the off chance it is hot enough to cook your egg.

Now pour that into your dry ingredients.

and start stirring…

until it looks like this

Add in your chocolate chips

and stir some more. If it is a little lumpy, thats fine.

You can cook this either in a greased muffin tin or muffin papers. I’m using muffin papers right now. 

Bake at 400 for twenty minutes. Serve them with love.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.

Remember that what you now have was once among the things

you only hoped for.”

~Epicurus, Greek Philosopher

Catch up on Life At Bountiful by reading these posts:

• Wow, That Was An Intensive Interview!
• Christmas Miracles In Alabama
• Family Snapshots From Disney
• Behind The Scenes At The Today Show

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2011/01/double-chocolate-chip-muffins.html/feed 89 http://www.southernplate.com/2010/03/blueberry-muffins-made-with-baking-mix.html http://www.southernplate.com/2010/03/blueberry-muffins-made-with-baking-mix.html#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:12:37 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=7796 Pin it

I was fortunate enough to get to visit Canada a few years back and while there treated to the loveliest vision – my first real live slice of blueberry pie. Until then, I had only seen it on magazine covers and photographs in books. Mama and I used to talk about how good it must be and how we’d like to try it sometime.

We can get blueberries here, of course, but they cost so dear that buying enough to make an entire pie is out of the question – at least I can’t bring myself to do it. So I had my piece of blueberry pie in Ottowa, sitting in a little diner where folks flipped  back and forth between French and English as easily as drawing breath. I sat among them in pure blueberry bliss for every sacred bite. That was my first piece of blueberry pie and I haven’t had a single bite since ~sighs~  but it was delicious.

The world is getting smaller so rapidly that eventually blueberries will be more attainable in my neck of the woods. I’m sure someday I’ll be able to buy enough for a pie without having to mentally calculate my mortgage payment. For now, I can swing muffins thanks to frozen berries. If I were to buy enough fresh blueberries to make these muffins it would have cost me nearly eight dollars, but I picked up more than enough frozen ones for just $2.98 – and a lot less guilt.

So I am bringing you my guilt free blueberry muffins with a time saving twist – they’re made using a baking mix. I have a lot of rabbits in my hat that I pull out with the use of a baking mix, including some bar cookies that are out of this world, but you don’t always hear about using it to make muffins.  I love these because they aren’t too sweet, very filling, and really make the perfect setting to complement juicy blueberries. They’re also awfully pretty. I hope you get to try them, to me they are almost as good as that piece of pie in Ottawa.

You’ll need: Sugar, Baking Mix, Milk, Egg, Vegetable Oil, and Blueberries.

Feel free to use your favorite berry to make this muffin. I want to try a berry medley I found in the freezer section of blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries!

Pour your blueberries in a small bowl.

Pour 1/4 cup of baking mix over them.

and stir.

This will keep them from sinking down into the bottom of your muffins.

Pour remaining baking mix in a large mixing bowl.

We’re using a Pyrex bowl in a pattern called “New Dot”.

Ain’t it purty? There were four in the set, I have three. A yellow one, an orange one, and a blue one, in graduated sizes.

I need the green one to complete but the price of that one makes fresh blueberries look like penny candy.

Add in your egg, milk…

and vegetable oil..

and also your sugar.

Give that a good stir. It will be lumpy and that’s okay.

Sometimes we get lumpy, and that’s okay, too

Pour in your blueberries

baking mix and all.

Gently stir them in.

Spray a muffin pan with cooking spray.

Evenly spoon into each of twelve regular sized muffin cups. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.

~old Chinese proverb

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2010/03/blueberry-muffins-made-with-baking-mix.html/feed 41 http://www.southernplate.com/2010/03/peach-cobbler-muffins.html http://www.southernplate.com/2010/03/peach-cobbler-muffins.html#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:13:12 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=7549 Pin itWant to print out just the recipe and don’t know how? Visit my FAQ page, it’s the first question I answer! I also send out printer friendly versions of many recipes regularly to my email subscribers so subscribe today!

Every now and then I get a hitch in my step to do something and can’t seem to move beyond it til I done did whatever it was I had a hankerin’ to do (that sentence makes a lot more sense if you say it with a Southern accent, honest). Last week I got to thinking about muffins. You see, my mother thinks muffins are the second coming. She’s always looking for a new muffin recipe. Well, I got to thinking that we didn’t really have a be all, end all peach muffin recipe and isn’t that a shame? Of course it is

What would be the perfect peach muffin? Oooh! If it tasted like Mama’s peach cobbler, that would be good. It would have to have big old chunks of peaches and brown sugar, too, with just enough cinnamon to pull it all together.

So next thing you know I went to my personal playground, which is known to some as the kitchen here at Bountiful, and after adding a little of this and a little of that, Peach Cobbler Muffins were born. I called up Daddy, who was in the area working, and had him stop off to take some home to my most honored taste tester: My Mama.

I received the ultimate praise: She asked for the recipe. So I’m sharing it with y’all today, too. Hope you like it as much as we do.

You’ll need: Quick oats, oil, self rising flour*, vanilla, canned peaches, eggs, brown sugar, and cinnamon.

I just noticed that there are two bottles of vanilla in this photograph. ~sighs~ These kinds of things have been happening at my house ever since I was forced to buy a bottle of pure vanilla because the grocery store was out of imitation. There has been a rivalry and I can only assume it led to the pure vanilla jumping into this photograph at the last moment, front and center. Just ignore one of the bottles there, your choice.

*To make your own self rising flour, see my FAQ page.

Drain your peaches really well and pour them in a bowl.

Chop them up coarsely with a knife.

You can used diced peaches if you like but I really like the big ole chunks you make this way!

Add your eggs.

and your oil

Stirry, stirry!

Toss in your vanilla.

I FINALLY finished off that little bottle of pure vanilla.

Sooooooooooooo, Sunday I went to Sam’s Club by myself.

~pauses to marvel at that sentence, having never thought she’d ever say such a thing~

Anyway, I bought the biggest whooptee thing of imitation vanilla I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life. Paid less than four bucks for it, too! No more pure vanilla! I prefer vanilla that just comes right out and says “Hey, I’m not the real thing but I wanna help ya cook anyway and I’ll do my best!”.

I find that pure vanilla tends to put on airs. Pure vanilla wants to be all measured out and used sparingly because it’s “pure”. Imitation just lets you pour it on in there straight from the bottle! We’s jes plain folks here, ain’t got room for snobbiness in my kitchen.

Place brown sugar and flour in a large mixing bowl.

I use light and dark brown sugar interchangeably in my recipes, based on what I have on hand, but I prefer dark sugar.

I have no idea how light brown sugar keeps making it into my pantry but it may have some sort of secret association with pure vanilla…

Add your cinnamon.

Add your oats.

I dearly love oats.

Stir all of that up with a fork.

Pour the dry stuff into the wet stuff.

and stir it up.

I’m not gonna encourage you to eat batter that has raw eggs in it or anything like that, coz I know none of us EVER taste the batter, right?

I’m jes gonna say that if you were to pick up that spoon right there and it happened to have a good glob of that brown sugary batter with a big old peach chunk in it, it sure would be good – or so I’m imagining. ~winks~

Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.

This looks like a mini muffin tin to me for some reason but it’s regular sized…

Fill each cup with batter. This batter doesn’t rise much so you can fill them all the way to the top.

Bake at 400 for about twenty minutes, or until browned lightly on the top. When they come out, let them sit about five minutes and then take a spoon and carefully go around all of the edges before removing them from the pan to cool.

But eat one hot when no one is looking, coz you done worked this hard and you deserve to taste one. Aren’t they perty?

Enjoy every day of your life – THERE IS AN EXPIRATION DATE!

~Submitted by Phaedra. Submit your quote here.

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2010/03/peach-cobbler-muffins.html/feed 111 http://www.southernplate.com/2008/11/pumpkin-spice-muffins-with-streusal.html http://www.southernplate.com/2008/11/pumpkin-spice-muffins-with-streusal.html#comments Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:03:00 +0000 Christy Jordan http://southernplate.wordpress.com/?p=157 Pin it

I don’t know if pumpkin is a southern thing. You always hear of pumpkin pie on Southern tables at Thanksgiving and such, but no one in my family has ever made a pumpkin pie to my knowledge. I had never tasted anything at all with pumpkin until about three years ago. While on a quilting retreat, we were served these delicious spice muffins and I just had to have the recipe. Imagine my surprise (and Mama’s) when we found out they were pumpkin!

You see, Mama had always claimed to dislike anything pumpkin. She had tried pumpkin pie as a child and whenever we asked about it she would just shake her head and say “Its kind of slimy, trust me, you wouldn’t like it”. Of course, we took her word for it, and each one of us grew up to be avowed pumpkin dislikers as well. You know, I’m pretty sure “disliker” is not a word but it makes perfect sense in that sentence, doesn’t it? See, the English language just needs to keep up with me and we’ll all be better off.

Anyway, as it turns out, Mama must have gotten a hold of a bad piece of pumpkin pie as a child because we have both broadened our horizons with regards to pumpkin since that muffin incident and it is now a regular part in our holiday baking, as well as year round baking thanks to these muffins.

No, these aren’t the ones we had on retreat. They are actually better except for one thing – those on the retreat were baked for us, you have to bake these yourself. Everything tastes better when someone else cooks it for you!

A neighbor of a friend gave me this recipe when I was telling her about the muffins. She was of the Northern persuasion and, thinking pumpkin was a Northern thing at the time, I asked her if she happened to know how to make pumpkin muffins.

Her face immediately lit up with glee at getting to pass this recipe on to one more person and now I share that glee in passing it on to you. To quote the person who first gave it to me…”If you want to make the BEST pumpkin muffins on earth…”

Oooh ooh! The best part…I added the streusel topping from Grandmama’s Sweet Potato Casserole to them! They were good before but now – WOW! Tastes like something you’d get in a coffee shop. Go ahead, impress someone with your culinary skill today. Just make sure you hide the cake mix box in the very bottom of your trash can. Putting a few crumpled paper towels on top of it wouldn’t hurt, either.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

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When I was a little girl, we didn’t have CD’s or even cassette tapes. This will come as no surprise to all of you but my nine year old simply can’t comprehend it.

I imagine he envisions us sitting on the front porch with a washboard and set of spoons as our only means of music. But my sister and I shared a record player in our room and Mama kept us well supplied with Disney albums (I still break into Disco Duck from time to time). Around the time I was six years old or so, I saved up my money and broke out of Disney to purchase my first two records. The first record I ever bought was “Mountain Music” by the group Alabama.

We have always been HUGE Alabama fans. As a girl, we had Alabama t shirts, Alabama records, and each one of us had a photograph of the band autographed by every single member thanks to my dad working security at one of their concerts (he was a Huntsville police officer at the time). Beyond the appeal of truly unique music, they were good old boys who still managed to remain “one of us” despite fame. Everyone has always loved them.

Jeff Cook served as vocals, lead guitar, and fiddle for that group. You know that roaring fiddle which widens eyes on Mountain Music ? Yup, that’s him.

Yesterday, I was explaining all of this to my son, whom I just mentioned had a violin recital last week. I pulled up this video on Youtube to show him the band performing Mountain Music. As the song neared the big fiddle part, I told Brady “Watch this…”. His eyes got “Big as dollars” as my grandmother would say and he just stared, open mouthed at the screen. When Jeff finished the big fiddle part Brady said “WHOA, can YOU play it like that?”

God love that boy, he places WAY too much stock on those two years of violin lessons I had over two decades ago! But, I can still play “Mary Had A Little Lamb” on just about any toy piano!
~puffs up with pride~

He and his wife, Lisa, sat down with Mama and, as most Southerners do, they got to talking about food. He went over this muffin recipe with her, saying that it was what he made for all of his neighbors at Christmastime each year and that everyone raved about them, but no one could ever place the secret ingredient! As he gave her the recipe, Mama texted it to me on my phone with the message “Call me”. I called her right away and sent my husband out for that secret ingredient that very night so I could make these the next day!

This recipe comes from a person who received a praise which carries much more weight than the Grammy’s or other awards.

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*Be sure to subscribe to my email newsletter (top right of this page) for a printer friendly version of each week’s recipes delivered right to your inbox at the end of each week!
Thank y’all for reading Southern Plate!!!
Christy

Thank you all for reading Southern Plate!!

Make your apples naked.

**To make your own self rising flour, simply add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt for EACH cup of all purpose flour.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

I am a morning person. I love to get up early, especially while everyone else is still asleep. I slip into the kitchen and put the coffee on, then pour some into my favorite cup and curl up in the recliner where the only light I turn on is the dim glow of my laptop as I check the news and usually work on a post or two for one of my blogs. If I get up early enough, and am lucky enough, this can last for as long as thirty minutes. Sometimes, I even get to finish my coffee before kids start filing out of their rooms wanting to know whats for breakfast.

I seldom eat the same breakfast they do. Usually, I don’t even bother to think about my own breakfast beyond the cup of coffee until they are all settled into school for the day. There are two exceptions to this rule: When I’ve made my slow cooker oatmeal and when I have these muffins in the fridge just waiting to be baked.

This is my mother’s favorite muffin and there is a darn good reason why. Once made, the batter sits happily in your fridge for up to one month. All you need do is scoop out enough to make your muffins for the day. Only need one or two muffins for your breakfast? Perfect, just scoop out that much and cover the rest to have another day. Want a last minute bread accompaniment to your supper? Here ya go! Afternoon snack? Go go gadget muffins! I can’t think of any time that isn’t perfect for one of these delicious and wholesome muffins, especially since they are just a preheated oven and a scoop away.

I can’t remember many times growing up that we didn’t have some of this batter in the fridge. Once you try them, I bet you’ll have a permanent shelf for this batter in your fridge, too!

You’ll need: All Purpose Flour, Baking Soda, Raisin Bran, Oil, Sugar, Buttermilk, Eggs, Salt, and Baking soda

In the morning, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease your muffin pan. Scoop out enough for however many muffins you want to bake and bake for fifteen minutes or until done. Put the rest of the batter back in your fridge and keep it there for up to a month!

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

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Be sure to register for the Hamilton Beach 3 in 1 Slow Cooker HERE!

To be given away through random drawing on August 29th.