Good morning everyone, on this beautiful 40 degree, North Florida day. A very nice, nip in the air for me. And I am very thankful as it makes breathing, quite a bit easier for me. So I am happy!
I do wish the very best for your day and hope that you reach for something to smile about today. As the skies are blue and the trees are green. There is always beauty to find if you just stop and take a look.
Today’s recipe is not for the timid as it does take some extra work to achieve but you will learn a bit about the people before us, with their genius minds. Makes me feel kind of dumb, but oh well, I for one, am glad to have found this lesson from history.
I wanted to store popcorn for cornmeal as it’s clean corn to eat. To try and grind the popcorn, nothing would work and I did try all my gadgets. So if you look online, you could order a $500.00 professional grain mill grinder or go to a stone mill house, like in the old days, if you can even find one nowadays.
So as I was researching way back in time. I found out that our Indians and our Mexican peoples knew what we don’t know today. Yes, they knew how to grind corn with a simple little rock. Not all the fancy machines that we have today.
Their process is called nixtamalization. It involves dry lime powder with water and hard dried corn. I used pickle lime. Here is the recipe if you dare to try it. It was some of the best ever cornbread that I have ever had.
2 c. washed popcorn in a large pot
6 c. water 1/2 tsp. pickling lime
Rinse popcorn and add it and water and lime powder to the pot. Have on a simmering boil for 10 minutes. Leave in the water overnight. (Do not put your hands in water). It is caustic and will burn your hands. In the morning, rinse the corn with a strainer for 10 rinses. A lot.
Now you can put this in the freezer for later when you want to cook cornbread or you can use it now. I filled my little coffee grinder up and ground it right up. I used enough to make a cup and a half for my recipe. Then as I had more popcorn leftover for next time. I put it in the freezer It was wet but it ground up dry, like the beautiful fresh cornmeal that it was. So our Ancestors did know something that most of the world doesn’t even know now. And I just imagine that they did this for their Thanksgiving meal for their families.
My cornbread recipe that I have used for so very many years is—-
1 1/2 c. cornmeal
1c. self -rising flour with 1 TBSP baking powder, also
1/3 c. sugar (If I am not making stuffing).
2 eggs beaten and 2 TBSP melted bacon grease
1 cup milk with 1 TBSP lemon juice (makes buttermilk)
Heat oven to 350 degrees and have a cast-iron frying pan of medium size with 2 TBSB. grease in the pan. ( I usually use cast-iron, but this time, I did not).
Use a medium bowl to mix everything up in. If the batter is too thick or too dry, add in small amounts of water and stir until it is pourable but not runny. Pour batter into a hot cast-iron skillet and bake 25-30 minutes until it’s a pretty brown. Now enjoy with butter! Or use this to put in your stuffing along with biscuits or other breads.
I do hope that some of you will try this! I know that this will make my 25 lb bucket of popcorn, a whole lot easier to cook up. Thank you for visiting me and check out the monthly archives for more. Always share so others might find a recipe that they like. I post on Tue-Thur and Saturdays so do come back for more if you want. Thanks again for reading my blog. Connie B.
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