It's Thanksgiving: Bring on the Corn Pudding

Photo by Patrick Hajzler

Southern cooking is full of puddings. Bread Pudding. Rice pudding. Sweet potato pudding. Corn pudding. Put a "pudding" on there and it's all good.  The only time I remember having this yummy side dish is at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the time we either ate frozen corn niblets or freshly picked Silver Queen corn from my great-uncle's kitchen garden. (The joke was that you didn't pick the corn until the water in the pot was boiling.)
I pretty much never met a corn dish I didn't love and I still have a fondness for corn somthered in melted cheddar cheese with red pepper flakes, a staple of my college diet.
If you'd like to add a little pizazz to your vegetable sides this holiday, why not try corn in its most quintessential southern form?

CORN PUDDING

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2 cups cooked corn kernels

3 Tbsp. melted butter

1/2 cup flour

4 tsp. granulated sugar

4 eggs

4 cups non-fat milk

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

dash salt

Prep a baking dish with non-stick spray.

Combine flour, salt, seasonings and sugar.

Add corn and melted gutter.

Add the eggs to the milk and stir.

Add the egg/milk mixture to the dry mixture and pour into the baking pan.

Bake for 40 minutes or until pudding is firm.

It's Thanksgiving--let the celebration of carbs begin

Photo by Vangelis Thomaidin

At the Mullins-Tomlinson household Thanksgiving was all about the sides. Sure, the moistness of the turkey was important and the crispness of the stuffing (there was always two kinds--oyster stuffing because my father loved it and cornbread stuffing made with actual cornbread and none of this Mrs. Cubbinson's mix nonsense) but really, it was all about the starches and the side dishes.
Unlike 99 percent of southern households, we did not have green bean casserole at the holiday. My mother made green beans with bacon and dried red pepper the way God intended us to eat green beans. (I actually prefer crisp steamed green beans these days but when I'm at HomeTown Buffet, I almost always get some of their Southern-style string beans because they do them right.)
One of the dishes that was always on our Thanksgiving table was grated sweet potato pudding. (One of my aunts always brought the candied  yams with the orange juice and the crushed cornflakes and the marshmallows but she always took home most of the dish. The sweet potato pudding dish, though, would be scraped clean.)
Here's the recipe:

GRATED SWEET POTATO PUDDING

4 raw sweet potatoes, peeled and grated (do not use yams)

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (you can use molasses)

1/2 cup melted butter

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ginger

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 Tbsp. dried orange peel (or rind of a fresh orange)

dash salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat eggs.

Combine all ingredients.

Pour into a baking dish prepped with non-stick spray.

Bake until firm (about 50 minutes).

Enjoy.

Gratuitous Cat Cuteness

Because it's Sunday and I'm working and easily distracted by Orange Cat who is guarding the manuscript I'm reading. And besides, isn't the Internet all about cat pictures?

Holiday Themed Grammar Silliness

Savage Chickens by Dug Savage

Coming Soon--the Kattomic Energy 2012 Gift Guide

Photo by Klaus Post

Yes, there will be suggestions for all the foodies, Francophiles, feminists, and fiction lovers on your list. (And many of the gifts will cross categories. Who wouldn't welcome a fridge poetry magnet set with French words? Or an Eiffel Tower cookie cutter? Or a subscription to Bitch magazine?) Sure you can always give an Amazon gift card (always the right size, always the right color) but isn't it fun to pick out the perfect gift yourself? And I promise, no gag gifts or totally useless items. (I once received an over=sized, silver-plated paper clip as a Christmas gift from a client. It cost $75--yes, I looked--I was horrified.)

Most Specific Cookie Cutter Design Ever!

I have a lot of cookie cutters. My collection goes way beyond angels and deer for Christmas. (I have cookie cutters in the shape of two kinds of sharks and a whole Jurassic Park of dinosaurs.) But I do not have THIS cookie cutter, which depicts the skyline of Omaha, Nebraska.
It's made of copper and costs $14.95.  And I just have to wonder--was this a custom order that just got added to the mix or is there a rage for cookie cityscapes I don't know about?  You can buy it here on a site called Kitchen Collectibles.  (Which is located in Omaha, so that would explain the cookie cutter.)

Kitchen Mixtape--You can never have too many food blogs

I spend way (WAY) too much time reading about food. Yes, I am familiar with the term "food porn," and this time of year, I cannot resist carrying home the fat issues of Food and Wine and Martha Stewart's Living and every holiday-themed issue of what I always think of as "my mother's magazines." (Family Circle, Woman's Day, Woman's World.) It's not that I think I'm going to find a new way to make cranberry sauce, but I enjoy reading how other people put together the traditional feasts.
I particularly like food blogs that have a theme, so when I ran across Kitchen Mixtape, I was intrigued. On the site, chefs talk about music and there are "record" reviews as well as restaurant reviews. The design is clean and a little "industrial." If you like food and you like music, check it out.