Warning – this is a long post and it really has nothing to do with photography. Proceed with caution! 
When I was young I always looked forward to my Grandmother’s wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Oh she made the absolute best stuffing (or dressing as she calls it) in the entire world. A super simple recipe but oh so yummy and tasty. I always knew that when I grew up I was going to make it just like her. I always asked her to show me and she did. One year when I was in college several of us were sitting around and talking about how we all were hungry for Thanksgiving, and this was in September, so we had a faux Thanksgiving feast.
I shared a house with four friends so we each split up the responsibilities to prepare our meal. Of course we knew we had to make enough for all of the silly guys that lived around us because they were always hungry! So I volunteered to make the stuffing. What was I thinking? How could I possibly replicate something that my Grandmother had so wonderfully perfected for years and years. I called her on the phone to try and talk me through it, her list of ingredients was small, but I knew the flavors that came from that list were so tasty.
So I started and along the way I decided to make a little change to her recipe. My Gran always added the sage in one of the final stages, but I decided to add it to the corn meal mix to give it a little extra oompf. Oh boy, I’m so glad I tried that, I’ve made it like that ever since. Was my stuffing as good as my Gran’s that night? No but it was the start of my quest to get it just right. Finally I can now say it’s soo yummy and I think she would be proud of me if she could taste it. My Gran reads my blog so I have to give her all my thanks and love for showing me how to cook that special meal.
So, one of the key ingredients is homemade corn bread. Now here in Los Angeles you have to add baking powder to corn meal because I have yet to see any self rising corn meal at all and it’s too much for me to try and think about adding baking powder and other things, I need simple simple simple. So every year around this time my Gran sends me a couple of bags of Martha White Self Rising Corn Meal. This year I decided to order online to save her the trouble, so my two bags arrived the other day.
For those of you who might want to try and make this, it’s very simple and you can order the cornmeal from Appalachian Trader.
Here are the ingredients you will need
Celery
One Medium Size Yellow Onion
Hard Boiled Eggs – between 3-6 depending on how much stuffing you plan to make
One can of biscuits (they work best but you can also use bread)
Sage
Chicken Broth – 2-3 cans
Again, remember I’m no chef and everything is guesstimated, that’s the beauty of this recipe. I’m not much of a cook the rest of the year, but at Thanksgiving I seem to do pretty good!
So you will want to bake a couple of pans of the cornbread. Be sure it gets nice and golden brown. Remember to add a little sage to the batter because I really think it gives it a little more flavor. While that is baking, have your eggs boiling. Chop the celery and onion and add them to the bowl. When the eggs are finished you’ll rinse them and add them to the bowl. Then when your cornmeal is finished you’ll break it up and add it in. Now the biscuits or bread is very important to add in (be sure the biscuits are cooked) because they keep the stuffing from being too crumbly. So you’re going to mix all of the goodies in together. Now comes the best part. Start adding your sage. This you are going to want to flavor to taste. To me the more the merrier cause it really tastes yummy. Now you’ll want to add in 1-2 cans of chicken broth. Cover it with foil and stick it in the fridge overnight. You don’t have to do that, but I think it makes it more flavorful.
The next morning pour it in to your baking dish or big huge silver pan that they sell around Thanksgiving and bake it for an hour at 350-400. Take your pick, I just guess and adjust. Be sure and keep the foil cover on it so it doesnt burn the top. The last 10 minutes or so you can remove it so it will brown nicely. Now I always have some extra chicken broth standing by, I use the low sodium lowfat kind, you can’t even tell the difference. I always add in a bunch when it comes out of the oven.
Again, it’s very simple, but oh how I love it. I think a good rule of thumb is a cup of celery, cup of onions, etc. but for some reason I only know how to cook this in bulk because I like people to have leftovers to take home and leftovers for us to eat for a couple of days but you don’t have to do that, you can keep it small.
Alright, tomorrow I’ll be back to your regularly scheduled photography talk, but tonight I had to share my Martha White love with you.
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