Buttermilk Cornbread Muffins

         This is a wonderful buttermilk cornbread recipe from the Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon, only I adapted it for muffins.  The trick in this recipe is that she pours the batter into a sizzling hot buttered skillet, then bakes in the oven.  This forms a crispy, buttery, edge to the cornbread.  To recreate that in a muffin tin, I sprayed the tin with canola oil, and baked it for 5 minutes at 425 degrees, removed it and poured the batter into it before placing it back in the oven at 350 degrees to bake them through.  Because timing is essential, its important to make the batter in a container that you can pour from to fill the tins faster.

Buttermilk Cornbread Muffins:
  Ingredients:

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup canola oil

  Instructions:

1. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl:
   
2. In a separate container with a pour spout, mix baking soda and buttermilk.  Then add the egg, sugar, and oil:
   
3. Spray a muffin tin with canola oil, and bake it at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients in the pour spout bowl:
   
5. Quickly remove muffin tin from oven and pour batter in, then place tray back in the oven at 350 degrees until baked through, 18-24 minutes
6. Remove from oven and enjoy!
   

Smokey Black Bean Soup

         My mom bought a bunch of cans of black beans recently with the intention of making a black bean soup, but has been so busy with work that she hasn't gotten around to it, so I decided to take it on.  When making something new, I usually look up a few recipes to get the basic cooking techniques, then adjust and personalize the dish.  But I've recently started making new things without a baseline recipe, and this was one of those dishes.  I decided to make the "broth" out of pureed black beans, but still wanted texture so i only blended half of them.  To thin it out, I added chicken stock, but reduced it with veggies so that it had concentrated flavor.  I was going to add bacon, but deiced to keep it vegetarian so I added smoked Spanish paprika instead.  This added a smokey flavor element, without the extra step of cooking bacon.

Smokey Black Bean Soup:

  Ingredients:

• 4 cans black beans
• 4 carrots
• 1 bell pepper
• 1 small onion
• 5 stalks celery
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 3/4 teaspoon chipotle powder
• 3 teaspoons 21 spice seasoning (or equal parts onion powder, pepper, parsley, basil, and cayenne pepper)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
• salt 

  Instructions:

1. Puree 2 cans of black beans, undrained, with 2 teaspoons of 21 spice seasoning, salt to taste, and the smoked Spanish paprika
2. Dice the carrots, bell pepper, onion, and celery into even, bean sized pieces and have everything ready.  This is called mise en place, which means "everything in place" in French.  It is a term used in the kitchen to have everything ready so that meal prep goes faster:
   
3. Sautee the carrots in oil for about 5 minutes, then add the bell peppers, onions, and celery to the pan with the rest of the 21 spice seasoning, chipotle powder, and salt:
   
4. Cook the veggies for 5 more minutes on medium high heat, then add 1 cup of chicken broth to the sautee pan and simmer for 7-10 minutes, until everything becomes soft, and the broth has reduced:
   
5. Meanwhile, heat the other 1 cup of broth in a 4 quart sauce pan.  When the broth comes to a boil, add the simmered veggies and pureed black beans:
   
6. Heat to a slow simmer, then add the other two cans of drained black beans
7. Simmer the soup for another 30 minutes, let cool slightly, and enjoy!