Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Banana Sandwiches and Fried Cornbread

UPDATE:

***** Kitchen Tip Tuesday is up!********* For more tips go to Tammy's Recipes.

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Its Kitchen Tip Tuesday, but I'm not sure if Tammy will be able to host it today. She and her husband have packed up their entire household within an eight day span and are moving across several states to a new home and job. So, good luck Tammy! We are thinking of you and hope to hear from you.

I've had a few people ask me about banana sandwiches and fried cornbread. These are a couple of typically Southern foods I guess. I grew up eating banana sandwiches on Sunday night. They are delicious and nutritious. We now eat them for the main part of a meal or as a side to fried chicken or pork chops. They are also excellent for picnics or tailgating.

They are easy to make! These are the ingredients:



If you've never had a banana sandwich before, I urge you to use good old fashioned very fresh, soft white bread and real mayo the first time, so you can get the real deal. After that, if you want to, you can use the more healthy whole wheat bread and low fat mayo.

All you do is put mayo on your two pieces of bread, slice the bananas on there and eat! Another variation I love is to put peanut butter on one of the slices! Yum!



Now, as to cornbread, I'm fairly new at making that. My mother made it all my life, but I never really cared for it when I was younger. My husband would mention it now and then and wish for it. Since I have been spending a lot of time with my mother this summer and cooking for her, I learned how to make it. It is so easy and very inexpensive to make. Its a great bread to be used with lots of meals, especially fish.

I think any cornmeal would be fine, but this is the one I currently have. We have lots of cornmeal brands made right here in North Carolina and some are made just down the road. You can use yellow or white corn meal.




For six pieces of cornbread I used one cup of corn meal and about 1 cup of water. Just put the cornmeal in a bowl and add the water until its a little soupy, but not too soupy. Keep stirring it with a fork. My mother uses her hand to smoosh it up. If you think its too soupy, let it sit a couple of minutes and it will thicken up or just add a tiny bit more cornmeal until its just right.



Put some oil in a frying pan, just enough to cover the bottom well, not too deep. Heat the oil on medium high heat and then spoon a couple of spoonfuls into the pan. Push it flat with your spoon so it spreads out some. The thinner, crispier and browner the bread is the better. Just so its not burned. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the cornbread as it is cooking. When that side is brown, dark brown is best, turn it, sprinkle salt and pepper on the other side and when the remaining side is brown enough, remove and drain on paper towels. Its best eaten right out of the frying pan so its crispy, but we eat left over cornbread too.







Another variation I like is to put just a little chopped onion in the batter. It gives a similar flavor to onion rings, but is not overwhelmingly oniony.

Both of these foods are very inexpensive. I honestly don't remember how much this bag of corn meal cost, but it wasn't more than a couple of dollars. In rural North Carolina, from the depression on, fried cornbread was a staple.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing about these, Debbie. :) Looks delicious!

Anonymous said...

You have made my mouth water once again! I have not made fried corn bread in quite a while. Usually bake it since that is what my sweetie grew up with. However, I have bought some fine ground corn meal from House Autry and will fry some soon.

May have to do banana sandwiches for the game Saturday - and maybe some fried chicken!

See you soon. mljw

Anonymous said...

I'm from Missouri and grew up eating this although my great granny called it Corn Pone. I made it for the first time in about 15 years last week and it's so yummy!

ancient one said...

Can you believe, when I was growing up, banana sandwiches were dessert after Sunday dinner. My mom mashed hers on a plate with a fork. Mixed it up with mayonaise and a sprinkle of sugar. We'd have a piled up plate of sandwiches. We usually had cousins over on Sundays and we'd eat our dinner as quickly as possible and ask for sandwiches. We'd eat just as fast as we could and ask for another until the plate was empty.

Now we can have banana sadwiches any old time. They are still good, but we don't crave them as we did long ago. LOL

I never had peanut butter/banana sadwiches until I was married. We mash them and stir in the peanut butter (no mayo) and spread it between two slices of bread.

Susan said...

Now you've gone and made me homesick! LOL I grew up eating banana sandwiches - my dad still loves them, exactly the way you make them. My husband likes the peanut butter variation, but I can't bring myself to eat peanut butter and mayo on the same sandwich!

My mother made the best fried cornbread ever. I have never been able to reproduce it. Mmmmmmm.

Debbie said...

yummy what a gret idea!!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I haven't had a banana sandwich in a long time. We made ours with creamy peanut butter, marshmellow fluff, and sliced bananas. It was a great snack but you had to be careful not to eat to much or you would have a wicked bad stomach ache! I've never had fried cornbread but we do make pancakes with cornmeal in them. corncakes or corn pone is what we called them.
Peggy in Alaska (transplanted here from pretty much everywhere, army/air force brat...)

Little Penpen said...

Being Ancient One's child, I grew up with "mashed" banana sandwiches. I still make them that way and love them. Recently, I mixed the "miracle whip" (not mayo) with a little peanut butter and made it that way... yummy! When I was younger and ate a lot of junk food (I still do, actually) I would buy a fresh loaf of bread, bananas,and a big bag of Doritoes on "grocery day." After I had put the groceries away, my biggest treat was that banana sandwich on FRESH bread, with a layer of doritoes on it. YUMMY!

Anonymous said...

I do the same thing you do except a couple of variations...
Sometimes I mix in mexicorn to the batter. Also if you make the batter thinner it cooks crisper and thinner....called lace cornbread
Don

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