Cheddar Corn Dog Muffins

Clay stayed with us through the week. He slept in the guest room and came out for meals and sat on the back porch in the evenings and didn't drink. I know he didn't drink because I know the signs of a man who's drinking and the signs of a man who's white-knuckling it, and Clay was white-knuckling it with both fists. He saw Dr. Rivera on Monday and came back quieter than he went in, which I take as a good sign because therapy that doesn't cost you something isn't doing its job.

Connie handled it the way Connie handles everything — by creating structure where chaos wants to live. She made sure there was food at regular times. She kept the house calm. She didn't tiptoe around Clay or treat him like he was made of glass, because Connie knows that treating a man like he's fragile makes him believe he is, and Clay is not fragile. He is damaged. There's a difference. Glass shatters. Steel bends. Clay is steel.

I cooked every night because the kitchen is where I'm useful and being useful is the only thing standing between me and the helplessness that wants to swallow me whole. Monday I made soup beans — pintos soaked overnight, simmered with a ham hock and onion and garlic and salt, served with cornbread and chow-chow. Betty's Monday beans. The routine of it matters. You cook the beans on Monday because Monday is soup bean day, and the world can fall apart in every direction but Monday is still Monday and the beans still need soaking and the cornbread still needs a hot skillet and some things do not change and that's not stubbornness, that's survival.

Wednesday I made fried okra for the first time this summer — fresh okra from the farmers market, sliced, tossed in cornmeal with salt and cayenne, fried in oil until it crisps up and loses that sliminess that people who don't know okra complain about. Clay ate a whole plate. He said it tasted like Mammaw's. I said that's because it is Mammaw's. Same recipe. Same cornmeal. Same skillet, even — Betty's ten-inch Lodge that I've been cooking in since before Clay was born. Some things carry forward not because you try but because you can't help it. The food remembers even when the people forget.

Clay moved back to his apartment Saturday. He said he was ready. I didn't argue, though I wanted to, because a man has to live in his own space and fight his own fight and all a father can do is make sure the boy knows where the door is and that it's never locked. I sent him home with soup beans and cornbread in a container. It's what I have. It's all I have.

I sent Clay home with soup beans, but if I’m honest, the cornbread was what I kept thinking about — the way corn and a hot skillet can turn a hard week into something bearable, something that smells like your grandmother’s kitchen and asks nothing of you except that you eat. These Cheddar Corn Dog Muffins aren’t Mammaw’s cornbread, but they’re made from the same instinct: corn, heat, something golden and solid you can hold in your hand. When you need to be useful and the kitchen is where you go to feel it, you reach for what you know, and what I know is corn and cast iron and food that feeds people without making a fuss about it.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 18 minutes | Total Time: 28 minutes | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 box (8.5 oz) cornbread mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
4 beef hot dogs, cut into thirds (12 pieces total)
1 tablespoon yellow mustard, for serving

Instructions

Preheat. Heat your oven to 375°F. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin well with butter or non-stick spray, making sure to coat the sides.
Mix the batter. In a medium bowl, combine the cornbread mix, egg, and milk. Stir until just combined — a few lumps are fine. Fold in the shredded cheddar cheese.
Fill the tin. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups, filling each about halfway.
Add the hot dogs. Press one hot dog piece, cut-side down, into the center of each muffin cup. The batter should come up around the sides slightly.
Bake. Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, until the cornbread is set and the tops are golden brown at the edges. A toothpick inserted into the corn part should come out clean.
Cool and serve. Let the muffins rest in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out. Serve warm with yellow mustard on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cheddar Corn Dog Muffins — The Corn in the Skillet Remembers