LadyLee's Chicken Cornbread Dressing

Aaah Yeah!!

It is Thanksgiving. Not only a time to give thanks, but is a time to cook...

A time to cook everything in sight! LOL!

I thought I would share with you my recipe for dressing.

My BOOTLEG recipe... Note, this is bootleg, ai'ight? Try it out, and if stuff don't seem to be going right, then, um...

Do your best to work that ish out...

Now That Oldgirl Chele said last week that she needed a recipe for "Stuffing". So I thought that I would go ahead and share my recipe.

Now, I must admit that I am hit or miss with this recipe. The last couple of years I have managed to get it just right, though. The recipe shown here is one for dressing baked in a pan. I will try my best to explain how to make stuffing for the turkey from this recipe...

LadyLee's Chicken Cornbread Dressing

2 pounds of chicken quarters
1 cup of celery, diced
1 cup of onion, diced
1 cup of bell pepper, diced
1/2 stick of butter
8 cups of crumbled cornbread
1 can of chicken broth
1 can of cream of chicken (or) cream of mushroom soup (optional)
2 tsps. pepper
1 tspn. paprika
1 tbspn dry parsley
2 tspn. seasoned salt (or more, really)


Alright, let me see if I can explain this...

1. First boil all of the chicken, to the point where it is falling off the bone. I say this because I HATE pulling chicken from the bone. It is bad enough that I have to cut it up. But, it is easier if I cook it until it falls off the bone. Pull all of the meat off the bone then dice the chicken up. And SAVE THE CHICKEN BROTH.

2. While you are boiling up that chicken, make a pan of cornbread. A BIG pan. Follow the directions on the back of the pack, and DO NOT use that bootleg JIFFY mix PLEASE! The pan I made is about the size of a rectangular birthcake that you would buy from the grocery store. (Don't act silly. You know what I'm talking about. Nope, I didn't measure the pan... Remember this is bootleg, now). Now, you WILL NOT need the entire pan of cornbread... Why do I make more than I need? Heck, I don't know.




Don't buy the yellow cornmeal, buy the SELF-RISING yellow cornmeal mix. I like Three Rivers. Why? Because it is CHEAP around this time of the year. (0.99 cents for a 5 pound bag! WHOO-HOO!)

3. Dice up all of your veggies. I use a mini food processor because I hate dicing vegetables. That way, I can get it all as finely diced as possible. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and add the diced veggies. Saute until all the water boils out, and veggies begin to brown.

Before:



After:



Um, that should be clear enough for ya!

4. Mix together the crumbled cornbread, sauteed veggies and diced chicken in the biggest mixing bowl you have. This is a good time to add all the seasonings (pepper, seasoned salt, paprika, and parsley). If you are using cream of chicken or mushroom soup, add it also.

5. Now here is the tricky part, at least for me. Now I don't like my dressing dry. It it is dry I better have a load of gravy on hand, and I'm not the biggest fan of gravy.

Start adding your chicken broth and your leftover chicken stock to the mixture... The issha becomes that you don't want everything to clump together (This is better for stuffing, see #8), because when you bake it, it will be DRY as the desert. You want it just past that stage where it is clumped together, but not soupy. You may be able to tell from the picture below what I mean...

This will give a soft dressing, that is easily sliced. (That's the way I like it!). I can't stand DRY dressing, and if you try to bake it where it is all clumped together (where you have to spread the mixture in the pan with a knife) it will be dry!

Now, I made three square pans of dressing. Spray your pans real good with cooking spray first, though.

6. Bake it until it's done! LOL!!

Just playing. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and bake it for about an hour. I have a convection setting on my oven, so it takes half the time. Just be sure to watch it. When it is done, it will be brown, with the sides pulling away slightly from the edge. If it takes more than an hour, then just let it keep going. You should be able to stick a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean.

7. Allow to cool to room temperature. This gives it time to set, where you can slice it.

8. Stuffing: Now for stuffing that is going inside of the turkey, you DO NOT want the dressing to be soupy. You want to stop at the stage where it is clumping together (where it is spreadable), after the addition of the cream of chicken soup, and a little of the broth. Take that mixture and spoon it into the turkey. The juices from the turkey should give the stuffing the right consistency while baking...

And you know, if you have problems? Just work it out.

9. Variations: I have added a can of chopped smoked oysters to this recipe. You can also add a cup of chopped cranberries, or a cup of cooked sausage. I have added crawfish instead of chicken, which is VERY good, but you better boil up the crawfish first and skim out the fat, THEN add the chopped crawfish to the dressing... or else it is gonna be greasy as all get out!

So there ya go, peeps...

And remember, if you run into problems with this recipe?

Work it out!!!

LOL!