Sausage and broccoli cornbread

I love this one dish meal!  Of course you could serve it as a side dish but there's no need. And you can see it is appropriate to use a paper plate....

Sausage and broccoli cornbread

1 lb. bulk sausage
1 lb. frozen chopped broccoli
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 tbl baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
enough milk to moisten the mixture ( about a cup?) Sorry, I don't measure it.
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan. Brown the sausage. Take it off the heat and mix in the frozen broccoli to cool the sausage and soften the broccoli. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Whisk to combine. Add the eggs, oil, and enough milk to make a pancake batter consistency. Add the sausage and broccoli. Stir and pour into the prepared pan. Bake for about 30 minutes until the top is golden brown. Put the grated cheese on top and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Cut into squares.

You can change this in many ways. Leftover vegetables or frozen spinach could replace the broccoli. You can leave out the sausage and just make broccoli cornbread. Last week, I used a little crumbled bacon instead. Add onions or peppers if you wish. The cheese is also great mixed in the batter before cooking.
This makes a good one-dish meal or is delicious with a salad, some soup or a bowl of beans. My mom always made this to take to the lake with us, and topped it with chili con queso. That is an odd picnic food I know! But everyone was always starving after swimming a few hours and this was a welcome meal.