OT Holiday cooking cleaning prep tips

[DiMarie]

Its that time of year, I love to dread...
But, I am looking for a sreceipe from our southern folk for corn bread stuffin. I make a heck of sausage and celery one form the grand parents .But, what about some tips too for the cooking and meal prep to make things managble for us with TOS and other problems.

1. Family use the deep fryer, I do not even worry about the BIRD!

2. Otherwise; I use a brown in bag, turkey size, with a butter rub and seasonings, or add bacon to the top for crisp no basting needed crunch top.

3. Stove top stuffing:
With a bag of herb crutons: added into it place sautae onions, celery, butter, some sauges pieces if you have them. I use a can of chiclen brooth and a whipe with a fork egg. Mixture to moist content, then place in a cassarol dish and cover with foil, 300* for about 45 minutes until cooked through.

My sweet potatos, are canned one, add abit of butter and brown sugar. To really save time, Mrs. Paul's has frozen sweet potatoes that are great! They are in our frozen sea food Mrs Paul's, not in the frozen veg'y section, go figure?

Corn is canned, cranberry sauce is canned, 5 lb cooked potatos to mash, I use canned cream and whole stick of butter to fluf!

Package of store bought biscuits, the dinner rolls by Pepperidge farms or similar.

To carve the bird, It sits and i Pick!
Opps, dinner time finsih later,
Have fun
Di

[LisaL-TOS]

Di, Red made me a 'southern" cornbread dressing dish last year and it was deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious. I had just come out of the hospital and her son drove all the way over with that great tasting dish.

Maybe we can ask her to give us the recipe unless it is a well kept family secret.

How bout it Red?

[redjpwranglergirl]

Lisa, I sent you a PM with the recipe- it's really not hard to make at all. I'll be glad to share it with anyone else if they'll let me know if they're interested.

[Jo*mar]

Here in OR we can't even find corn meal on the grocery shelves!
I asked today and they said there's a shortage of it.
can you believe that!

[redjpwranglergirl]

Jo, Growing up I never knew there was any other kind of dressing than cornbread! My MIL is originally from Illinois and I ate what she called bread dressing for the first time and my best friend's family made the same thing because they were from Ohio originally. They told me that was the only kind of dressing made up there and that they hadn't eaten cornbread dressing until they came south. I'm not fond of dressing period and don't eat it but I'm sorry- that bread dressing made me GAG! I couldn't eat it....I've been given the impression that cornbread dressing isn't generally served up north but don't know if that's true or not- maybe some of ya'll can enlighten me though

[johannakat]

I grew up in PA...bread dressing was definitely standard...to dress it up you could either use chestnuts or oysters...though not together.

I don't know that I have ever had cornbread styuffing...and now that we are in CA pretty much anything goes : )

[johannakat]

PS, I would love a recipe for cornbread stuffing...sounds like a good one to try.

[Jo*mar]

I'm not a fan of any stuffing or dressing myself either -- but I've only seen or heard of the bread types here.

I'd rather save those calories for something GOOD! like dessert!

[redjpwranglergirl]

Originally Posted by jo55

I'm not a fan of any stuffing or dressing myself either -- but I've only seen or heard of the bread types here.

I'd rather save those calories for something GOOD! like dessert!

Me too! My family doesn't think a holiday is complete unless there are plenty of desserts- blueberry torte is their favorite thing I make.

[astern]

The last holiday I cooked I had a flareup from hell - and all I was responsible for was the sweet potato soufflé... and I had help making it too! 5lbs of potatoes is no easy thing to boil, dump water, mash, remash and lift to the oven.

This Holiday, Kroger is cooking the turkey, HoneyBaked Ham is making the Ham, relatives are making everything else, visitors are assigned items to bring and I'm in charge of the bar. My brother is making a cajun dressing with crawfish - sounds yummy! Being a Yankee, I never did care for cornbread dressing but have tasted plenty of it. I like bread stuffing the best... with loads of gravy!! Sadly, it's StoveTop® this year.

My big problem is getting the house clean before guests arrive. I can do some of it, but it will KILL me and I'll be miserable company because of it. This will be the biggest chunk of family to see me really bad off... I wonder how they will respond? I'm going to see if I can recruit some friends to help me - but for the long-term, I just can't cope with the housework anymore. there goes one more means of stress relief.

Keep those recipies coming, I love to see what everyone else has for their Holiday feast!
Anne