Green chile blue cornbread
As my kitchen filled with the scent of roasted green chiles and blue corn, I was looking forward to the skillet of cornbread taking shape in the oven. After baking…
Bread recipes
Bran muffins
My grandma’s last meal was a bran muffin. This was apt, since eating a warm one was her favorite way to begin the day. She liked to share, and she’d…
Spiced pumpkin muffins
“How can you eat that so early in the morning?” asked my friend. She gestured with a fork at the plate in front of me, which contained a softball-sized muffin…
Lemon yogurt poppy seed muffins
In 1975, my grandma baked a loaf of poppy seed bread. While this may not seem worthy of mention, it was an unusual act in that she never repeated this…
Granola bread
Every Christmas, my Uncle Austin gives the family homemade granola. During a recent survey of my refrigerator, I found a bag from the previous year. Because his ingredients are all…
Black-eyed pea cornbread
When my uncle gave me a bag of dried black-eyed peas he’d grown this summer, I mentioned that last year I’d made black-eyed pea tamales. Intrigued, he peppered me with…
Jalapeño popper kolaches
My mom asked me what I’d been cooking lately and I said a lot of frozen pizza. She laughed because that’s not something I normally eat. Though frozen pizza has…
Tallow flour tortillas
When life gives you too much tallow, perhaps it’s time to make flour tortillas. At least that was my conclusion, after successfully using this rendered beef fat in bread and…
Sopapillas with a side of honey
Sopapillas are total decadence for me. You’d think after concluding a stomach-swelling multi-course meal of chips and salsa, queso, guacamole, tamales, rice, refried beans. and enchiladas that it would be impossible to find room for just one…
Jalapeño Cheddar cornbread
In 1964, Frank X. Tolbert, the Dallas Morning News columnist who was passionate about chili and other Texan dishes involving peppers, shared a recipe for jalapeño cornbread. He wrote: “It’s…
