Cornmeal Muffins with Three Lemony Herbs for #Baketogether

Lemon verbena, lemon thyme and lemon mint flavor these cornmeal muffins.

Sometimes, well, most of the time, I don’t like picking sides. That’s why these cornmeal muffins with three lemony herbs can walk the fine line between sweet and savory.

Abby posted her recipe for May’s #baketogether event, giving us two versions from which to choose. I tweaked the recipe just a little bit, kept a bit of sugar and used three fresh herbs — lemon verbena, lemon thyme and lemon  mint — that work well for any time of day.

For a sweet course, I’d serve these warm, sliced and topped with a strawberry sauce, a bit like shortcake, with some whipped cream on the side. For teatime: Warmed with a slather of butter, maybe a drizzle of honey.

In savory situations, put one of these muffins alongside a salad, perhaps making little crouton. I placed a small knob of goat cheese atop some of the muffins before they went into the oven. Goat cheese and lemony flavors are very compatible.

From left: Lemon verbena, lemon thyme and lemon mint.

My first tweak of Abby’s recipe juggles the ratio of flour to cornmeal. My family’s cornbread traditions have never involved wheat flour, only cornmeal, which means it’s a pretty sturdy bread. I kept the all purpose flour, just used a little less of it and a tad more cornmeal.

Summer Cake with Cornmeal and Amaretto Peaches, Plus a Second Variation

Summer Cake with Cornmeal and Amaretto Peaches

Thinking about this cake was almost as fun as baking and tasting.

Abby Dodge offered a Twitter #baketogether challenge for July and I enjoyed pondering variations of her recipe. I’d think about it while washing dishes, exercising, eating other meals. I know I’m not the only one whose mind wanders in this way.

My version substitutes locally produced cornmeal for half of the flour. You could call this a very sweet and moist cornbread. For a frame of reference, this cake is more moist than an Italian polenta cake tends to be.

For the fruit, I selected peaches because I love how the flavor deepens after baking. The peaches hail from Missouri because I’m told peaches do not grow so well in Iowa. (Iowa State University, would you please get on that and develop some Iowa peaches?)

Pizza from Scratch: Cornmeal Crust

Cornmeal Crust Pizza

For more than a decade, on most Friday evenings, we ordered pizza from a restaurant down the street. Nearly always the same thing: Mushrooms, garlic and a lighter serving of cheese. There was only one crust — thin and chewy — and it was made on site.

The pizza joint was in a building about the size of a postage stamp with an even smaller parking lot. By the time we moved this past winter, it had risen to a grand, two-story affair with a bar, a more extensive menu and an upstairs section where musicians sometimes played.

At some point during those years, the owner recognized us by the order. “Is this for M—?,” he’d ask after I made my request. “OK, 25 minutes.”