Sunday Southern Home Cooking - Lobster Mac & Jalapeño Cornbread

A while ago (and I mean a LONG while), we visited a fish market and bought lobster meat (we think)... it could have been crab meat, but regardless... this morning I finally took it out of the freezer and decided to make some *lobster* mac n cheese! And what goes better with mac n cheese than CORNBREAD!

I selected Food Network's Lobster Mac and Cheese (the ingredients appealed to my taste) &  AllRecipes.Com's Absolute Mexican Cornbread because I wanted jalapeño cornbread.

I started with the cornbread since it takes 1 hr to bake. I wish I had listened to Dominic when he suggested we buy fresh jalapeños. That was the ONLY disappointment. The cornbread was not spicy AT ALL! You couldn't even tell that I put jalapeños in the darn thing! 

However, this recipe makes for the BEST cornbread I have EVER tasted. That includes NOLA's House of Blues jalapeño cornbread, the surprisingly tasty cornbread at Nervous Nellies a few weeks ago, Atlanta's Mary Mac's and seriously, any other cornbread I've ever eaten! 

If only it had that jalapeño taste / kick I was craving!
Ah, that only means I have to make it again sometime soon!

I made a few substitutions to the "mac n cheese" recipe to make myself feel a little better about eating a meal prepared with 3 sticks of butter by using "vegetarian" macaroni pasta & low fat cheddar cheese. It did not change the flavor one bit. I also don't think it made a difference in this calorie bonanza! Dominic and I seem to disagree on how "fishy" the lobster flavor was. He would have preferred to not include the lobster into the mac n cheese after he cooked it. I thought the Gruyere Cheese mixture had such a strong taste that it took away any "fishiness" from the lobster.

Even though I enjoyed my meal, I do not think this mac n cheese is something I would cook again. It was EXTREMELY rich and Dominic was not keen on the lobster flavor. It also makes for a LOT of servings. I made enough to fill two 8" x 8" pans and we only ate half of one (froze the other). The cornbread was done in a 9" x 13" pan and is good for 4 people since everyone will want seconds!