Sunday Dinner, November 15, 2009

Whew! What a week this has been! For that matter, what a day it's been.

Jessica has worked 12 hour shifts every day this week except Tuesday and Thursday, from 7 am to 7 pm, which means that I've had Emmy from 8:30 am until 6:30 pm each of those days. Jason works 9 am-6 pm, so on the days Jessica works 12 hour shifts he drops off Emmy and picks her up as well.

I'm more than ready for Jessica to go back to her usual 3-11 pm shifts next week. Not nearly as ready as she is though, I'm sure.

Saturday was supposed to be Jessica's day off, which meant that I wasn't supposed to keep Emmy today. However, another tech called in sick, so they called Jessica to work, which meant that I've had Emmy from 12-6:00 pm today. Jason got off a little early today, but not much.

In addition to watching Emmy today I've been cooking most of the afternoon and evening. My church is having our Thanksgiving dinner after Sunday morning services and we're all taking food, pot luck style.

I've been planning all week to do all my cooking for the Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday afternoon so I had to do that in addition to cooking Saturday night's supper and watching Emmy.

If I'd known that I'd have Emmy today I could have done some of my cooking ahead of time, but to be honest I probably wouldn't have even if I'd known. I tend to leave things till the last minute and then charge to the finish line with my hair on fire.

I prefer to think of that bad character trait as "working better with a deadline,", but whatever. To-may-toes, to-mah-toes.

Anyway, after all that foot dragging, here's my Saturday Supper/Sunday Dinner/Thanksgiving Dinner menu.

I made a huge dishpan full of homemade Southern Sage Cornbread dressing. Not "stuffing", dressing. And not from a recipe either, but from watching my Mama make it from scratch from the time I was big enough to stand in a kitchen chair and ask too many questions and just generally get in the way a lot.

I boiled about 5 lbs of chicken until the broth was rich, flavorful and concentrated. I also made 2 cast iron skillets of HOMEMADE BUTTERMILK CORNBREAD to use in the dressing. I diced a huge onion into my big dishpan and then crumbled the warm cornbread on top of the onion.

I also tore up about a half a loaf of really stale bread and added to the dishpan, then seasoned it all with black pepper and sage, then poured the broth over all and started mixing it with a potato masher. My Mama always used a potato masher and it just works, okay?

I smell the dressing and add more pepper and sage if needed, add more broth if I think it's a little too dry, then bake the dressing at 375* until brown and bubbly.

And that's the only recipe I have. I never measure anything and I don't think I could write down an accurate recipe if I tried. I learned from watching my Mama and helping her, and then from experience as I've made my dressing over the years.

If you want to make homemade dressing and this sounds a little too complicated for you, you might want to check out my recipe for CROCKPOT DRESSING. It's not the same as my Mama's dressing, but it's really good and I like both kinds of dressing. I might even go so far as to say I like the CROCKPOT DRESSING better than my Mama's version. *Shhhhhhh......*

I cooked a small pan of the dressing for Saturday night's supper for me, Lamar and Emmy, and put the rest in my 6 quart crockpot. I put the crock in the oven to bake and it's now cooling to go into the fridge for the night.

I'll set the alarm to get up early and put the crock of dressing into the crockpot base, then turn it on to heat. By the time I'm ready to leave for church on Sunday morning it should be heated through, and when I get to church with it I'll plug it in and turn it on warm to stay hot until time for our meal.

I also made a dozen and a half deviled eggs to take for the meal. I fully intended to make a HONEYBUN CAKE (scroll down past the Pumpkin Bread) but by the time I got the deviled eggs done I felt like I'd been pulled through a knot hole backwards, so dressing and deviled eggs it is.

For our Saturday Supper I cooked some butterpeas and fixed some sauerkraut and smoked sausage cooked together, we ate some of the chicken I boiled to make the broth for the dressing, and we also had that small pan of dressing I cooked for our supper.

Lamar's eye is still the same. It looks better overall and his eye specialist says that the inside of his eye is better too, so much so that Lamar isn't supposed to go back to the specialist until December 11, barring anymore crises. Praise the Lord for that! Lamar is still on all those medications, though........

And now it's almost 10:30 pm and Diane is one TARD girl tonight. I still need to study my Sunday School lesson and do a few other tasks and then I'll be going to bed before too much longer. This week has worn me out, so I can only imagine how exhausted Jessica must be.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving week. May God bless you with all you need, and may you have enough to share, dear family and friends.