Cornbread Dressing (a Southern favorite and holiday must-have)

If you're not from the south or never had Cornbread Dressing, you have not lived a good life!  To be honest, I never had it until I was around 16 yrs old even though I grew up in Georgia.  My parents didn't grow up in the south so it wasn't something they probably even had themselves, therefore never introduced it to us until we were older and had it other places.

An older local woman used to babysit my now 18yr old son when he was a baby and shared her dressing recipe with me.  It's unbelievably easy and every bite gets eaten when I bring it to my family get-togethers.

CORNBREAD DRESSING
Serves 12-15

Ingredients

1 box Jiffy cornbread, prepared and crumbled

2 C bread stuffing (Pepperidge Farm seasoned bread stuffing is my preference)

                OR, 4 slices loaf bread torn into small pieces

1 can cream of chicken soup

3 eggs

2 cans chicken broth

3 stalks celery, finely chopped

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tsp poultry seasoning

1 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

Directions

In large bowl, mix all of the ingredients.  It will be wet and runny like cake batter.  If it does not have this consistency, add more chicken broth till it does.

Pour into 13”x9” casserole dish.

Bake for approximately 1 hour at 350º or until knife inserted comes out almost clean (little residue).  If it comes out perfectly clean, it will more than likely be dry.

Eat hot!  Even better, eat it smothered with chicken or turkey gravy.

Tips:

*Add a cup of chopped chicken or turkey to the mixture.

*Add 3 chopped boiled eggs to the mixture.

*For cornbread, use the same casserole dish to prepare it.  It’s okay if it doesn’t cover the whole pan because you are going to crumble it anyway.
*Let it sit for about 30 min so the bread can soak up the broth. 

*Also for cornbread, you can use any other basic cornbread mix, preparing only 1 batch.  The cornbread may not seem like enough at first but after you add all of the other ingredients, it’s the right amount.

*Use a foil lasagna pan to bake the cornbread, mix all the ingredients and bake the dressing in it.  When it's all done, toss it in the trash or recycle it instead of spending 20 minutes scrubbing the casserole dish.