Let's Spoon

new side for your holiday spreads

Morning sunshine. Before we get to cooking, we wanted to remind you guys that you have access to a brand-new feature for being subscribers here: The Broiler Room Chat. It’s like a message board just for all of us where we complain and brainstorm together. We’ll post prompts, answer questions, and generally fuck around with you guys on there as much as possible and we want y’all to be a part of the madness. To join our chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app. Messages are sent via the app, not email, which is annoying but Substack swears they’re working on a version for desktops and Androids soon. We’ll just have to be patient. Until then, turn on push notifications so you don’t miss a chance to join conversations as they happen or just check in when you want to escape your reality for a sec. You’ll look busy and important reading our chaotic kitchen chat. We’ll be there answering holiday cooking questions and encouraging cute animal pics so stop by whenever you find the time. Ok, now back to the recipe for a new Thanksgiving side.

We love cornbread but can rarely find a place for it on our Thanksgiving table. We always make tons of carbs: stuffing, rolls, potatoes of a thousand kinds. One more plain carb just won’t do. But spoon bread isn’t some plain carb. It’s a dead simple side that will mix together with everything on your plate to create delicious bites of sweet and savory. Some people call this corn souffle, a British-style pudding, or a thousand other names but all you need to know is that it’s just a softer, moister version of cornbread and it’s delicious. We’ve swirled in cranberry sauce to make this side worth of a place on your Thanksgiving table and we might never go back to making the plain version again. This is great on your holiday table or even in your next brunch spread. You’ll find a thousand places for it after you take one bite. Go ahead, bake a little.

Cranberry and Corn Spoonbread

makes one 8x8 pan, enough for 4-6 people

1 cup cornmeal*

½ cup whole wheat pastry or all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cup plain, unsweetened nondairy milk like almond

½ cup nondairy, plain yogurt

1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels (we used frozen)

3 tablespoons melted, nondairy butter or olive oil

2 tablespoons ground flax seeds

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

2/3 cup cranberry sauce, canned or homemade

Brown sugar on top

Warm your oven up to 375 and grease and flour an 8 by 8 inch baking pan, like what you’d make brownies in.

Grab a large bowl and whisk together the corn meal, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a blender, pour together the milk, yogurt, corn kernels, melted butter, ground flax seeds, maple syrup, and apple cider vinegar. Pulse until they are just combined and some of the kernels have been broken down, like 4 pulses.  Next, pour the wet mixture from the blender into the dry and mix it up until they are *just* combined. Dollop in the cranberry sauce and stir it just once to mix it in. Now scrape that shit into your prepared baking pan, sprinkle a teaspoon or two of brown sugar on top and stick it in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out smooth. You can tell when something is done baking, right?

Serve warm or at room temperature.

*Cornmeal can come in a lot of different grinds, meaning the size of the cornmeal can be larger or smaller. Try to grab a bag that says it’s for baking or cornbread or looks closer to flour than it does to polenta. You got this.

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Michelle and Matt