We wanted to bring to you some delicious, quick and simple recipes that can be made with little cost. A bonus is that many of the ingredients used for these recipes can be found at the Oregon State University, Human Service Resource Center food pantry. We decided to play with color and make blue cornbread and vegetable scrambled eggs
To make our cornbread, we chose to use blue cornmeal. This ingredient, one of the lesser grabbed items at the food pantry, served to give our cornbread an interesting blue tinge! To pair with the cornbread, we decided to make some scrambled eggs. As students we usually have a hectic morning, rushing to make a quick breakfast of just eggs. Scrambled eggs with veggies, is a delicious and healthier alternative to your regular plain ol’ scramble.
We began with making cornbread, the ingredients included:
Download a PDF of this recipe: Blue Corn Cornbread – Fifteen Spatulas
- ¾ cup of butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup of sugar
- 3 regular eggs
- 1.5 cups milk
- 2 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 cup of blue corn meal
- 4.5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
As you prepare your ingredients, preheat the oven to 400℉.
To prepare the ingredients you will need 3 bowls.
In the first bowl mix together butter and sugar. Do not worry if you didn’t have enough time to let your butter melt to room temperature. We decided to heat it in the microwave until partially melted.
In the second bowl mix together your eggs and milk.
In the third bowl sift together your flour, blue cornmeal, baking soda and salt.
Add ⅓ of the flour mixture to the sugar/butter mix in the first bowl, then add ½ of the egg/milk mixture. Mix this until all ingredients are absorbed.
Repeat this step until the remaining flour mixture and egg/milk mixture are added into the first bowl.
* We did not have an electric mixer, however a fork or whisk were able to serve the same purpose. We do recommend using an electric mixer, as it was quite exhausting trying to mix the ingredients with a fork.
Grease the pan with butter, or pam (if you already have it).
Once mixed, pour the cornbread mixture into a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan. Or any large pan you have available.
Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. To check that it is cooked stick a toothpick or fork through the middle. If the fork comes out clean, then it is cooked all the way through
Once it’s ready, let it cool off. We couldn’t wait to eat it, and found out that while still hot it could be quite crumbly.
-This recipe was adapted from Blue Corn Cornbread by Joanne Ozuq at 15spatulas.com
We then prepared the egg recipe:
Download a PDF of this recipe: Colorful Scrambled Eggs
- 8 regular eggs
- 1 large green pepper
- 3 tomatoes
- 1 large onion
- Pepper (to taste)
- Salt (to taste)
- 1 cup of milk
- 1 tbsp of vegetable oil
Start by cubing your tomatoes, onions and green pepper. Then mix in a bowl.
Break the eggs in a separate bowl and add 1 cup of milk.
*We later found out that 1 cup was too much and recommend using ½ a cup.
Mix the eggs and milk, then pour the mixture into the vegetable bowl.
Add salt and pepper to taste into the mixture.
Heat a large pan and add vegetable oil.
*We did not have a specific temperature to heat it to, so we started on low and gradually increased it.
Once hot, add mixture and scramble with a spatula until ready.
Here’s a picture of the delicious, complete product!
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Final thoughts from Fatuma and Nikita, two Spring 2018 volunteers:
Volunteering with the food pantry started as a great way to earn service learning hours for a class, but it turned into an eye opening experience. We were able to learn how the food pantry functions, and the great ways it has impacted food insecurity in our community. We were excited for this blogging opportunity to not only expand our knowledge about how the food pantry items may be used, but also share our experience making some interesting recipes. In the future, we look forward to opportunities to experiment with food products we might have overlooked in the past and encourage others to experiment themselves!