Grandpa Gotta Cook—Cornbread Pie (Fail)

You're Going Down!

Hello, everyone. How are you doing? Feeling good? It's Friday, after all, and while that definitely means it's Food Fight Friday time, it also means for many the end of the work week. That ought to bring some smiles to your faces, does it not?

Good. I'm glad.

That means you won't feel so down as you read through this as I will be writing it.

Yes, I said down. It's not quite a sad, but more like a bummer. A low level disappointment.

Maybe it's best I show you, and just get it over with.

Mistakes Ahead

I've noted here on various occasions that I have some picky eaters in the household. I find that difficult to work with, since there are a lot of things I might cook if everyone would eat it. So, that limits what I can do from the beginning.

(If this sounds like the setup to an excuse for what follows, you're absolutely right. Read on.)

It's been tough as of late to come up with something I haven't already done (so I can share what happened) that everyone will eat. Each new food experiment is fraught with danger, if not flat out disaster. For the most part, I've been able to at least please my own palate if no one else's. If I manage to get two or three out of four (counting me), that's a win!

Well, this cooking outing I'm going to share was basically a bust. Even I didn't like it.

Overmodification

This all started with a recipe by Reese Witherspoon. Let me first say that Reese is in no way responsible for what happened. I'm responsible.

Coming off my universal victory with Shepherd's Pie, I decided I would take the recipe offroad once again, and do my own thing. See, the recipe called for cornbread cooked on top of homemade chili. Well, I wasn't feeling the chili (not sure why now), but I figured I could come up with a combination of ground beef and such that would be tasty.

So, I went to my old standbys—mushrooms and bell pepper, and pretty much followed the recipe otherwise. I did use Famous Dave's cornbread mix instead of Jiffy's, but that wasn't the issue. The cornbread turned out just fine.

The problem was, the sweetness of the cornbread versus the taste of the meat mixture. Separately, they were just fine. Together, well. They did not compliment each other. One bit.

The Details

The recipe started with putting oil in a pan, then throwing in some onion and minced garlic, which I did. I also added the bell pepper and mushrooms. Once that was done, in went the ground beef. The recipe also called for ground pork, which I didn't have, and didn't really want (or so I thought). Diced tomatoes were supposed to go in, along with tomato paste. For some reason, I left out the tomatoes, but put in the paste.

When the meat was done browning, the chili part of the mix was supposed to go in. I'd already opted out of doing that, so I spent time mixing up the cornbread, and when it was done, I put everything in a baking dish, meat mixture first, cornbread on top.

Then, it all went into the oven at 375 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

It Took Longer

I was advised by my son and his wife that the cornbread would take longer to bake than what it said on the box. They were right. It was closer to an hour when I finally lost patience and hauled it out.

The Taste Test

As I said somewhere above, the cornbread came out great. The meat mixture, had it been eaten separately, might have been fine, too. The problem was eating it together. The sweet of the cornbread overwhelmed whatever the taste of the meat mixture was. I ate all of mine, but I did not go back for seconds.

There ended up being about half of it leftover, which rarely happens, even when the food I've made is deemed meh. My wife flat out told me no one was going to take it for lunch, but defiantly, I wrapped it up in foil and put it in the fridge. It made it easier to throw away the next day.

Lesson Learned

There's a reason why I don't like to cook that much, at least for more than me and maybe my wife. This is one of those times. It's been a few weeks since I cooked this dish, and I put off writing about it simply because it was going to be a downer, no matter how I dressed it up.

The moral to the story for me is, if I'm going to follow a recipe, don't change it into something that it's not. Sorry, Ms. Witherspoon.

About This Post

This edition of Grandpa's Gotta Cook is in conjunction with Food Fight Friday, an ongoing weekly contest where participants can receive an award for their efforts. Just write about food, use the #fff tag and post on a Friday. Then, go and look at other entries, and if so moved, upvote and comment. Repeat for the next week.

_{Images courtesy of Glen Anthony Albrethsen.}