When Life Gives You Bad Corn, Make Cornmeal

When I was growing up, my parents always used to tell me, “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” Well, a couple days ago I did. Someone, I won’t say who; but someone gave me the worst…absolute worst corn I’ve ever had in my life. I had grand plans to make a corn consommé; extracting the flavours from the cob, cooking the kernels and even attempting to clarify it with egg whites; but once I started to shuck the ears I knew it wasn’t to be. The ears reminded me of the dried multicolour maize my father has adorning his mantle.

So there I was in my kitchen, casting about for what to do. I tried making a corn stock and then a soup, both of which worked about as well as the plot of an episode of It’s Always Unfunny in Philadelphia. Once I strained the corn pulp out of the soup and tossed it in the freezer, I decided that what the hell, I’d try to make cornmeal. I spread the pulp on some tinfoil and threw it in the oven at 225° F for about four hours, then let it rest in the oven overnight. When I woke up, I put my roasted “corn flakes” in the food processor and ground away, until I had a coarse yellow powder that J. Peterman probably would’ve mistaken for Yam-yam.

It took me still another day to figure out what the hell to do with my newfound cornmeal, but yesterday morning I got myself some hazelnuts and a banana and decided that banana-hazelnut muffins was the way to go. I even tossed some raisins in for good measure; and so far, I’ve gotten good reviews. Here’s the recipe if you’re really interested I’ll give you step-by-step directions on making your own cornmeal. Hell, you never know, the Mayans might be right!

Either way, I suggest serving these bad boys with butter and jelly, fresh and steaming out of the oven.

Banana-Hazelnut Corn Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup hazelnuts
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 ripe bananas
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup butter, melted
1 cup milk
1 handful of raisins (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400° degrees F. Grease muffin pan or line with paper muffin liners.
In a food processor grind the hazelnuts and sugar together, pulsing to avoid over blending so it does not become a paste.
In a large bowl, mix together corn meal, flour, sugar-nut mixture, baking powder, salt and raisins (if using).
Then blend eggs, bananas, milk and butter together in a blender and fold into dry ingredients, stirring to combine (more flour may be needed, if the dough appears wet).
Spoon into muffin tins and bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Yield: 12 muffins


Next Time: Bunnies, Italian (Sort-of) Ice Cream & possibly Homemade Nut Butters…oh yeah, and Labor Day.