Prepare your cornbread the day before Thanksgiving. Leave it out overnight, uncovered. Also, unwrap and crumble a loaf of french bread (that’s right, FRENCH BREAD, which was my moms secret ingredient) and 5 or 6 pieces of white bread. Leave all of the bread out overnight and uncovered.
Thanksgiving morning, crumple the cornbread in a very large bowl. There should be approx. 12 cups of crumbs in your bowl or large pan. Add the other breads and set aside.
Here comes the best aroma ever coming from your kitchen! In a large pan, melt butter to saute your dressing vegetables.
Add the following:
2 cups of celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
Sauté over medium heat until the onion is transparent.
Then, in the pan you plan to cook the dressing in, add the bread and then pour the vegetables over the bread pieces. It needs to be a large pan, as you need room to stir and mix.
To that mixture add the following:
3 large eggs, slightly beaten
4 cups of chicken stock (more if necessary as you do NOT want dry dressing.) and one cup of turkey drippings from your turkey pan that hopefully you prepared a turkey on Thanksgiving morning. To that, add 1/2 teaspoon of rubbed sage, 1/2 tsp of black pepper, 2 tsp of poultry seasoning.
MIX THROUGHLY and pop it into oven at 375. After about 15 minutes, pull the dressing out, and stir, getting the dressing from the side of the dish to the middle. Check your seasonings….a taste test. If you don’t taste the sage enough to your liking, add some more with a little more broth.
Put it back into your 375 degree oven and bake it for 30 – 45 minutes. You do not want it to be soggy before taking it out.
I have a question – how large a loaf of french bread are you talking? I have a long loaf from the bakery, 15 oz. Is that too much for one recipe?
Amber, that should be quite enough to go along with the cornbread. Make sure you toast it up in pieces so it holds up in the baking.