Dressing Time

So, I did it.  I made dressing.  And, it was edible!  The pressure of making my favorite food was fairly intense.  I mean, let's face it, dressing is either really good or not worth feeding to a stray dog - very rarely does it fall in the middle.  The process took place over a few days (with the advance bread baking and drying and all) and included multiple phone calls to my mother.  That's why these pictures were all taken with my iphone - because that was the easiest way for her to give me immediate feedback :-).

Let's begin:

This is the bread all broken up and stirred up.  It includes 2 skillets of corn bread, 1/2 a pan of Sister Schubert rolls, and 4 or 5 biscuits.  I used yellow corn meal to make the dressing a pretty color.

I boiled 3 chicken breasts and then let me cool and shredded them into bite size pieces.  I know, a grandmother wouldn't use chicken breasts because you don't get as much flavor.  However, they were buy one get one free at Winn Dixie, and dark meat grosses me out, so there ya go.  I added lots of chicken broth to make up for it.  Including this:

I poured half of it over the bread and the other half over  Mathilda's food for her Thanksgiving treat.  It was also a treat for me because it meant I could stretch out her wet canned food until I was able to make it to the store again.  She doesn't get wet & dry food mixed because she's spoiled - really - I promise.  She compulsively hides dry food and won't eat until she has almost starved herself, so I have to mix something in to make her eat.

In the next step, I sauteed onions and celery in butter then threw them in with the bread and chicken.  Yum, yum.  At this point, I also stirred in a heaping teaspoon (at least) of poultry seasoning, 3 cans of cream of chicken soup, and 2 cans (I think) of chicken broth.  Then, I put it in the refrigerator to set and soak up flavor overnight.

Now, comes actual Thanksgiving morning.  I tasted my mixture and decided to add a touch more poultry seasoning, but not too much.  Then I started adding the eggs.  My mom said you need 1 egg to every 2 cups of bread mixture.  I had no clue what that really meant for me.  I could hear one of our relatives in the background talking about how the eggs are the most important thing and it won't set with out them and I best make sure I had enough eggs.  I added 5.  I think that I added 2 more after that out of fear, with a total of 7.  Then, my sister told me that was way too many eggs.  Oh well.  It all turned out ok.

Here it is all spread out in a giant turkey roasting pan.  I baked it on 330 (yes - random - there was much discourse on 325 being too low and 350 being too high - so I went with 330) for about an hour and 15 minutes.  I didn't want to overbake it because it was going to go back in the oven later since it was about 10am and it wouldn't be eaten unitl 6:30 pm and at somebody else's house.

Voila.  Yummy, tasty goodness.  Yes, it has a hole in the center because I couldn't figure out whether it was done.  And yes Brad, that is my spoon rest in the back, because spoon rests are very necessary - trust us - Erin & I know what we're talking about.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!