A food memoir of weight loss, family recipes, digital cookbook and nutrition information for family and friends
The latest findings from Kozyrskyj and her team’s work on fecal samples collected from infants registered in the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development study build on two decades of research that show children who grow up with dogs have lower rates of asthma.
When the kids were little we didn’t have furry friends in the house. We thought this would be bad for the allergies. Turns out we may have been wrong.
Your Mother and I apologize for your childhood canine deprivation syndrome.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Steve Jobs
Sunday mornings are wonderful time for reflection. I’ve kept a personal journal for many, many years. Warren Bennis once wrote that maintaining a journal and periodically taking a look back on your writings was The Path to Wisdom. I agree with Bennis on this point. Looking back helps you understand where you’ve been, where you are, and most importantly where you are going.
I was looking for something else in my journal and stumbled back on a section titled
The Dot Project.
There wasn’t much written there so I started adding Dots this morning. After a few Dots I realized I actually started The Dot Project in earnest here with the post Nothing to Do With Food. For the longest time I kept my journal private. But something is telling me that this is where some of my private thoughts should be shared.
The Dot Project lives here.
This post has nothing to do with food. When I was a kid my Dad drove a beat up Chevy. It was a sixties type of car, not real fancy but got us from Point A to Point B. Dad literally drove that thing until it fell apart. Ten years ago I bought a 2006 Ford Taurus used with 15,366 miles on the odometer. I wanted a reliable car that I could drive until it fell apart.
The manager at the local auto shop I use told me this car was the best 06 Taurus he had ever seen. I said no. I told him this was the best 06 Taurus he’ll ever see.  The CD player just might keep and never spit out your CD. Every now and then the fan for the AC sounds like Tweety Bird. But I just got the car back from the shop after its 60,000 mile maintenance.
I plan on driving this thing until it falls apart but I might not live that long.
Source: Zannie’s Black-Eyed Pea Dip | The Pioneer Woman
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Drain black-eyed peas and mash, leaving some whole.
Add all other ingredients, stirring to combine.
Spread into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish and bake for 20 to 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.
Serve warm with tortilla chips.
I stole this recipe. I did the usual change one or two things but refuse to claim this recipe as an original. Instead of canned beans I prepared my own from dried beans. The hot sauce is optional because I forgot to add it and when we started to chow down the dip didn’t really need any more heat. As far as bean dips go this recipe is a keeper. There were only six people at the gathering and we ate it all. So the recipe serves six.
The stuffed mushrooms all got eaten too but that’s another recipe for another day.
Helpful Hints – This is a Texas thing, black eyed peas for good luck at New Year’s. So here are a few hints. Salsa is not optional and I think I used a half cup but since I tossed and didn’t measure it might have been a little less or a little more. Hell on the Red from Telephone Texas. Use a different salsa but the dip won’t taste the same. If you like your dip spicy add more jalapenos. Add hot sauce too but it better be a good Tex-Mexican hot sauce. Don’t do the sriracha thing that everyone else does or it won’t taste the same. Â
Here’s the real deal. This handwritten recipe is your Grandmother’s dressing recipe. The picture was provided by a reliable source and confirmed as authentic. Note the date of the copy, November 2001.
Well the mystery is solved. But when I’ve made Grandmother’s recipe it was never this one. It was (Not) Your Grandmother’s Thanksgiving Dressing. See? You can change traditions while remaining traditional.
And the cornbread had to have been Jiffy.
Seriously?Â
(Not) Your Grandmother’s Thanksgiving Dressing must have been a hit. I wanted to make half the recipe. The Boss vetoed that. I recommended making a half recipe to The Architect. He ignored my recommendation too. I admit it. I was wrong.
I wonder what would happen if I doubled the recipe next year…
My wife’s Aunt Charlene was a hell of a cook. After Aunt Charlene passed her granddaughter compiled a booklet of family favorite recipes. This dressing recipe was the first recipe listed. At Thanksgiving this year I asked several family members to tell me what ingredients were in the annual dressing. Well, this is what Sherlock uncovered:
And there you go. The annual Thanksgiving dressing recipe is now (Not) Your Grandmother’s Thanksgiving Dressing because I think Charlene’s recipe was identical to your Grandmother’s dressing recipe.
An unconfirmed recollection from an unreliable source noted Grandmother probably used Jiffy cornbread mix. If you don’t know Jiffy it was a a small box mix to which you added eggs, milk, and baked. Boom. Cornbread.
Fascinating to see how traditional family recipes change yet curiously remain the same.
This is really not your Grandmother’s recipe but a close approximation. I know it’s not the “real thing” because Grandmother (yours not mine) didn’t make a fresh tray of Texas Corn Bread for her dressing. I have no idea what corn bread she used but the important take away is you want a 50/50 ratio between corn bread and dried stuffing mix. Grandmother also added a couple of beaten eggs and some neck meat to her dressing. I prefer to leave these ingredients out but the family won’t let me.
Cheats and Tips – Use Pepperidge Farm dried stuffing mix. If you don’t Grandmother will hurt you. If you are pressed for time substitute corn bread from a bakery. If you are pressed for time AND lazy, Pep Farm has corn bread stuffing mix. One stick of butter may not be enough and three may be too much. You can always add more melted butter but once you add it, you can’t take it out. With the chicken broth allow the texture to be your guide. You want your dressing moist but not too soggy if you know what I mean and I think you do. Go easy at first with your herbs, salt, and pepper. Remember the dried stuffing mix is already seasoned and the broth will have sodium in it as well.
Is it dressing or is it stuffing?
Dressing because you don’t want to stuff the cavity of the bird for a number of reasons. I’ve always baked my dressing in a separate pan. And speaking of pans, you might need more than one baking pan. This recipe makes a lot of dressing.
And while we’re sort of on the topic of Thanksgiving don’t forget the Squash Casserole.
Adapted from a recipe in Delicioso! a cookbook from the Corpus Christi Junior League original copyright date December 1982. The only change I’ve made over the years was to substitute light brown sugar for white sugar. This is the family’s go to corn bread recipe.
Nice box, eh? We have two of these boxes in the kitchen cupboard. And they are full of recipes. Every now and then you need a reminder of why you started something. Like this food blog. I get questions all the time about this blog.
“Why did you start the blog?”
“How come there are no pictures of food?”
“Why don’t you have more recipes?”
The Boss and I were out for lunch and I got the following question:
“Why don’t you make that breaded chicken dish you made for the kids all the time that was breaded and baked, not fried?”
Then it hit me. I started a food blog with the intention of capturing recipes from the past in a place where they could live on and enjoyed by others.
Did I mention I have two boxes of recipes?
garyskitchen.net 