Cornbread Stuffing

It will soon be time for all the tasty foods of the holidays. This is David's mom's stuffing recipe.

Corn Bread
2 cups flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
1 and a half teaspoons salt
2 cups cornmeal
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 cup cooking oil

Heat oven to 425. Grease a 9x13 baking pan. Mix dry ingredients. Beat eggs just enough to blend yolks and whites. Stir milk and oil into eggs. Add dry ingredients and stir to blend thoroughly. Pour into greased pan and bake 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.

Stuffing
Prepared cornbread
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
2 eggs, beaten
1 can chicken broth
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sage
Milk, enough to make mixture mushy
Salt and Pepper to taste

Crumble the cornbread into a large mixing bowl. Add the onion and celery and mix. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into 9x13 or larger baking dish. Bake at 325 for an hour.

Grandmother's Cranberry Salad

1 lb. fresh cranberries
1 orange - all
1 apple, all but core
1/2 cup pecans
1 cup sugar
1 pkg raspberry jello
1 cup boiling water
8 oz. can crushed pineapple

Grind the first 4 ingredients. Add 1 cup sugar and set aside for 2 hours. Dissolve raspberry jello in boiling water. Add pineapple and the ground ingredients. Mix well and let set in refrigerator. Top with pecan halves. For Christmas, shape pecans like a Christmas tree.

Keetha's Sausage Cheese Balls

I love Keetha's food blog - lots of yummies with a southern flair. I made her sugar cookies in July and they were great. I had been meaning to make her sausage cheese balls and even had all of the ingredients. Turns out my new Christmas mixer was just the incentive that I needed. I whipped up a batch and froze them. I'm looking forward to popping a few in the oven for breakfast, or maybe baking them and taking them to New Year's Eve festivities. Here's the recipe, straight from Keetha's blog:

3 cloves garlic, minced

16 ounces grated sharp or extra sharp Cheddar cheese

1 pound sausage (hot or mild)- can use turkey sausage

2 ½ cups baking mix

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 good dash Worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients until thoroughly mixed. You may as well go ahead and use your hands – they’re really easier to mix up that way. Shape the dough into small balls and place on an ungreased baking sheet.

At this point, sausage balls can be baked immediately or frozen. To freeze, place baking sheet with sausage balls in the freezer for at least an hour. Write baking instructions and date in permanent marker on a zip-top bag and place the frozen sausage balls in the bag. Don’t forget this step! I cannot tell you how incredibly efficient it makes you feel when you pull that bag from the freezer and see neatly penned instructions, written in your very own handwriting.

When ready for a few, simply remove however many you’d like from the bag and bake on an ungreased baking sheet; no need to thaw first.

To bake, preheat oven to 350° F. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Pioneer Woman's Christmas Rum Cake

I saw this recipe for Christmas Rum Cake on the Pioneer Woman's cooking blog. It looked delicious, so I had to try it.

Here's the recipe, just as PW wrote it:
Pioneer Woman’s Mother-in-Law’s Christmas Rum Cake

Cake:
1 box yellow cake mix
1 small package INSTANT vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup rum (dark or light is fine)
1 cup chopped pecans
Brown sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour Bundt cake pan. Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan. If desired, sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar over the nuts. Mix all cake ingredients together. Pour batter over nuts. Smooth out ’til the top is even. Bake 1 hour, or a little less if the pan is black. Do not overbake!

Glaze: While cake has ten minutes to go, make the glaze.
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup rum

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 4 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Turn off flame and pour in rum. Stir to combine and reheat for 30 seconds.
Remove cake from oven. Immediately drizzle 1/3 of the glaze on the bottom (top) of the cake. Allow to sit for five minutes.

Invert the cake onto a serving plate. Prick surface a hundred times with a fork (gently, please.) Slowly drizzle remaining rum glaze all over the top of the cake, allowing it to drip down the sides. Cool to room temperature.


Next time I make this cake, I will change a couple of things. I used only 1/2 a cup of pecans, because we don't especially cake for nuts. Definitely use the brown sugar. For the glaze, I would only use 1 stick of butter. The glaze was pretty runny and hard to keep on the cake. And I had more than I really needed. The cake was delicious though, and very moist.

Cornbread Stuffing

Everyone has their own version of this Thanksgiving staple. This is the recipe that David's mom used, so I make it at least once a year for him.

Corn Bread
2 cups flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
1 and a half teaspoons salt
2 cups cornmeal
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/2 cup cooking oil

Heat oven to 425. Grease a 9x13 baking pan. Mix dry ingredients. Beat eggs just enough to blend yolks and whites. Stir milk and oil into eggs. Add dry ingredients and stir to blend thoroughly. Pour into greased pan and bake 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.

Stuffing
Prepared cornbread
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
2 eggs, beaten
1 can chicken broth
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sage
Milk, enough to make mixture mushy
Salt and Pepper to taste

Crumble the cornbread into a large mixing bowl. Add the onion and celery and mix. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into 9x13 or larger baking dish. Bake at 325 for an hour.