A Catered Thanksgiving, page 27
Corn-Bread Stuffing
This recipe is the one I have used for years. It is adapted from one of Craig Claiborne’s recipes and is enough for a twelve-to-fifteen-pound turkey.
3 cups crumbled day-old corn bread
3 cups lightly packed good white bread cut into cubes
1 cup butter
2 ½ cups chopped onion
2 ½ cups chopped celery
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme, or ½ teaspoon dried
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil, or 1 ½ dried teaspoons
salt to taste
¾ teaspoon or more freshly ground pepper (freshly ground is important)
1 finely chopped bay leaf
Tabasco sauce to taste
Crumble corn bread into a large mixing bowl. Toast bread cubes in 375ºF oven, and when brown, add to corn bread. Heat half the butter in a large skillet and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir over moderate heat for twenty minutes. Add remaining butter and stir until it melts. You can either stuff the turkey with this, or put it in a baking dish, dot it with butter, and bake it for an hour in a preheated 350ºF oven.
Lois Renthal’s Stuffing
This is another variation on stuffing.
1 cup pecans
1 cup cooked and peeled chestnuts
½ cup fresh mushrooms
½ pound chicken livers
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup finely chopped onions
2 minced garlic cloves
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
½ cup chopped parsley
salt and pepper
1 pound sausage meat
2 eggs
2 cups bread crumbs
Place nuts on a baking dish and bake until crisp. Let cool. Dice mushrooms. Cut chicken livers into small pieces. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add onions and garlic. Add mushrooms when onions are wilted. Cook until mushrooms give up their liquid and it has evaporated. Add liver, thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper. Cook until liver changes color. Add sausage meat, breaking up pieces with a spoon. Add eggs and bread crumbs and blend. Chop nuts and add. Cover and cook over low heat until sausage is done.
You can also eliminate the bread crumbs, and increase the liver and the mushrooms.
Pecan Pie
This recipe for Steen’s Southern Pecan Pie comes from my good friend and neighbor Sarah Saulson and can be found in the pamphlet The Story of Steen’s Syrup and Its Famous Recipes.
¼ cup butter
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 ½ cups Steen’s Syrup
½ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
unbaked pastry for 1 medium-sized pie
Melt butter, add flour and cornstarch, and stir until smooth. Then add Steen’s Syrup and sugar and boil for 3 minutes. Cool. Add beaten eggs, nuts, and vanilla, blending well. Pour into pan lined with unbaked pastry. Bake in hot oven (450º) 10 minutes; then reduce to 350º and bake 30 to 35 minutes.
This recipe has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It’s a Pesach recipe, but I’m throwing it in because it’s so simple and good. Thanks to Kate Rosenthal for this one.
3 eggs
1 16-ounce box of unsalted matzoh
butter
brown sugar to taste
cinnamon to taste
Beat the eggs thoroughly. Dip and cover matzoh in egg. Place in Pyrex baking dish. Layer with pats of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Bake in a slow oven (275º) for about 45 minutes. Enjoy!
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Isis Crawford, A Catered Thanksgiving
