Cornbread Dressing

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year at our house.  We decided to try a few of the side dishes before the big day to make sure everything goes smoothly.  Growing up, we either catered Thanksgiving or went to a restaurant.  My grandmother used to make cornbread dressing at Christmas, but I don’t have access to that recipe.  So, I needed to find a decent dressing recipe.  After looking at pictures, I was pretty sure this is what my grandmother used to make.

The ingredients for the dressing are:

• (16 ounce) package dry corn bread mix (I used Jiffy Cornbread mix.)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 2 Tablespoons of dried onion, soaked in about 2 Tablespoons of water
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons dried sage
• salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the dry corn bread mix according to package directions. Cool, crumble and let sit overnight.  Similar to bread pudding, I wanted to cornbread to be a little stale to soak up the chicken stock.

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Spray a 9×13 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

In a smallish skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and saute the celery until soft.  In a large bowl, combine the celery, onions, the crumbled corn bread, eggs, chicken stock, sage, salt and pepper.  Place into the 9×13 dish and bake at 350°F for 30 minutes.

Carrot Soufflé

Three years ago my sister in law made carrot souffle for Thanksgiving and was kind enough to share the recipe with me.  I’m ashamed to say that I’ve just gotten around to trying to make it myself.

The ingredients for carrot souffle are:

• 2 pounds carrots-boiled and mashed
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 Tablespoons of flour
• 3 eggs-well beaten
• 1 stick butter
• powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix carrots, granulated sugar, baking powder, vanilla with an electric mixer.

Blend in flour. Mix in eggs and butter.  Transfer to a small glass baking dish.

Bake for 1 hour.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar when ready to serve.

Cucumber and Tomato Salad

I’m almost embarrassed to write about this salad because it is so easy.  The salad is also delicious, so I’ll get over my embarrassment and share it with you.

Cut two to three cucumbers into chunks.  I didn’t like cucumbers for a long time.  After eating sushi, I discovered that I like cucumbers just fine as long as the seeds and the skin were gone.   For this salad, I just include the flesh of the cucumber.  If you like the other parts, then include them.  Cut and de-seed three to four tomatoes.  I prefer heirloom tomatoes, but any kind will work.  Add a scoop of garlic and about a cup of Newman’s Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing.  Refrigerate overnight and serve!

The lovely thing about this salad is that you can tailor it to your tastes.  If you like onions, add them.  Green peppers your thing?  Go for it!  Enjoy!

Lentil Salad with Greek Vinaigrette Dressing

One of my grandfather’s specialties is lentil salad.  This is a great side dish or main course, depending on your love for it.  Unfortunately, he hasn’t made it in quite a while because Bulgar wheat has become hard to find in his small town.  When I was checking out the new Whole Foods at Cool Springs, I was very excited to find the wheat and knew immediately what I wanted to cook!

Here is his recipe:

Lentil Salad

• ¾ cup Bulgar wheat, boiled in 1 ½  cup water for 30 minutes
• ¾ cup lentils, boiled in 2 cups water for 20 minutes
• 2 medium tomatoes, diced
• 1 small cucumber, diced
• ¼ cup red onion, chopped
• 20 – 22 black Kalamata olives, pitted
• Feta Cheese to taste

We found cracked Bulgar wheat, which lead to a different cooking time.  We boiled the Bulgar wheat for about 10 minutes when all the water was absorbed.  We decided to let it sit for about 20 minutes.  We boiled the lentils for 20 minutes, where they also absorbed most of the water.  We added the lentils to the wheat in a large bowl and waited a few minutes for the mixture to cool.

Once cooled, add tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, and olives to the mixture.

At this point, make the Greek Vinaigrette Dressing.

Greek Vinaigrette Dressing

• ½ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup water
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon oregano

Combine all the ingredients in a jar and shake well.

Pour the Greek vinaigrette dressing over salad mixture and toss.  Refrigerate until cold and serve with crumbled Feta cheese sprinkled over the top.

Take One: Swiss Chard

Here’s our confession:  we’ve never had Swiss chard.  We were delighted to find it in our weekly CSA.  Since we had no background in this particular vegetable, a quick search led us to this recipe.  We had everything on hand so we made it as a side dish to omelets. We did modify the recipe to taste just a bit.

Here are the lovely ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp of butter
• 2 Tbsp of olive oil
• 2 Tbsp of minced garlic
• 2 Tbsp of diced onions
• 4 cups of Swiss chard
• 1 cup white wine
• 2 Tbsp of lemon juice
• Parmesan cheese and salt to taste

Separate the center stems and the leaves and chop.  Saute the butter, olive oil, garlic and onions until the onions and garlic are soft.  Add a dash of the white wine and the stems.  Saute for about 5 minutes until the stems soften.  Add the leaves and cook until wilted.  Add the lemon juice, Parmesan cheese and salt.  Enjoy!

Brownie Stew and Cornbread

With the hard freeze last weekend, I feel like winter is upon us here in Middle Tennessee!  For some reason, I am more likely to make Brownie Stew and Cornbread in the winter.  It’s just good warm comfort food.

When I was in Girl Scouts, my mom and I tried a recipe called “Brownie Stew”.  It was a surprisingly hearty mix of meat and vegetables that was perfect when served over cornbread.

The cornbread recipe is my great grandmother’s.  This recipe is one of the first that my Mom taught me how to make.  When I was in fourth grade, I entered this recipe in a school 4H contest, won, and competed in the regional contest.

To make my great-grandmothers cornbread, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.  Pour 1 to 2 tablespoons Wesson oil (enough to cover the bottom) in a #5 iron skillet (small).  Put this into the oven while it is preheating.

In a small mixing bowl combine:

• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar, optional
• 1 ¼ cups plain cornmeal (about enough to make a medium batter)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup of creamed corn (My addition.  You can omit this and the cornbread still is excellent.)

Pour batter into the preheated, greased iron skillet.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

While this is baking, start the Brownie Stew.   The ingredients are simple.  All you need is

• 1 pound of ground beef
• brown gravy mix
• 1 to 2 cans of mixed vegetables

Brown the ground beef.  Mix in the vegetables (do not drain).  If you really like vegetables, mix in two cans but do drain one of the cans.  Pour in the brown gravy, mix well and let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.

Remove the cornbread from the oven and immediately turn out onto a plate.  Now, this should work perfectly if your skillet is well-seasoned.  In the midst of moving, we have not been able to find our skillet, so Cary ran out and bought a new one.  You can see in the picture the crust is pulled away from the cornbread.  This shouldn’t happen if you have a well-seasoned skillet.

Pour the Brownie Stew over open-face cornbread.  This may not look beautiful, but I guarantee it tastes wonderful.