The Native Floridian – Wayne Roth Photography

You never know when inspiration hits.  It was a lazy Sunday morning and the tummy was a rumbling because I was watching the Food Network.  Then I saw one of the chefs take some kind or an egg casserole looking dish out of the oven.  Inspiration just hit.  This is the first time I have ever made anything like this and it came out fantastic!  It was even better cold.

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1/2 cup almond breeze (or milk or something to fluffy up the eggs)
• 15 Ritz crackers
• 1/2 large sweet onion
• 4 thin slices of ham
• 1 T minced garlic
• 2 stalks celery
• 1/2 – 1 cup Cheddar cheese
• 1/2-1 whole tomato
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. During preheat put cast iron skillet in oven with about 1/16″ olive oil on bottom of pan for 10 minutes.
3. Dice up onion, celery, tomato and ham.
4. Saute onion, celery, ham, and minced garlic adding tomato when onions are translucent.
5. Scramble 6 eggs in a bowl.
6. Add 10 crushed Ritz crackers
7. Add almond breeze
8. Add cheddar cheese
9. Add sauteed ingredients
10. Pour batter in skillet when 10 minute preheat is done.
11. Add more crushed ritz crackers to top
12. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees
13. Broil for last 2 minutes to brown top.

Enjoy!

There are so many variations of this I do not know where to start.  So let’s start with the cast iron skillet.  The best corn bread is made in a cast iron skillet that has been preheated to 425 degrees for at least 10 minutes.  This allows the cornbread batter to start cooking and even fry a little when it is poured into the very hot skillet.

Ingredients

• 1/8″ olive oil or vegetable oil or crisco or good ole fashioned lard
• 1 egg

• 1-1/2 Cups Martha Whites Self Rising corn meal (sometimes I use 1 cup cornmeal and 1/2 cup self rising flour for a different texture)

• 1 cup milk or almond breeze or buttermilk

• 1/4 – 3/4 cup minced sweet onion (optional but I rarely leave this out! It really makes it sweet and moist)

• 1/2 cup creamed corn (optional)

• 1 tablespoon surgar (optional if I want it a little sweet and if I did not have any onions for the mix)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees with a cast iron skillet containing 1/8″ of oil for 10-12 minutes.  (Reduce preheat time if grease start smoking)
2. Mix all ingredients.  Keep in mind that these are guidelines and just modify up or down to get a consistency that can be poured like thick pancake batter.
3. Batter should sizzle a little when poured in oil just like frying a piece of chicken on low heat.
4. It takes about 20 minutes depending on how large the mixture, and how much cream corn and onions you put in the mix.  Just poke a round in the middle to make sure it has cooked through and you are done.

I was sittin on the front porch whittlin on a stick the other day and I was just thinkin away.  You know that’s what us Florida Crackers do.  We not exactly,  but I was thinking about all of these recipes that I have in a drawer in the kitchen. The first thought is to put them in a 3 ring binder and alphabetize them.  Imagine that.  The second thought was to post them on my blog so that anybody could access them and they would be in a central location for the family.  Plus the search feature on the website would allow me to find any recipe immediately.  So here goes my first entry in the category of Florida Cracker Recipes.

This is a recipe that I came up with by comparing recipes on the internet and modifying them to fit my taste.  Plus I switched the hamburger to ground venison being a Florida Cracker and all.  People seemed to love this version of chili when I served it at our bonfire and at a Christmas party.

Florida Cracker Venison Chili

Ingredients

2 pounds ground venison
2 (15 ounce) Cans Kidney Beans
1 Small Jar of Ragu Traditional Pizza Sauce
1 (32 ounce) Can crushed tomatoes
1 large sweet onion
3 stalks celery chopped
1 green bell pepper
¼ cup chili powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (Use ½ teaspoon for mild to medium)
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon white sugar

Directions

1. Brown the meat then add all ingredients into a large crock pot.
2. After about 2 hours, taste the chili and adjust salt, pepper and chili powder if necessary.  It takes about 4 hours in the crock pot but the longer the better.