BBT: Dressing Guest Post

Hi Ya'll, I'd love to welcome our new friends Ash and Lew to Amuse Bouche.  As mentioned yesterday, these guys have a pretty unusual recipe I really wanted to share with you!  Without further ado, Ash and Lew!

Hello! I’m Ashlee and I blog over at Ash and Lew Plus 2. My blog is basically a blog about my life and how I try to achieve a healthy balance while raising twin infants and being a stay at home mom. When Whitney asked me about doing a post about Stuffing (she calls it stuffing but where I am from we call it dressing) I jumped on the opportunity to do a blog just about food. You see, for me blogging is a way to reflect on my day and let myself feel accountable to something. I normally only incorporate food because I love to eat and I love to cook. It is a part of me. As for Thanksgiving, well I didn’t know much about preparing any part of Thanksgiving until I married my husband Lew.

In Lew’s family they have a specific family recipe for Turkey and Dressing (or stuffing) that they prepare every year and the entire family comes to his Mom and Dad’s for a Thanksgiving meal. Since Lew and I are always at his parents on Thanksgiving morning we are normally able to be apart of the preparations. In my family on Thanksgiving afternoon we would show up at my Mamaw and Papaw’s and everything was ready! So, needless to say in the last three years I have learned a few things about preparing turkey and dressing. In fact, in our own home we have decided to recreate the family recipe a few times.

The first try I followed the recipe exactly as written. The second time I thought I would try to change a few things to make the recipe more on the healthy side. Yesterday when I made the recipe Lew was at work so I was able to make it exactly how I wanted. (When he and I are in the kitchen together it is interesting to say the least and I normally end up compromising some things) So here is my take on Turkey and Dressing. (Or stuffing :))

Tradition with a Twist

For our family’s recipe we incorporate turkey meat into the dressing. Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees. Place turkey in roasting pan with 1 in. of water. For flavor I place onion around the turkey and sprinkle it with salt and pepper and cover with aluminum for the first 9 hours. . Cook whole frozen turkey for approximately 10 hours.

When Turkey is done let cool then carve/pull the meat. Reserve 5 cups shredded turkey for recipe.

Cornbread:

1 egg plus 3 egg whites

1 cup diced celery

2 cups low fat buttermilk

2 cups and 2 tbs. self rising cornmeal

1 cup diced white onion

1 stick real butter

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. organic sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place 2 tbs. from the stick of butter in 9 x 13 pan and melt in oven. When butter is melted remove from oven and pour cornbread mixture in pan to bake.

To make cornbread mixture melt the remaining butter and combine all ingredients in mixing bowl. Pour into pan with melted butter and bake approximately 28 minutes. (Or until toothpick comes out clean.)

When cornbread is finished remove from oven and crumble with fork.

Dressing Ingredients:

1 lb. whole wheat bread; cubed

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. sage

1 stick real butter; melted

1 egg plus 4 egg whites

4 cans chicken broth (you can also use broth from turkey)

Combine all ingredients. Add corn bread and mix until combined. Add 5 cups shredded turkey to dressing mixture.

Place in large casserole dish and bake on 375 for approximately 45 minutes. Or until brown and heated through.

This feeds around 20 people and also freezes well before and after baked.

Even with the addition of turkey in the dressing it is still nice to have a little extra :)

So surely now you have enough stuffing/dressing recipes to put something truly wonderful on the table.  I'd love to give a huge thanks to Ash and Lew for sharing their family recipe!  Tonight, we get all sorts of serious with sweet potatoes.

Love,

Whit