February 24, 2008

Arrowhead Mills Blue Corn Meal

I found Arrowhead Mills Blue Corn Meal at a local grocery when I was living in Brooklyn Heights. I was looking for a mix to make my own corn bread for stuffing. I love blue corn chips, and there was a cornbread recipe on the back of the bag, so into my cart it went.

Thanksgiving of ’06 was a number of firsts; my first time preparing a gluten free Thanksgiving meal, my first time preparing a Thanksgiving meal solo, and my Ecuadorian boyfriends first turkey. I wanted everything to be perfect so I started prepping early. A few days before T-day I made a pan of cornbread following the recipe on the bag. After it was cooled I sliced it and set it on plate to get stale for the stuffing.

It tasted just like a regular corn bread; only it was a very intriguing shade of blue green, quite pretty actually. The recipe on the bag is for a real, dry, crumbly Southern corn bread, not the Northern version that is more appropriate to being a dessert.

The evening before Thanksgiving I set about chopping the vegetable and mixing up my stuffing. Reaching for the cornbread I found the plate bare, with the exception of a few wayward blue crumbs. Upon questioning, the elderly gentleman I was living with as a companion ‘fessed up to eating all of it, since it “was just so good. I couldn’t stop myself”. The second batch was just as good as the first, and even though it didn’t have a chance to get stale it still made an excellent stuffing. The one pan that I made was just enough to stuff the smallest turkey I could fins.

The recipe on the package was easy to make, and turned out just fine even though I have no idea how accurate the thermostat was on the ancient oven I was using. I’m sure that the Blue Corn Meal could be used as a substitute for yellow cornmeal in any recipe with colorful results. Arrowhead Mills offers other gluten free flours and mixes and processes the Blue Corn Meal in their gluten free facility.

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