Thanksgiving Week And Our Cornbread Dressing

My hat loving youngest grandchild. 

Our house was full to the brim last week. Five grandchildren, ranging from 22 months to 23 years old. Daughters. Son-in-laws. It was loud, messy, chaotic and wonderful. The youngest set was here for over a week. The others were in and out for several days. And to top it off, the day after Thanksgiving, we had 15 men on our roof replacing the shingles. It sounded like Santa and his eight tiny reindeers plus his reindeer B-team.

For almost all of my long life, Thanksgiving was a big extended family affair. I remember years when there were 40+ people heaping plates from a long line of casseroles. But because we always went to that house for Thanksgiving, my turkey cooking skills were in the "yet to be explored" category. Since the large family gathering came to an end a few years ago I've still not cooked the turkey. We had a Covid year when I cooked a turkey breast. One year a son-in-law took charge, brining and roasting an heirloom turkey. And the other son-in-law fried a turkey for us a couple of years.

But this year, it came down to me. After looking at so many ways to roast the perfect turkey—wet brine, dry brine, oven bag, slow roast, cook at a higher temp than usual, etc.—I decided to go with tried and true. I followed the Butterball instructions to the letter. And it worked perfectly. Their method is straight forward. Pretty uncomplicated compared to some of the other directions. If it's my turn again next year, I'll know this way works.

The dressing is between the turkey and the fork.

Our menu was like so many others for the actual Thanksgiving meal. Turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs and my favorite part, dressing and gravy.

There is a huge debate—where the right answer is always "the kind my mama made"—about dressing vs stuffing. Stuffing goes inside the turkey. Dressing is baked in a dish and served beside the turkey. And the debate continues...sausage or no sausage, oysters or no oysters, apples or no fruit. Here in the South, dressing is most often made with cornbread. Every cook has their own version. Both my son-in-laws have recipes from their families. Both are good. But this year I made dressing like my mother made it.

Like many good cooks, Mother didn't have a written recipe. But several years before she died, she decided to write down recipes for some of her favorite dishes. I am so glad. She didn't write them down as she made them, measuring as she wrote. Instead I remember her sitting at the kitchen table, writing down how she remembered doing it. So the directions are not specific like modern recipes. 

In the interest of preserving her "recipe" I'm sharing it here. This dressing is uncomplicated but it was delicious. I hadn't made it in years and was happy it was as good as I remembered.

This is in my mother's handwriting. 

CORNBREAD DRESSING

1 9x9-inch pan of cornbread (I used the recipe on the White Lily self-rising cornmeal mix bag)

1 egg

*1/3 cup celery, chopped fine

*1 medium onion, chopped fine

*a little Pepperidge Farm seasoned herb stuffing mix

enough chicken or turkey broth to moisten (and make it "mushy")

I added a few shakes of ground sage

Crumble the cornbread with your fingers so that there are no large pieces. The texture is a fine crumb. Mix all ingredients together, adding enough broth to make the mixture "mushy." Put into a greased 9x9 pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until lightly browned on top.  

Notes:

*Double everything for a 9x13 pan. And the cooking time was nearly double, too. My double batch filled a 9x13 dish, plus a 1-qt dish which went into the freezer.

*Mother always stressed the importance of chopping the celery and onion fine. She said no one wants to bite into a big piece of celery. 

*I had a thought during the night! I did a reverse weigh of the stuffing I had left to figure out how much I used! It was right at 1 cup for a 9x9 pan of cornbread.

*It can be mixed the day before and refrigerated until it's time to bake. Adjust your time if baking straight from the refrigerator. 

 

And that's all she told me! Sometimes she added a little mashed cooked sweet potato to keep the dressing moist. (Instead of the can of chicken soup folks use now.) Last week I used the herb stuffing mix. How much you ask? About that much! I know you hate answers like that, but I can't tell you any more. 

And how much broth? For my double batch it was a little over a quart. I was using boxes of Swansons and I had to open the 2nd box. It always takes more than I think. 

A better question would be "how do I know when I've added enough?" My mother only said "mushy." I would add "but not soupy." Mine sloshed around a little in the dish when I put it in the refrigerator.

If you are brave enough to make this recipe that doesn't have precise amounts, remember that my mother never measured anything. So it's unlikely the amounts she used would have been exactly the same each time. And it always worked. I don't think precise is a requirement here.

As I sit here writing this a few days after our Thanksgiving feast, I am truly giving thanks for so many things. Let us all live in a season of thanksgiving all year long.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is as far as I've gotten with my Thanksgiving prep. We will have a full house next week—a toddler, a preschooler, a 4th grader, a teenager, the recent college graduate and the parents of these children. I should have menus planned for the entire week by now. But I don't. There's still tomorrow.

But I decided today that on Wednesday night we should have a snacky kind of supper. The little kids eat really early. The rest of us eat later. And I'm not even sure who will be on hand that night. Appetizer foods should give us a lot of flexibility. And hopefully keep the kitchen relatively free for Thursday's cooking. 

Here are some of our favorite finger foods. The links will take you to the blog post that includes the recipe. Sometimes the recipe is way down in the post, but it's there. I wish I had a "print" button for the recipes, but this blog is a low-tech as they come.

Chicken Dip. — a substantial food that easy to put together. It's done in a slow cooker. Serve with crackers.

Ham Delights — this edges into "real food." Also good made with turkey. Can be made ahead and refrigerated or frozen.

Lavash Crackers — a new recipe! Easy to make crackers. This time I'll season with cinnamon sugar and serve with Boars Head Pumpkin Pie Hummus.

Easy Smoked Salmon Herb Appetizers — easy enough for a 3-year-old to make. (But she ate them as fast as she made them!)

Pumpkin-Shaped Baked Brie En Croûte — seriously, this is made for a Thanksgiving table. Ridiculously easy and ridiculously delicious. Serve with crackers and apple slices.

We can decide which ones we want to make in a day or two. I anticipate a trip to the grocery store every day anyway. We can add a veggie tray and maybe some chicken nuggets for the kids. The little ones and the big ones.

There is much to be thankful for this year although sometimes it seems the world is falling apart. After a peek at the morning news, I turn it off for the rest of the day and let my thoughts be aware of the wonder and the joy to be found in our surroundings. Find your joy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Doing Mimi Things

Sock Pumpkins

I got home last weekend after staying with the middle grandchildren while the parents traveled. At ages 9 and 13, they are easy to care for. The hardest part is all of the chauffeuring that age requires. I had forgotten at that stage of mothering how much of the day is spent in the car.

But on the weekend we stayed put. Before I left home I saw a craft I wanted to try with the girls, The first morning while they were at school I made a trip to buy supplies—one pack of kids socks, some cinnamon sticks, heavy duty thread and long tapestry needles. I brought a small bag of fiberfill from home.

All of the adorable pumpkins in the bowl were made from the same size socks. The amount of stuffing and the length of cuff you cut off makes the difference. The girls kept making them bigger and bigger.

It's all done with a tiny bit of hand sewing. The girls had learned some basic sewing stitches this summer during Mimi Camp, so they were ready. The hardest part of sewing during Mimi Camp was making the knot in the end of the thread. This is one time a big lumpy knot is what you need to keep the thread from pulling through. We used our thread doubled, too. 

If you google "sock pumpkins" you'll find many links to directions. As you'd expect, they are all slightly different. But you only need the basics. I saw a quick how-to reel on Instagram and that was all I needed. I'd share the link but I can't find the one I watched. Trust me, it's really easy. 

Remember the lavash crackers I told you about in the last blog post? Baby Girl asked if we could make some with cinnamon sugar. Man, was she on to something. These little crackers are super crispy and slightly sweet. Then I discovered this pumpkin pie spice hummus at their grocery store. As a life long pumpkin pie lover, let me say this was awesome! A perfect dip for these little crackers. 

Miss that recipe? Here is is again. Yes, this one is good enough to share two times in a row.

LAVASH CRACKERS

 1 package Joseph's Lavash Bread

 Pam olive oil spray

 Seasoning of your choice, such as cinnamon sugar, Everything but the Bagel or Ranch 

Preheat oven to 375º.

Put one sheet of lavash onto a sheet of parchment paper. Use pizza cutter to cut into cracker size pieces. Spray with olive oil spray. Sprinkle with seasoning. Carefully slide parchment paper onto a baking sheet. Bake for 5 to 6 minutes until lightly browned.  

Watch closely because they can burn easily! I rotate the sheet while baking.

Anthology Throw, by Curious Handmade

And I finally finished this circular blanket! I took the giant basket holding this work-in-progress with me to babysit. I was happy to get some extra knitting time while the girls were in school.

I started it last November so it was nearly a year from beginning to end. I will confess that it spent a good while in time out as my interest lagged. For you knitters out there, this is made of fingering weight yarn, nearly 500g. It's 5 ft. in diameter. So very glad to be finished. So very happy with the finished blanket.