This past year Megan and I collected children's Christmas books for my grandson Drew. She wrapped them in Christmas paper and he is opening one each day this December in anticipation of Christmas day. Here is a picture of him opening the first book:

On a recent thrifting excursion I found a couple of Sunset cookbooks that looked interesting. One of them had this recipe for Fresh Corn Madeleines which I thought would be great for making savory madeleines in the new pans I got for my birthday. If you don't have madeleine pans you could make the recipe in regular muffin tins.

Fresh Corn Madeleines

1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup minced onion
1 cup flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large egg
1 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen, thawed corn kernals

Melt the butter in a skillet and cook the onion until soft, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl blend together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl whisk together the egg and milk. Combine the butter and onion, the milk mixture, and the flour mixture, stirring gently until just mixed. Butter and flour the madeleine pans (I used a spray) and then fill the pans. The amount you use will vary according to the size pans you have. Fill them about 2/3rds full. Bake at 350 degrees until firm to the touch. They will look pale on top but should be nice and brown on the bottom. Mine took about 15 mins. If baking as muffins bake for about 25 minutes.

I served these with Easy Beans and Rice and we thought they were very tasty. You can also freeze them and then thaw and reheat them for about 10 minutes at 300 degrees before serving.

Becka

We also spent a lot of time playing with Drew. Here are a few pictures showing some of our activities:

Drew loves this library book about Thomas the train.

Rob loved reading to Drew.

Megan and Jim love reading too.

Drew hasn't quite gotten the concept of aunts and uncles yet. He calls Katie Uncle Katie. Here she is reading to him and Mark.

Nora is a nanny and she brought Samuel over one morning to play with Drew and the trains.

Since we had a houseful of people here for meals I was able to pull out some recipes that I rarely make for just the two of us. I made this Cornbread Casserole one evening and several family members asked for the recipe so I thought I'd post it here for them. I originally got this recipe from a radio program on WMUU (a local Christian radio station) many years ago. Barbara R. was the hostess of the program and Willie T., one of the announcers who pastors a local church gave the recipe. He said that a lady from his church would always bring it to church dinners and there was never any left. We ate it up before I could take a picture.

Cornbread Casserole
1 batch cornbread (recipe follows)
1 stalk celery, sliced
1 small onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. oil or butter
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 egg
a pinch of sage or poultry seasoning
2 cups of chicken broth
1-2 cups of chopped cooked chicken or turkey

Saute the onion and celery in the oil or melted butter until the vegetables are tender. Crumble cornbread. Combine with other ingredients in a greased crockpot. Cook on high for 2 hours or low for about 4 hours. (You could also bake this in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour.)
Makes 5-6 servings, depending on appetites.

Basic Cornbread
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 tsps. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup cornmeal
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil

Stir together dry ingredients. Mix together milk, eggs, and oil and then stir into the dry ingredients just until they are moistened. Pour into a greased and floured 9" cake pan and bake at 425 degrees for about 20 mins or until cornbread tests done.

Enjoy!

Becka