Butter Beans and Cornbread - For the Recipe Box

To me the best cookbooks are the ones that contain recipes that have actually been used!  That's why, when I do purchase one, it is usually a church or organization cookbook.  These are the best. I used to collect cookbooks and had quite a stash but once I actually started cooking from them, I realized most of them were not that great.  Sure, there might be one or two good recipes if your're lucky.  So, my cookbook shelf has gone from overflowing to a select few.  The cookbooks that I have now get used! You can tell from the food stains on the pages!  Sometimes cookbooks overlook some of the simplest recipes.  I am holding at 39, I wish!, and have, in the past few years, learned how to make a good pot of butterbeans.  Now I'm not talking about some gourmet dish but just a country style, fresh from the garden, pot of butterbeans.  When I was first married all those years ago, I would buy frozen butterbeans and cook them according to the directions on the pack but they just tasted a little too bland.  A couple of years ago, I purchased a local church cookbook and, low and behold, there was a basic recipe for butterbeans, so easy yet so delicious!

4 cups fresh butter beans or 2 pkg frozen
2 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp flour
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of sugar

Make a light roux (not too brown).  Add water, then add butter beans and cook until done.  Add salt, pepper and sugar.

And, of course, who can eat butterbeans without a pan of cornbread?  No one from the South, that's for sure!  So using my trusty cast iron skillet, I made a pan of cornbread.  Baking it in a cast iron skillet just gives it that extra special touch.

1 cup white cornmeal
1/2 cup self rising flour
1 egg
enough milk to make it slightly soupy
1-2 tablespoons melted shortening

Mix the first four ingredients in a bowl.  Put the cast iron skillet over high heat, melting the shortening.  Pour the shortening into your cornmeal mixture,  stirring till mixed well.  In the meantime, leave that skillet on the burner over high heat until it starts to smoke a little.  Pour the mixture into the skillet.  Letting the skillet get real hot like this gives the cornbread a little crunch to the bottom.  Bake at 450 degrees or until done.  If the bottom is nice and brown but the top's not, put the broiler on for a few minutes but don't gone nowhere!  It'll burn quick!

Here's a good tip my mom told me.  If you don't have any eggs, you can subsitute a tablespoon of mayo.  It works!  I had to do this before and there was no difference in the taste of the finished product.

Do you have any of those simple, basic, yet often overlooked recipes? I'd love to hear from you!

Linking to:

Foody Friday @ Designs by Gollum

Masterpiece Monday @ Boogieboard Cottage

Saturday Nite Special @ Funky Junk Interiors

Show Us Your Side Dishes @ Kelly's Korner