Corn Bread

I've never been a huge fan of chili. To me, chili was always just ok, full of ground beef but with nothing that exciting. As someone who has never been a huge fan of ground beef to begin with, chili just never did it for me. That is, until recently, when I found a chili recipe that had NO BEEF. Since then, I have LOVED vegetarian chili recipes, especially this one. My favorite part of chili though, whether it be vegetarian or not, has always been the corn bread that goes along with it. I LOVE corn bread, and worked hard to come of with a recipe that was exactly what I wanted in a corn bread, corn kernels for texture, some heft, but not so horribly heavy as to fill you up, and soft with just enough sweetness. After experimenting with a few different recipes, and combining them all together, this is the recipe I came up with. The cheese gives only a subtle taste, and could easily be left out if desired (but I love cheese, so I tend to put it in whenever I make it). Unfortunately, this corn bread is so delicious, I didn't get a picture of it before it was cut, so I had to make do with a picture from lunch the next day. I think it still shows how delicious and textured the bread is.

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Corn Bread
Ingredients :
1 cup flour
1 cup corn meal
3/8 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1/2 cup frozen corn

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 9 glass baking pan thoroughly (I like to grease it with a bit of shortening. Pam never seemed good enough to keep corn bread from sticking).
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Mix well.
3. In a small bowl, crack two eggs and beat lightly. Add milk and vegetable shortening, and mix.
4. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until no longer clumpy.
5. Add corn kernels and cheese (optional) and stir until incorporated. DO NOT OVERSTIR.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until top is golden and until the center is firm and a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.