Updated January 2023
I believe that breakfast is the best way to eat up yesterday’s cornbread turning the stale and dry to crispy conveyors of flavor and egg.
Leftover cornbread seasoned with a bit of chile powder and cumin and pan fried until crispy, farm fresh eggs, roasted green chilies, and (optional) sharp cheddar cheese.
Consider this more of a suggestion than a recipe: an answer to what to do with leftover cornbread. No matter how delicious an entire pan of cornbread is, it is just too much for two or three people to eat in one sitting. But, like leftover mashed potatoes, there are so many possibilities- so many delicious possibilities- that I’m a little sad when nothing is left but crumbs.
When I first posted this I lived in a city where any and all foodstuffs were easily obtained. Now I live rural and my favorite brand of canned green chilies is not a short walk away. BUt there are fresh jalapeños and it turns out the heat rating is pretty close to hot hatch green chilies. JUst remember to wear gloves when peeling or cutting hot peppers!
fried cornbread and green chile eggs
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups Cornbread- leftover and chopped into bite size pieces
- ½ tsp chile powder
- ½ tsp cumin powder
- butter or oil for frying
- 2 eggs
- 1-3 TBS diced roasted green chilies (I used canned if I have them or roast jalapeño if hatch green chilies aren't available, you can go milder with anaheims)
- ¼ cup grated cheddar or mozzarella cheese optional
Instructions
- Toss the cornbread with seasonings and then fry over medium heat until crispy.
- Lower the heat and push the cornbread to the side (or remove from the pan) and add the eggs and green chilies.
- After whites have begun to set add the grated cheese if using
- Cook the eggs how you like them.
- Put it all together
- Garnish with cilantro or avocado or salsa or all of them
Pictured below is the original version of this recipe post with everything cooked in one pan and the poem posted with the original post, back when I did such things…
And because this is another sort of recipe I offer you another poem.
A return to seasons
Summer. Feet bare, tough enough
to cross hot pavement
without a wince. I was seven
and my dog was my best friend.
We climbed
into the hills and he ate
the rest of my supper
and I ate all of my dessert.
I remember that summer,
standing in front of the lilac bush
eyes squinted in the sun.
My mother posing me while the water
of the creek ran cold
just beyond the high grass
at the edge of our patchy lawn.
I returned in winter
trees bare, sky gray
with snow and memories frozen
in each rut of the driveway,
the lilac bush now gone.
I remember each leaf on those trees
and every star I counted
swinging on my swing
hands wrapped around the metal links
sweating in the summer
stinging with the frost.
That house is no longer ours,
furniture unfamiliar,
the old red mailbox gone.
I smell the leaves rotting
in wind made piles
and unthaw memory
in the slow moving swirls
of the creek
at the edge of a still patchy lawn.
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