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!

LadyLee Retreats Part V: Leaving there

All I know...

I already miss cabin #85!

My coworker Cowgirl Cre said, after looking through some of my photos

"Gurl, that don't look like no doggone cabin!"

Shut up, Cowgirl Cre... with all that doggone wood- wood floors, wood ceilings, wood walls...

It was a cabin!

Overall? I had a nice time.

We even got nice parting gifts like this lovely purse/carry-on bag:

Now when I got my bag, it contained a set of car keys! You know me, I was like

"GLORY, I done won a CAR at the retreat!! GLORY!!!!!"

*Ladylee having visions of ditching the zoom-zoom and leaving the mountains in a brand new CAR!!*

But I'd gotten our leader Kat's bag by mistake. Too bad because she is kicking the PHAT Maxima! I would have GLADLY traded cars with her!

But like I said, I had a good time.

And on the way back, I didn't harass author Dwan Abrams too much. But we did have a wonderful discussion about how to name characters and a few other writing technique issues. Man, I keep running into interesting people, dropping SERIOUS knowledge. I MUST go invest in a tape recorder so I can record and transcribe some of the wisdom I am soaking up... GEEZ!

On the way back, we also stopped by BabyLand, home of the Cabbage Patch dolls! Cabbage Patch dolls were all the rage back in the 80s and I had no idea they were still around. I even witnessed the birth of a cabbage patch baby... Oh my!

I didn't take pictures because I forgot to charge up my camera. ~sigh~

Overall the retreat was something I really needed. I was able to unwind and come out of my shell. I met some new and interesting people. It felt good to get away from home!

Seriously, I think I learned something there: We all have our issues, things that bother us, things that we are going through... things, problems, people and situations that we need to release and let go of.

There were ladies there with struggles similar to my own. I even got a chance to sit down and talk with a few about our similar issues. I learned a lot, and I can now work on being proactive...

All in all, it let me know that I am not alone...

Will I attend next year?

60 bucks for 2 days with a crew of phenomenal women?

Heck yeah!!

And you know I will have my music, a deck of cards, and my camera in tow! LOL!!

LadyLee Retreats Part IV: Cardsharking!

I had this post ready yesterday, but the Blogger monster ATE it!!!

Alright, I am almost done with my retreat recap. Here's part IV and part V, the final installment, will be up tomorrow!

Now you know how us black folks are...

We can't get together for any long length of time and a deck of cards not magically appear out of thin air!

Now, the cards didn't show up in my cabin, cabin #85... we were over there watching movies, etc.

They were playing cards across the road in cabin #75.

Now, from what I hear, after some of the journaling and sharing exercises that we did on either Friday or Saturday (I can't remember which day), some of the ladies went over to cabin #75 and played spades. They were gone for awhile, and I hear there was some serious sharing and bonding going on...

I didn't get in on that... I think I was watching movies and writing...

Anyway, they said they were going to hook up another Spades card session on Saturday night...

And you know I had to go and take pictures.

Like I said, I wanted to take pictures. I don't know how to play spades...

"LadyLee, you wanna play spades?"

"No. I don't know how to play spades. I play poker, man. Ya'll gotta break out some chips and cash for me. A girl gotta make some money to pay some bills or something."

I was more content to just hang out and observe.

Anyway, before the card game, I'd been burning a few CDs for people, and was making deliveries between cabins IN THE DARK, by myself. I got over my Jason, Mike Myers, and Blair Witch fears... A sista had to get the product out.

But I went to cabin #74 and picked up my fellow retreaters, who'd been playing cards earlier, "Quiet Storm" and "Mia X", and headed over to cabin #75.

When we got there no one was playing. Everyone was waiting on Supa Star, who was hiding somewhere in the upstairs loft.

"Yo, STAR!"

She appeared at the banister. "What?"

"Come on, now Shawty, come on now," I yelled. "Ya'll need to go ahead on and play so I can't take some pics and go back to my cabin."

"Just chill, just hold on," she said.

"Come ON now, man! I don't have all night."

"Just chill girl. I'm trying to handle some business. Just chill."

She disappeared back into the dark recesses of the loft.

*crickets*

Now, Star is a bit crazy and unpredictable. She wouldn't tell us what she was doing. I don't know why I got visions of her sitting at a table chopping up rocks like Cain was doing at the kitchen table in the that movie Menace II Society.

Let's just say I would never go to a bank with Star. She seems to be the type that may try to Set it Off, if you know what I mean.

Anwyay, Star finally came downstairs and they got started...

There was a lot of action, although everyone was a bit low-key at first... a lot of laughter and cheering if someone won a book.

Now the teams were "Us" and "Them"... I am not sure who was who, but it looks as if the "Them" team was winning. (And by the way, I just KNOW that's not the paper from our journals... Shame on them for using that paper for scorekeeping!!)

They'd ran out of wine earlier in the evening at dinner, and the Smirnoff was now flowing, so you know when peeps get liquored up, there are bound to be a few problems.

Perhaps everything was a bit low key because "Mia X" was carrying the 10 pound, 2 foot long black steel policeman's flashlight. She needed that just in case she needed to see you clearly while she knocked you upside the head if she thought you were cheating!

The action heated up when the "Old school Sistas" from my cabin came up for their turn on the card table. There was a bit of debate over some of Star's rules for the games. I thought one of the Oldschool sistas would grab Mia X's flashlight and knock Star upside the head, but the arguments subsided. (I still think Supa STAR is a cheater.)

But something interested happened. I knew there was going to be a battle when I heard one of the sweet quiet Oldschool sistas yell "Don't start no sh**, won't be no sh**!!!"

*Ladylee quietly grabbing laptop and quietly tip-toeing into the living room*

Let's just say the Oldschool sistas opened a huge can of whoop ass on the young bucks.

One of the sweet Old School sistas was having such a joyful time beating the brakes off of Supa STAR and the young buck crew that I had to hook her up with one of Supa STARS slow groove CDs.

That was hilarious to see her jump up and yell and high five her old school partna a few times! Miss J, I didn't know you had it in you, Old girl!!!

Now, Kim, one of the young bucks was saddened by this terrible hand. She made sure I took a picture of it... Of course the Old School sistas shanked Kim and her partna during this round...



Kim had an excuse. You know, when there are a bunch of people out on a trip somewhere, someone is bound to be sick as a dog... That someone was Kim... She was all nasally, full of snot, achy, and racked with pain. She'd even loss her voice. I don't know how she mustered the strength to play cards. I'm sure the ass-whooping dealt out by the oldschool sistas didn't help her feel any better!

But Kim is my age, and she loves that old 80's pop music... you know, the music that came out when music videos FIRST came out?

Yeah, that music! It is a bit cheesy, but we loved it back then.

Kim sat there and sneezed and screeched out in a thin voice what she wanted on her CD...

*LadyLee scooting as far away from her as possible during one of her sneezing and nose blowing fits. Ladylee having visions of running up on Kim and smacking her if she catches Kim's cold!*

Kim and I looked through my 80's music and came up with the cheesiest compilation...

Kim's Cheesy 80's Pop Flashback!

Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer
Don't you Forget about Me - Simple Minds (Breakfast Club)
Careless Whisper - Wham!
Cruel Summer - Bananarama
Let's Dance - David Bowie
Don't You want me baby - Human League
Here comes the rain again - Eurythmics
Everything She wants - Wham!
I ain't Missing you - John Waite
Love is a Battlefield - Pat Benetar
Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes
Promises, Promises - Naked Eyes
Who's gonna drive you home - The Cars
The Reflex - Duran Duran
Wake Me up Before you go-go - Wham!
Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
She Blinded Me with Science - Thomas Dolby
By the time we finished the CD (and sang every song waaaay off key), the young bucks had had enough of the pumped up Oldschool Sistas... They were all running for the hills, scattering like roaches! LOL! I escorted the Oldschool Sistas back to our cabin. For some reason the Oldgirls started running, laughing that if anyone got snatched into the woods, it would be me, since I was bringing up the rear...

I didn't find that funny AT ALL!

We got back to cabin #85 around one in the morning. Everyone was sleep. Kee-Kee, my roommate said "Ya'll sound like some loud sailors coming home with all that yelling!"

She went back to sleep, and I got dressed for bed. In the middle of the night, Kee-Kee comandeered the middle of the bed. I slept good, but let's just say I was hanging onto the edge of the bed by my buttcheeks, man! LOL!

So that was my adventurous Saturday... stay tuned for my final thoughts on the retreat...

LadyLee Retreats Part III: Adventures in Bootlegging

Okay, like I was saying...

While some of the ladies were doing their yoga thang in the living room...

And while some of the ladies were in the kitchen, preparing Saturday evenings dinner of chicken corn chowder, chicken lasagna, and vegetable lasagna...

...There was some SERIOUS bootleg going on in the back bedroom, in the bedroom that I shared with my roommate "Kee-Kee".



See, what had happened was...

Well, let me back it up a day.

When we arrived at our cabin, there was music playing on the stereo. Some pretty good old school mixes, I must say. So good that I didn't even bother pulling out my laptop or the set of mega speakers I'd brought with me. I decided to sit back and relax. Several of the ladies were, um, sippin' MUCH wine and were dancing a bit hard. That's just how good the music was.

So I started getting all kinds of questions on Saturday...

"LadyLee, that music was good last night! Were those your CDs?"

"Um, no," I replied.

"LadyLee, can I get a copy of that CD that was playing last night?"

"Um, those weren't my CDs. And I have no idea whose CDs they were," I answered.

I really didn't know whose CDs they were. I was silently wondering to myself if I could catch up with whoever brought them and rip a couple of them.

Well, I didn't think much about it. All I know is that i didn't have to take care of the music, and that was fine by me.

So on Saturday afternoon, I was off in the back bedroom relaxing, engrossed in a book. My laptop was sitting on the dresser and I was burning a few CDs that had been requested by a few of the ladies.

In walks my roommate Kee-Kee.

She starts busily fumbling through a stack of CDs in blue jewel cases. I didn't pay her much attention until she hit through there for the third time, and she started bringing people with her.

*Ladylee peering curiously over her eyeglasses at the action*

When we were alone, and she was still fumbling through those CDs, I got nosy.

"Kee-Kee, what are you doing?"

"Looking through these CDs."

"What CDs do you have?"

"Oh, my boyfriend is a DJ, and he made a few CDs."

So that's where the CDs that were playing on the CD player in our cabin's living room were coming from.

I threw my book on the bed and went over to the dresser where my laptop was charging and where she had her CDs stacked.

"What you got, girl?"

"I got a bunch of stuff. My man said 'Yo, you going to that retreat this weekend, right?' I said yeah. He said, 'I need you to push some of that product for me.'"

"Really?" I asked, my eyebrows raised in pure wonderment and awe.

Now the "product" that he was talking about was a load of bootleg CDs. I started fumbling through some of her stuff. She had it ALL: oldschool classics, juke joint music, babymaker music (you know, that old slow stuff), jazz, house.

She had it ALL!

And she was selling out, at a rate of five bucks a CD. I watched a couple of transactions. It got to a point where we didn't really know what was on what CD, so I had the laptop handy.

"LadyLee, play this CD right here so we can figure out what's on it," Kee-Kee ordered.

I did what she said.

I was a bit scared, though. I was afraid our leader Kat would come in and bust us and beat us down. But Kat was busy in the front room doing yoga.

Every time the bedroom door open, you could best believe I was catching a crook in my neck trying to see who it was.

"Yo, close that door," I whispered loudly.

Now, I don't sell my CDs. I made it known when I got there that I had all my stuff with me, so if anyone wanted CDs should just let me know, and I will see if I had anything they wanted. As a matter of fact I had arrived with two CDs worth of Run DMC's greatest hits for the Oldschool loving Viv, and a Chaka Khan compilation and Disco CD for our leader Kat.

I make CDs for fun. And I know how I am. If a sista try to come back complaining about a bootleg CD that I sold to them, I am liable to knock them upside the head (LOL!!). I've never had anyone come back and complain about a FREE CD and that's the way that I like it. If I made a mistake, fine... Throw that ish away (like I do constantly), give me a call, and I will gladly hook you up that next time I see you! No problem, er'body happy!

But you know how peeps can get. I don't ever want to have the attitude where I HAVE to go make CDs. That'll piss me off. So for me, it is something I do for fun.

Anyway Kee-Kee was making much bread.

"Girl, my man DJs, writes poetry, writes manuscripts, and details cars. I gotta push this product. This is our date money!"

Heck he do all that? I don't blame her. I would be pushing the product too!

"Yo girl," I asked, while looking through some of her CDs. "You gonna hook me up, right? You got me, right?"

She nodded.

I was a CD ripping fool. I ripped from her and several other people that weekend. I added approximately 300 songs to my playlist.

When the Oldgirl catches a hook-up, she catches a HOOK-UP!!!

Really though!!

As you can see, we had all we needed. Kee-Kee even sipped some white wine, white Zinfadel, whatever was in the wine glass, during this process. I brought about 80 blank CDs with me, a half a box of CD sleeves. I think I ended up making about 30 CDs total for the ladies. I even ended up burning a couple extra for Kee-Kee when she ran out of the more popular bootlegs.

The most popular CD that I made that weekend was one that I made for the Supa STAR. She was talking about needing something to help her get her freak on or something. Anyway, on Saturday night she came up with her own custom CD, and I made it for her. (We argued a lot over this... Much of it was me yelling "STAR, could you act like you got some sense and please write the right title and artist down for me!? Damn!") A heavy card game was going on around that time (upcoming post), and more people requested it. So I think I made a total of 6 copies of this one here:

Supa STAR's Slow Grooves

Cause I Love You- Lennie Williams
Would You Mind - Earth, Wind, and Fire
Sail On - Commodores
Voyage to Atlantis - The Isley Brothers
If Only You Knew - Patti Labelle
Love, Need and Want You - Patti Labelle
Love's Train - Con Funk Shun
Fire and Desire - Rick James and Tina Marie
Reasons (Live Version) - Earth, Wind, and Fire
You are My Starship - Norman Conners
Adore - Prince
Choosey Lover - The Isley Brothers
Piece of my Love - Guy

Overall, we had much fun pushing product!

Now when I think of all the money I could have made on this trip?

Nah, I don't even want to THINK about it... LOL!

LadyLee Retreats, Part II: Being There.

Ahh... the retreat...


The drive up was slow, but nice. The mountains were oh so beautiful, especially with it being autumn and the leaves changing colors and all... I didn't get a lot of good pictures due to the weather.

I know we left Atlanta around three in the afternoon and arrived around six o'clock due to CRAZY Atlanta traffic. When we actually got to Helen Georgia, it was pitch black all along those back roads... Apparently, they don't know what a street light is up in those parts of Georgia.

We stayed at Tan.gle.wood cabins. We had to travel down some dark gravel covered back roads to get to our cabins... Both me and and my riding partner were a bit unnerved by it all.



I was like...

"Ya'll got me caught up in some ole Jason,
Michael Myers, Blair Witch craziness!!"

But we finally found our lovely cabin...

Now, there were approximately 25-30 of us, and we had two 5 bedroom cabins and one 4 bedroom cabin.







The big cabin, the second one pictured above, had a hot tub, but no one used it. I wouldn't have, with it being 30-40 degrees outside. My best friend LadyTee has me jaded. She said before I left, "Ya'll fools can mess around and jump in a hot tub if ya'll want to... Ya'll will catch pneumonia!" LOL!

The cabins were nice... I loved the ambience!

Candles on the balcony...

Fireplace roaring...

There was A LOT of food. Breakfast was the best part of the day for me...

All the bacon, eggs, sausage, grits, biscuits, orange juice...





French toast, waffles, warm fruit, Ray-Ray's insane hash brown casserole... All you can eat... Goodness! Nothing like having that "itis" first thang in the morning! I don't usually eat like that in the mornings! I know my cholesterol went up a quite a few notches. Oh my!



There was MUCH wine flowing...



There were even champagne laced strawberry smoothies served with breakfast...



I don't drink, but there was a lot of drinking going on!! Let's just say when the liquor gets to flowing, watch OUT now! LOL

Friday evening was nice... Everyone hung out at their respective cabins, getting settled in. I stayed at my cabin, hung out in the living room around the fireplace with a few of the ladies, all of us clad in our pajamas, and watched a movie.

You know me though... I was perched on the sofa, watching the movie, pecking away softly on my laptop, working on the last couple of chapters of my manuscript (Didn't I tell you? I am almost DONE! GLORY!)

Now Saturday? Saturday was... interesting.

First of all, my girl, Supa STAR, who comments here from time to time, showed up at my cabin wearing one of her many eclectic t-shirts.



Now, Supa STAR finds and wears some of the most bizarre t-shirts. This one is um, self explanatory, but there have been quite a few that I have seen her wear that left me scratching my head, slowing backing up, and tip-toeing away, too afraid to ask what the t-shirt meant. She seemed comfortable. STAR hates to write, and I silently chastised her during the Saturday's journaling exercises for not participating. She would give me the evil eye and then point defiantly at her t-shirt, sliding her finger across the words on front...

Hmmm... I didn't understand that. I am a girl too, and I have a...

Okay, I'm thinking too deeply...

Moving right along...

A Yoga instructor, Mechelle of The Yoga Hive, traveled up on Saturday to teach us a bit of Yoga. She gave a very interesting talk, and we did some very interesting breathing exercises during the morning session. The best thing I learned from her is that this Oldgirl has been breathing wrong for years!

I gots to learn how to breathe correctly!

Really though...

Anyway, later on, Ms. Mechelle got into the groove and started dancing to the music.

This confused me a bit. I was like "Hey! Um, those aren't yoga moves!!"

"No they're not," she yelled, still grooving to the music. "But not all of yoga is slow, now!"

*crickets*

That was waaaay too much for me to comprehend. I think I will stick to learning how to breathe correctly.

Oh well, I guess yoga instructors get their dance on from time to time too, hunh?

Anyway, I didn't participate in the afternoon yoga session. I got caught up in one of the back bedrooms, spending some time alone reading my travel partner Dwan Abrams' book Only True Love Waits (which happens to be VERY good! Look for a review next week!).

Now while yoga was going on in the front living room...

And dinner preparations going on in the kitchen...

There was some SERIOUS bootleg "pushing of product" going on in the back bedroom:



Now see... Don't trip...

Uh, now look, see...

What had happened was...

To be continued...