Cornbread Dressing

Cornbread dressing is my favorite part of Thanksgiving.  That in itself is surprising since I am a Yankee born and bred but I think I got some of my mother's southern genes because I just love the south and everything about it.  Love the people, the food, the slower pace and did I say the food?   I love the food .. not the grease so much but the food is so tasty.  So here goes with the dressing .. you can stuff your bird with it but most true southerners would rather die than shove all that goodness in the backside of a bird!

Turkey Day Eve ...

First I made a double batch of corn bread (not the sweetened stuff) and baked it in a jelly roll pan (or a large cookie sheet).  Once cooled I cut it into cubes, loosened it and set it out over night.

1 loaf of french bread cut into cubes and set out overnight on a cookie sheet.


Turkey Day ...

In a very large bowl put in all of your cubed bread.  Melt 1 stick of butter and pour that in as well.   Salt & pepper to taste.

In saute pan add 1/2 - 1 stalk of celery cut up (leaves and all) and 1 chopped onion.   Saute in olive oil until transparent but not browned.   Cool it down then dump in with your bread mixture.

Because I have it in my garden and because I have never used it before I chopped up some fresh sage into the mixture.  I have no idea how much I used but I would say a minimum of 1T then to that I added ground sage until it smelled right (again no idea how much but add as much or as little as you like).  Salt & pepper to taste and gently fold ingredients together (with your hands) so that all the spices are combined well.

To this mixture you will add 1 carton (more or less) of low sodium chicken broth.  You don't want your mixture to be real wet so add slowly.  You also don't want your bread to break down so be gentle with it.
Put mixture into a buttered 9x13 pan...Now to the tasty part ... remove the lid from your roaster pan and ladle out a couple ladles of turkey juice and pour over top of your dressing.   Using a spoon move the bread around until it absorbs the juice.   Add more juice until the dressing is moist but not saturated.   Cover with foil and bake in 350 oven for 30 minutes.  You can remove the foil the last 10 minutes if you want a crustier top.