You get to learn to make cornbread mix! Your day is now complete.
It’s borderline ridiculous how little time I have to spend on meal prep now. #life with teenagers #workingfromhome Or maybe it’s how little time I want to spend on meal prep. This, from a girl who loves to cook.
The thing is – I love food and I love feeding people. But I also love efficiency and simplicity. I’ve learned to make a hearty main dish, then throw out the simplest fruit and veggie side dishes possible. It’s all nourishing and filling and it takes very little work. I love this so much.
So when it comes to “bread as a side dish,” I very rarely have time or spend time or choose to make it a priority. After all, there are many more nourishing side dishes to choose from (tossed salad anyone?).
Sometimes though, we all just need a good cornbread muffin. Like with chili or soup or well, with chili or soup. To me, that’s when cornbread muffins are the best. I haven’t made cornbread in over a year – not because it’s hard to make – but because it’s just one more thing to do and I don’t have time for one more thing. (I’m almost pitiful. Almost.)
Last week, two things happened:
- I ran across this recipe for homemade Jiffy mix.
- We shared a meal with some friends in which delicious soup and cornbread was served.
I decided that if I had cornbread mix on hand, it would save me a few minutes of meal prep and simplify my life. Instead of talking myself out of mixing up a batch of cornbread because of the extreme difficulty of getting out and measuring flour and baking powder (the struggle is real) I could just dump the pre-measured ingredients into a bowl and stir in the liquids.
I adapted the recipe (included whole grains and cut out some sugar), multiplied the recipe to make it more efficient, stirred ingredients into a big bowl, and had six jars of muffin mix in less than 10 minutes.
Funny how this simple task of making a mix ahead of time is so helpful. It doesn’t take much, you know?
Will you save money making this cornbread mix yourself? I don’t know. How much is a box of Jiffy these days? They used to be 33¢ but I haven’t looked at them in several years. I didn’t do the math on this mix (because if I don’t have time to make cornbread I probably don’t have time to break down the cost of cornmeal). But I’m almost sure it only takes a few cents to make this – and I used 100% whole grain flour and organic cornmeal.
Homemade Cornbread Mix
- 4 cups whole wheat flour
- 3 cups cornmeal
- ¼ cup sucanat or sugar
- ¼ cup baking powder
- 1 Tablespoon sea salt
- Mix ingredients well in a large bowl.
- Scoop about 1⅓ cups of mix into six pint-sized jars.
- Store in the freezer until ready to use.
- To make cornbread: Empty contents of jar into a bowl. Add 1 egg, ½ cup milk, and 2 Tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil. Spread batter into an 8x8 inch baking pan or scoop into 6-7 prepared muffin cups. Bake in a 400° oven for 15-20 minutes.
Easy as that, you have cornbread.
Are you like me? Do you find that mixing up bread to go with a meal is just a little too much effort (pitiful)? What do you like to serve with cornbread?
