Corn Meal Dressing
Description
I don't know many people who flat out don't like dressing. And the controversy over corn bread vs. non-corn-bread or plain old Pepperidge Farm dressing or not is legendary. I will admit to finding the Pepperidge Farm route kind of bland. And I do like the flavors and textures that come with corn meal or corn bread dressings, but then again--I'm from the South, so...I would, right?
And then, there's the question of to stuff or NOT to stuff? I don't stuff, but mostly because for years and years, I threw a legendary "Pre-Thanksgiving" party where I served Thanksgiving dinner to up to 25 people. With a 25-30 pound turkey, adding the extra weight of all that stuffing was just out of the question, so I always made it in casserole dishes on the side--the day before!
Whatever your preferences, this recipe is my mom's cornmeal dressing recipe and its the one I grew up with, so, naturally, the one that I like the best and the one that really says "Happy Thanksgiving!" to me!
p.s.: the featured picture is of the piece of light blue copier paper on which my mom wrote this recipe for me just before I got married and left home. It's covered with about 35 years worth of Thanksgiving shmutz. I'll never part with it ;-)
Ingredients
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350*. In a very large pot, pour water, bouillon and corn meal into pan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly to avoid lumps until it becomes mush.
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Add rest of ingredients and blend thoroughly--this will take a little elbow grease ;-)--a large pan will help with this process as it will give you the room to work with all the dry ingredients. Add a little more broth if dry--it should be moist.
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Bake dressing in a 9x12" greased casserole dish for about an hour at 350*, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
