What's for breakfast?

We're making Johnny Cakes this morning with bacon and eggs.

Basic Johnny Cake recipe:
1 1/2 cups Yellow Corn Meal
1 (light) teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Sugar
a pinch of Cayenne Pepper
2 1/4 cups Boiling Water
Butter or your favorite fat

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Carefully and quickly add the water, whisking the entire time to break up the lumps. Let the batter stand for 10 minutes.

Preheat a skillet to about 325 degrees (I love my electric skillet for this!) Melt a tablespoon of butter in the skillet. Drop in spoonfulls of the batter until the cakes are about 4 inches across and about a 1/4 inch high (or so). Cook for 6 minutes. Flip them over cook for another 6 min. They should be golden brown on both sides, crispy on the outside and tender (maybe even a bit mushy) inside.

We serve Johnny Cakes with maple syrup, but they go well with savory sauces as well. Or serve with porkchops during dinner.

Makes 8-10 cakes

For a variation, you can add diced jalapenos or corn kernels.



Oven Bacon

Place strips of bacon on a cookie cooling rack on a sheet pan. Make sure the sheet pan has at least 1/2 inch sides all the way around or you will have a smokey grease fire in your oven. I tried it, you won't like.

Put the pan in a cold oven and set the oven for 400 degrees. When the oven comes to temperature, start checking the bacon every few minutes, because the bacon will get burned in a heartbeat.

This is a great way to cook bacon because it eliminates splatters on the stovetop and each strip comes out straight and flat.

For a variation, try adding a thin sprinkle of brown sugar to the bacon before putting it in the oven!


We cooked everything in bacon fat this morning instead of butter--in part because we were out of butter and partly because bacon fat makes everything better.