OLD FASHION TURKEY DRESSING

This recipe is from an old church cookbook. No date, or town.

12 cups dry bread crumbs
1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup finely minced onion
1 1/2 cups finely minced celery
4 eggs, well beaten
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp dried sage
poultry seasoning to taste (a lot)
1 qt milk
giblets chopped
broth

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Melt butter in heavy skillet. Add onion and celery to skillet and cook until they are softened. Put bread crumbs into a very large bowl. Add celery and onion to crumbs. Add eggs, baking powder, salt, pepper, sage, and poultry seasoning; mix together. Add milk, giblets, and enough broth to make the mixture quite moist. Pack turkey loosely. If baked in roaster, baste with turkey juices.
Note: You can save time, especially at the holidays, by chopping the onions and celery a day or two ahead of time. Seal in a bowl or plastic bag and save up to 3 days.

Note: File Photo

MAMA'S CORNBREAD DRESSING

Note: This is not my mama's recipe. My mother never made cornbread dressing. Her Southern Indiana recipe used bread only. This is a recipe I found years ago while searching the internet.

2 cups chopped onions

2 cups chopped celery
1/2 cup butter
4 cups finely crumbled toasted bread
4 cups finely crumbled cornbread
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon dried sage
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
turkey broth
4 large eggs, beaten

Melt butter in a skillet; add the onions and celery and saute until tender.
Combine toasted bread and cornbread in a large bowl and mix.
Add onions and celery plus their cooking liquid, and salt, pepper, dried sage, and poultry seasoning and mix thoroughly.
Using a bulb baster, add just enough turkey giblet broth to make a very moist mixture, then stir in the eggs and scrape dressing into a large greased baking pan or dish.
Bake in 400 degree F oven until dressing is nicely browned, about 30 to 40 minutes.

File Photo

M Dressing!

ama’s Cornbread Dressing!

APPLE RAISIN HERB STUFFING & TURKEY

This recipe is from a rural Midwestern Electrical Co-op Newsletter.

12-14 lb turkey, thawed
8 cups dried bread cubes (10-13 slices of bread)
3 cups Granny Smith apples, cored and chopped
3/4 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 cup chicken broth
6 tbsp margarine, melted

Combine bread cubes, apples, raisins, onion, parsley and herbs. Add broth and margarine. Toss to mix. Stuff seasoned turkey and roast according to turkey package directions.

 This is a file photo from cdkitchen

Texas Senator Kirk Watson's Grammy''s Cornbread Dressing

Thanks to Kirk Watson for sharing memories of his Grammy and her recipes with us.

Happy Thanksgiving

I do believe in ghosts.

Vesta Bryant Watson Cranor, a/k/a “Grammy,” made the best Thanksgiving and Christmas dressing. Second place isn’t close. Actually, there is no second place, because everything else really isn’t even dressing.Billye Faye Vanderslice Watson, Grammy’s daughter-in-law and my mother, made the same dressing — usually in the same kitchen with Grammy. Every time they made it, they’d ask my father to taste it before it went in the oven.

The exchange was always the same.  Grammy would say, “Don, would you taste the dressing?” He’d always dip a spoon into the soupy mix, put it in his mouth and say, “There’s not enough sage.” Every single time. And every single time, they’d put a little more sage in and then ignore anything else he had to say. I still wonder if he even knew what sage tasted like.

Mother died in early 1999. Grammy wasn’t making dressing by that time and died a little later. We messed around with different dressings but they were never the same.

One holiday season, Liz and I were mourning the fact that we didn’t know the recipe and had lost the historians. We sort of chastised ourselves for not writing it down when we had those two around.

That night, Liz pulled a book off a high shelf and a 3 X 5 card fluttered out of it. On the card, in my mother’s handwriting, was the recipe to what she labeled “Grammy’s Cornbread Dressing.” It was very spooky. It felt like those two old women had been listening and sent us that recipe to take care of us again.

Here it is.

Grammy’s Cornbread Dressing

I’ve bolded what the old gals told us was important. Use WHITE bread for the toast and cheap biscuits, no butter or flaky stuff (not Grands). You MUST use bacon grease to cook the cornbread in … and you just make the cornbread plain.Also you MUST use a glass baking dish. We’re convinced that if we don’t, they will haunt us and say: “I could have sworn those boys were smarter’n that…..”

• 1 recipe of Cornbread (Cornkits is the best — you can get it at HEB; Jiffy and others have too much sugar in them), preferably made with buttermilk or soured milk and greased in pan with bacon grease
• 3-4 Large Biscuits
• 3-4 slices toast
• 1 cup onion
• 1 cup celery
• 4 eggs – well broken
• 2-3 cups fresh stock or 2 cans chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons sage
• 1-2 tablespoons poultry seasoning (to taste)
• Salt and Pepper

TWO DAYS BEFORE:

• Prepare cornbread and white bread 2 days in advance and crumble fine. Let sit covered with a dishtowel to dry out in a bowl.

DAY OF:

• Mix all ingredients.
• Mixture should be very soupy in order to make a dressing that is not dry.
• Season to taste.
• Put in glass baking dish and cook at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until lightly golden/brown.

SOUTHERN SHRIMP AND GRITS DRESSING

1 lb peeled, medium-size raw shrimp
3 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1 cup uncooked regular grits
1/2 cup butter
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 cup fine dry breadcrumbs
1 cup chopped green onion
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Lightly grease an 11 x 7-inch baking pan; set aside.

Devein shrimp.

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the broth, salt and red pepper to a boil. Whisk in the grits and return to a boil; reduce heat to low and stir in the butter. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed; remove from heat.

In a large bowl, stir together the eggs, bell pepper, breadcrumbs, green onion, and Parmesan cheese.  Gradually stir about a fourth of the hot grits mixture into the egg mixture. Add mixture to the remaining hot grits, stirring constantly. Stir in the shrimp until blended throughout.  Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake at 325 degrees for about an hour or until set.

Let dressing stand for 10 minutes before serving

Note: This is an old Southern Living magazine recipe.