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.

I have to warn you that this isn’t a recipe that is well documented at all. Oh, I have notes, but not very many real measurements. I’m not even sure how much it all makes!

It all started with w family recipe. One that was just kind of passed around. Here is one example of the “recipe” based on the version my sister, Conni, made one year. It’s really just a sticky note in one of my cookbooks:

It’s written in pencil and didn’t scan so well. Here’s the list of ingredients:

• French bread – 1 loaf
• Corn bread
• Sausage
• Celery
• Onion
• Poultry Season.
• Butter – 1 stick
• Sherry

Note the sherry in this recipe. A bit of sherry in the dressing – and on the turkey during basting – adds a delightful flavor! I have NO idea what the “Snack for Sunday” means. Nor do I know for sure how old this little yellow note is. My guess would be around 1987 or 1988? You’ll notice that there aren’t many specifics here.

Here is another, ‘more formal’ recipe although I’m not sure if there’s any cornbread in this one.

And the last entry is mine – or at least my 2014 version. I almost always go with just cornbread in my dressing. I’ve tried it with a mixture of cornbread and French bread, but usually I just use all cornbread. Homemade cornbread, I might add. From scratch homemade cornbread. No judgement here, that’s just how I was raised!

This isn’t even typically what I make. This may have been my first year to include sausage. And I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, until this year, include sliced sautéed mushrooms. I left them out because one of our guests is not fond of mushrooms. (Even though she has eaten my dressing, WITH MUSHROOMS, and raved about it in the past! Don’t tell her that, OK?)

So there it is. In all its glory and with not a lot of detailed information.

P.S. The picture of dressing, gravy and green beans is from 2011. All of it is made from scratch! I’ve asked my hubby for his green bean recipe, but he won’t share.

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Barbara

I love to cook. I’m also a health coach, a path I chose after going through a health crisis which taught me the importance of eating healthy meals. Now, I want to combine the two — health coaching and cooking — to help people learn to cook healthy meals. To plan healthy meals. And to eat healthy meals. For more, please visit Your Cooking Coach.

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