Tex-Mex chicken and jalapeno cornbread

I love, love, love cornbread - so when I saw the The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon, I had to buy it. A whole cookbook full of over 200 cornbread recipes? How could I resist?

Combine a new cornbread cookbook and a bunch of fresh jalapenos from our balcony garden, and the results are obvious: jalapeno cornbread. The recipe I used was Jane's Texas-via-Vermont Mexican Cornbread. And while I'd be happy just eating cornbread for an entire meal, we also made Tex-Mex Chicken with Chilis and Cheese, from the June/July 2009 issue of Fine Cooking. Both were delicious - and though there were four jalapenos between the two, neither were too spicy.

If you're in the market for a cooking magazine and can only have one, Fine Cooking should be it. There's always a set of quick weeknight recipes in the back that - unlike what Michael Pollen decries in his recent New York Times Magazine article - are actual cooking. The rest of the magazine has gorgeous photography and interesting recipes, and usually has one weekend project and a general recipe that can be modified many different ways (like ice cream flavors, or lasagna). (Now, if you can have two cooking magazines, I'd recommend Cook's Illustrated.)

There are still at least two more jalapenos on the plant, so I'll have to think about what to do with those. In the meantime, I'm having some cornbread for dessert.