Gigi Louise's Cornbread Dressing

Gigi Louise used to mercifully make an extra pan of this dressing for family holiday gatherings because we'd all get so forlorn and overcome with malaise when she had to tell us the leftovers were all gone. So naturally I make extra as well. I like to leave my small cast iron skillet out handy so folks can heat up a little at their whim. Cast iron makes it all crispy golden and eternally inspiring.

Now, I warn you. This is one of those real gen-u-ine granny recipes, the kind where granny assumes you're as intuitive a cook as she is so she doesn't fuss with jotting down the details. You know, piffly trifles like how much broth to use. So when you get stumped you ring granny up for the requisite empirical data and she helpfully drawls, "Well, honey, you know. Just keep tipping more broth in till it looks right fallin' off a spoon." And... that would be roughly how much? Just a ballpark, a clue, anything... "Oh, just stick your hand down in it, honey, and if it runs through your fingers kinda thick-like but not runny exactly, you're about right." Yes, this actually happened to me.

But, oh, is it ever worth navigating the guesswork. Last year, Claire made our Thanksgiving feast and she managed to get it to fall off the spoon just right on her first try. So hey, muster your courage and give it a go.

When we make it for Thanksgiving here in a few days, I'll try to take some helpful pictures of the kinda-thick-like-but-not-runny-exactly stage to post here for you. But then again that might take all the fun out of it for you.


Gigi Louise's Cornbread Dressing

2 large pans of cornbread
(NOTE: Do not use sweet or cakey cornbread! Optimally, it should be baked in cast iron skillets for good crust. Gigi's cornbread recipe is here. Note that her recipe makes a small pan of cornbread, so for the 2 large pans needed for this dressing you'd need to make two double recipes. You can make the cornbread a couple of days in advance - the dressing is improved by slightly dry, stale bread. You can actually bake the cornbread a month in advance and freeze it.)

2 hamburger buns, toasted (or 4 slices of toasted white bread)

1 big onion, chopped

2 cups chopped celery (about 1/4 to 1/2 inch dice)

4 beaten eggs

1 T sage*

black pepper to taste (Be very generous! Even more generous than that!)

salt if needed (this depends largely on the amount of salt in your broth)

Broth - Gigi told me she cooked her Thanksgiving turkey with one quart of water in the bottom of the roaster (I assume she used a rack) so she would have a head start on broth, and then she supplemented with canned broth until she had enough to make the dressing "a bit soupy." I usually make the dressing ahead of the turkey, though, so I use all chicken broth. I buy the free range organic broth that comes in aseptic boxes by the case at Costco. Swanson's canned broth is good also.

A large glass Pyrex casserole dish, buttered, will give this a good crunchy crust on the bottom and edges.

Cook at 350 until firm and golden on top -- at least an hour.

*If you're serving nursing mothers, you should warn them about the sage in the dressing, as it can significantly limit breast milk production.

Gigi Louise's Cornbread

I think my bones must be made of cornbread. Wonder how far back up the family tree I would have to go to find a woman who didn't make cornbread? 

My Gigi Louise's cornbread was perfection. It had a substantial, crunchy crust that smelled like hot buttered popcorn. A hearty, toothy texture-- nothing cake-ish about it. Never sweet. No no no. And no need whatsoever for foo-foo. Cheese and/or green chiles, I'm looking at you. (If that's what you're after, I advise enchiladas.) Hot cornbread with a slather of soft butter hath no need of gussying.

I prefer stone ground yellow meal from non-GMO corn, which, thankfully, is getting easier to find. And I want ALL cornmeal. In the foolishness of my youth, I deviated from matriarchal wisdom and experimented with mixing in some flour. I soon straightened up; there's just no need. You can't improve on the toothsome texture of old-time corn-rich batter, cooked right. 

Being the first native of the great southwest on a solidly southern family tree, I have to whip out a batch made from southwestern blue corn every now and then, just for the Dr. Seuss-ish spunk of it. Blue cornbread! Even Gigi Louise thought that was fun.

Gigi said the very best cornbread she ever made was when she could get her hands on some freshly ground corn and make it the same day the corn was ground. I've done that a time or two with my grain mill. Wow. Most salubrious. 


One note: For any beginners out there, it's handy to know there's a difference between 'corn meal' and 'corn meal mix' even though the packages can look very similar. Be sure to read labels!


Gigi Louise's Cornbread

oil and butter for the skillet

1 cup stone ground, medium-grind corn meal
a small handful of coarse grind corn meal (for priming skillet)*
1 T sugar (or less)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 large egg
1/2 c buttermilk (plus more to adjust batter thickness)

butter, for serving


Preheat oven to 425 F.

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Mix egg and buttermilk and stir into dry ingredients. If the batter seems too stiff or thick, add a little buttermilk. It should be a little thicker than pancake batter, but thinner and lighter than muffin batter.

Prime a 6-8 inch cast iron skillet as per note below. This is KEY. Do not skip!

Pour batter into the primed skillet. Check at 18-20 minutes; cornbread is ready when the top is dark golden yellow. (A double recipe will need a 10 inch skillet and a little more time in the oven.)

*Priming the skillet: Pour a shallow layer of vegetable oil in the bottom of your cast iron skillet and swirl it around so that the oil coats the sides. Use your fingers if necessary. Toss in a tablespoon of butter. Put the pan in the preheated oven for a few minutes to thoroughly heat the oil and melt the butter, then carefully remove the hot pan from the oven and immediately sprinkle a light layer of stone ground corn meal in the hot oil. Put the pan back in the oven for a couple of minutes, until the cornmeal starts to smell like popcorn but before it turns brown. Now carefully pull the hot pan out of the oven, pour in the batter, and return the skillet to the oven. This is an old trick that will give your cornbread that fantastic crisp, aromatic crust.

Sarah's Chicken Stew with Limas and Okra

This nourishing stew is a family recipe, and it's truly comfort food for me on a chilly day. I like the beautiful color palette it makes in the bowl, the creamy weight of the broth, the homey aroma -- everything. My copy of the recipe is a sight to see -- in my mother's handwriting, a spare and rushed list of just the ingredients, over which I scrawled in the details as she talked me through it. I can see it now, her darting around the kitchen methodically cleaning up the mess while telling me Exactly How The Stew Should Come To Be, and me sitting there simultaneously trying to make my spoon keep up with my mouth and my pen keep up with hers. Below a few splatters on the page she has jotted "Dig up ferns, get 3 books for Brother Douglas, close house vents and attic vent. Kit hot turn off." (I have no idea.) This tells me I got the recipe from her in 1997 in my Gigi Louise's old Tennessee farm kitchen, now gone; Mother was putting in a hard, sad, homesick year there clearing out and shutting down the beloved family homeplace, because my widowed grandmother could not do it and it had to be done.

Mother falls in the straightforward, pragmatic camp when it comes to cooking -- she's a salt-pepper-butter cook all the way. That random tablespoon of ketchup in this recipe tickles me; it's so like her. Fast, no fuss, no muss -- and yet it really does do the trick.

I suspect this stew has never been served without a pan of hot cornbread. Which is as it should be.


Sarah's Chicken Stew with Limas, Creamed Corn and Okra

1 large frying chicken
2 pkgs frozen lima beans
1 T salt

Stew chicken in 4 quarts of water with limas and salt until chicken is tender. Lift chicken out with a strainer, de-bone and shred, and return to pot.

Add to pot:
2 c potatoes, diced small
1 large can tomatoes or 2 cups fresh, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 T ketchup
1/2 cup okra (or more)

Cook till the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

Add:
2 pkgs cream style corn (or 1 or 2 cans)
1 pat of butter

Cook on low burner for 20-30 minutes.

Gigi Louise's Cucumbers

I always thought this dish had an odd, monochromatic beauty about it when set out to "sweat a while" on Gigi's worn countertop -- a clear glass bowl of sparkly ice cubes holding submerged a bed of ivory discs that bore only the barest memory of having been green just moments before. Once bathed in the sweet vinegar brine, it becomes a shimmery sour sight that makes your mouth do that pickle-y puckery watery thing. I don't know whether to call it a salad or a relish -- it's somewhere in between, I guess -- but whatever it is, it was a hot weather staple on Gigi's table. She served it with everyday meals of fresh vegetables from the garden, big slabs of Granddaddy's organic tomatoes (oooh, how I miss them!), cornbread and iced tea.

My cousin Stephanie, who inherited far more of Grandmother's legendary cooking talents than I did, makes her own variation of this dish, which I've seen her serve chilled on a stifling hot day to happy multitudes at summer camp. Maybe I can persuade her sometime to let me append her version to this one.

Gigi Louise's Cucumbers

Put in a large glass bowl:
a couple of large cucumbers, peeled and sliced (1/4 inch thick or so)
water to cover, with 1 T salt per quart

Cover cucumbers with water/salt solution and 2 trays of ice until bowl sweats, up to an hour. Drain. (This step is vital as it makes the cucumbers crisp and crunchy.)

Mix together 1 cup each sugar and white vinegar, plus 1/2 cup water. Pour over cucumbers to cover.

Sprinkle liberally with black pepper. May stir in sliced rings of white onion if desired (we always do).

Serve cold. Stores well in a wide mouth canning jar in the refrigerator.

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