Food52
With my one year blogiversary approaching in over a week, I find it fitting that I should share another skillet cornbread recipe. As I described in my inaugural post, Garlicky Shrimp and Spinach Cornbread, my whole passion for recipe development started when I was chosen to be a finalist in the National Cornbread Festival Cook-Off in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. From the moment the announcer said “Ladies, start your ovens†, I knew I was…well, you can read the rest of that story here: Garlicky Shrimp and Spinach Cornbread. But what I didn’t mention was that I actually sent in several recipes for the contest. And after I started blogging, I had intended to share them; but after a year, I somehow hadn’t managed to do it till now. That’s surprising to me, because they’re pretty darned tasty! For example: Savory Ham and Swiss Cornbread Bake–chunks of ham, sweet/grassy bites of asparagus, and hard boiled eggs, smothered with a swiss cheese sauce on a cornbread crust. Whoa, back up. Hard boiled eggs? Yeah, I got the idea from a casserole that my aunt always makes at Easter time, with asparagus, cheddar cheese, eggs and mushroom soup. The only problem with her version is that she uses canned asparagus. Can we say muuuuushy?!?! Her kids finally convinced her not to make it this year. I’m not sure why they didn’t convince her to just make it with fresh asparagus! Nonetheless, I felt like the dish had great potential to be converted into a skillet cornbread meal. Plus, it’s a great way to use up Easter leftovers. One disclaimer though: When I made this the first time, I put the sauce on the bottom and the everything else on top of it. The ham and asparagus fared okay, but the eggs? They were like chewing on pencil erasers. So I switched things up a bit and put the sauce on top. That way everything remained all cozy and moist underneath. But I kept the picture from the original batch, so that it’d be easy to see what’s inside. Therefore, if you make it, yours will not look the same — but it will taste fabulous!