Frugal Food: Cornbreadby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 19 Jan 2007 09:02 AM
Cornbread can be used in many ways. My two-year-old is eating it now as part of her breakfast, and I packed a piece in my son's lunch. The kids just love eating cornbread for snacks, and we save lots of money when they do. They love to eat it straight, but I often have it with butter or jam. Another way I use cornbread is to supplement and stretch out a meal. Cornbread is just perfect combined with a vegetarian chili. Last night, I served it with a simple cranberry-pineapple chicken. Cornbread is perfect when combined with a warm broth-based soup, such as one that you have made with your homemade chicken stock. That is definitely a meal for just pennies! You can even turn cornbread into a meal by itself. For a quick and easy take along lunch, simply pour some cornbread batter into a muffin tin, filling it half way. Add some cubed turkey or ham and some cubed cheese. Finish filling the muffin tin with cornbread batter and then bake as usual. You can also make one big meal using a casserole dish or baking pan instead of a muffin tin. To make my cornbread even more frugal, I usually use reconstituted powdered milk. There is no noticeable difference in taste or consistency to me, especially since my recipe calls for skim milk anyway. While you can use a cornbread mix (Aldi's usually has a very inexpensive one), I prefer making it from scratch. There really aren't many ingredients to add, and I know that I won't be putting any artificial anything into the cornbread. Although I use Indian Head Brand cornmeal, because it is the least expensive at my local store, I use the cornbread recipe I got from a container of Quaker cornmeal. This is the recipe the way I make it. 1-1/4 cups of all-purpose flour 3/4 cup cornmeal 1/4 cup granulated sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 cup skim (reconstituted powdered) milk 1/4 cup vegetable (virgin olive) oil 1 egg, beaten. Is cornbread a part of your regular meals? Related Articles: Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags baking, cornbread, corn bread, stretching meals Discuss this article
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In our house, cornbread is usually available. It is very easy and inexpensive to make from scratch, a great frugal food. It also freezes well, but since it is so easy to prepare, I usually make it fresh.
