So we still have a mess of this kale left, and it was another good night for soup...

Put a bunch of sliced Conecuh sausage and a few pieces of minced bacon in the pot in some olive oil to brown, added in a chopped onion and a couple of chopped celery stalks to sweat it out. Put in salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and some cumin and let all that get happy together for a few minutes.

Then I added 2 cans of white beans and a box of chicken stock and let all that simmer while I preheated the oven to 400 and threw in my grandmother's old skillet with some canola oil and a big pat of butter in it. One egg, one cup of Martha White cornmeal mix and enough buttermilk to make it almost look like pancake batter.

Pulled out the super hot skillet and poured about half of the sizzlin' oil and butter in the batter, set the pan down on the stove, stirred the batter and poured it back in the sizzlin' skillet. Threw it back in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Then I added about a cup of water, and sprinkled about two 4 finger pinches of of the dry cornmeal mix while stirring to thicken up the broth a little and then added several handfuls of the fresh, chopped kale into the pot and let all that simmer while the cornbread was cookin' and popped open another Messican beer and stuck a piece of fruit in it.

When the cornbread was done I pulled it out of the oven and flipped it out on a plate, tasted the soup, adjusted the seasoning and served the whole mess up. My 80 year old Momma must have smelled something good from her house and drove over just in the nick of time, the skinny old gal even ate two pieces of cornbread with her bowl. We sent her home with a pint of it and a pint of the Italian sausage soup from last night. Meals on wheels...

Looks good. I envisioned it along the lines of a white beans and ham type dish turned into a soup. I can eat my weight in white beans and ham.

Place I eat in Lewiston, N.Y., when I'm up there fishing has a "greens and beans" dish that's similar. Doesn't have sausage in it. I asked the guy, a true NYC Italian transplant, for the recipe. His grandmother gave it too him. He looked at me like I'd asked to spend time with his daughter in the back room.

Also, your cornbread looks good! Crusty brown bottom. Looks like what my granny and great-granny used to make, although I bet you don't use lard.

Don't use lard, but I do use butter. The things in my mind that give it the crispy bottom:

1. I don't make my cornbread too thick, only about 1" or less. Which is why I only use 1 cup of mix for a 9" skillet.
2. The super hot skillet and plenty of hot oil when you pour in the batter, so in essence you are deep frying the bottom crust.
3. Flip it out of the skillet upside down on a plate, so the crispy bottom is exposed to the air.

Should've asked to spend time with his daughter in the back room...he might've figured that was a good trade off to distract you from wanting his recipe.

Oh lawdy...I love the meals on wheels comment!!! That is so sweet and it all looks mighty fine!!!

Mrs. Irish's mom comes down to go to Church on Sundays if the weather is pretty good, and we always make her a good meal and send her back home with enough pre-prepared meals to last her most of the week. Of course she is retired and her husband, Mrs. Irish's dad, has passed on. So she lives by herself, and our cooking is a welcome respite from her own "cooking for one."