Category Archives: Recipes

Recipes from the Kitchen of Barbara McNeely

Cornbread Dressing Recipe

Cornbread dressing, gravy, and green beans
Cornbread dressing, gravy, and green beans

Last week I wrote about our gluten-free Thanksgiving. In a comment on that post, Meghann mentioned that she would love my recipe for the cornbread dressing. So, I decided to post it here on the blog.

Background: My parents were both from Tennessee, so I grew up on Southern cooking. We always had cornbread dressing at Thanksgiving. In fact, I was well into my 30’s before I knew there was any other kind. I also grew up cooking and baking from scratch. So no bags of stuffing from the store at our house. I typically make my cornbread from scratch that goes into my cornbread dressing. But, as I said in last week’s blog post, I was going for the gluten-free experience so I used a mix purchased from HGD Foods for the 2014 cornbread dressing.
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Thanksgiving Plans

Cranberry Sauce is always on our menu!
Cranberry Sauce is always on our menu!
For most of us, next week is Thanksgiving. At our house we are having it a week early. It worked out best work-wise and travel-wise for family coming to visit.

I am excited to see family. And I love cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner at the tender age of 20 for my now former in-laws. Even my first turkey wasn’t dry. I don’t always cook for Thanksgiving though, because it’s a lot of work. I don’t mind the work, as long as there are plenty of people coming to dinner!
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Recipes for Your Holiday Meals

Holiday Recipe Ideas
Holiday Recipe Ideas
Every year, I look for something different to bring into our holiday meals. I love experimenting and creating new recipes. So I’ve don’t a bit of a round up of recipes for you.

In recent posts I’ve highlighted cranberry recipes and holiday party ideas. Today I thought I would focus on vegetable dishes. (You can call them side dishes, if you must.)

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Holiday Party Ideas – Recipes

Holiday Party Ideas
Holiday Party Ideas
If you’re going to a party or having a party or get-together of your own, then you may be looking for holiday party ideas. My husband has a salad that he takes to all of the work gatherings. It contains mandarin oranges, pineapple, marshmallows, sour cream, pecans, sometimes maraschino cherries, and sometimes coconut. He’s the one that makes it and it is often requested by his co-workers. I don’t really have that recipe. But I have some suggestions that are much better than that one, although perhaps not always as easy.

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Kale, Mushrooms, & Tomatoes

Kale, Mushrooms, & Tomatoes
A recipe for kale with mushrooms and Rotel Tomatoes and Green Chilis.
The first time I cooked kale was just two years ago. Now it is a favorite in our house. It’s in season here in South Texas right now so we have it often. The secret to this recipe is the Ro*Tel Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies! I checked, and there is no recipe on the Ro*Tel site that includes kale!

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Grass-Fed Chili con Carne

As a child, I always looked forward to chili on a cold, winter day. Mom always planned it that way. We would have chili and flour tortillas. To this day, it’s the first dish I think of when the weather turns cold. Of course, living in South Texas means that we often have chili even when it isn’t cold out!

Chili con Carne simply means chili with meat. Our house has switched to using grass-fed beef almost exclusively. If you wan to know why, read this post on the benefits of grass-fed beef. Should chili have beans in it or not? There will likely never be a consensus on this question. However, you’ll know where I stand in this recipe: I won’t mention beans again!

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