Culinary, Arts, Thread.

[Behr]

No chicken salad. Always hated it until wife made it from scratch used grapes and almond slivers

I use red grapes and pecans. And wishbone Italian dressing.

 

[Behr]

No fries dipping in the Frosty for me than.

*th...oh wait. Lol.

 

[Behr]

Dipping fries in a Frosty?

Erry now and than when I gets paid I got to spoil my baby with an upgrade.

 

[vol445]

I use red grapes and pecans. And wishbone Italian dressing.

Never have liked pecans but the red grapes just make it special

 

[Behr]

Never have liked pecans but the red grapes just make it special

Dead to me.

 

[vol445]

Dead to me.

I will say my wife made some pecan thing backed in the oven with some kind of dust on them that was phenomenal. Only time I hadn’t gotten the chalky taste

 

[Sgt_Nick_Fury]

MY mom's father in-law had a farmhouse in middle Georgia surrounded by pecan trees. Anytime we'd visit we'd come back with freezer bags stuffed with pecans....I can't remember a time growing up we didn't have a ton of pecans regardless of season or time of year.

I am an acknowledged expert in this tool.

 

[malinoisvol]

Mom and Dad are getting ready to make their annual pilgrimage to west Arky to visit friends, fish, and get about 50 pounds of pecans.

 

[Behr]

My dad was a walnut nut. We had several trees on our farm. He'd hook a trailer behind the tractor and we'd pick up as many as we could find. Then dump them in the driveway. After the husk came off and everything dried we'd have to pick through them and get the nuts. I hated that.

Yeah, I know that tool very well. It wasn't made for walnuts.

 

[Sgt_Nick_Fury]

My dad was a walnut nut. We had several trees on our farm. He'd hook a trailer behind the tractor and we'd pick up as many as we could find. Then dump them in the driveway. After the husk came off and everything dried we'd have to pick through them and get the nuts. I hated that.

Yeah, I know that tool very well. It wasn't made for walnuts.

It's a heresy in my family but I prefer walnuts to pecans.

 

[malinoisvol]

My dad was a walnut nut. We had several trees on our farm. He'd hook a trailer behind the tractor and we'd pick up as many as we could find. Then dump them in the driveway. After the husk came off and everything dried we'd have to pick through them and get the nuts. I hated that.

Yeah, I know that tool very well. It wasn't made for walnuts.

Frigging American walnuts are the hardest matha fawking nuts to extract from the shell. They are good eating, tho.

I'm an English walnut fan.

 

[Behr]

It's a heresy in my family but I prefer walnuts to pecans.

Me too, but I do love me some pecans. I have a simple pie recipe from my mom that uses pecan pieces pressed in raw pie crust and toasted before anything else. I could, and have done 2 at a time and just eaten the crust by itself.

 

[malinoisvol]

I use to make Pralines on occasion and they were GOOOOD!

 

[Behr]

Frigging American walnuts are the hardest matha fawking nuts to extract from the shell. They are good eating, tho.

I'm an English walnut fan.

 

[NorCalVol67]

Both walnuts and pecans suck.

 

[NorCalVol67]

All other nuts are good though.

 

[Behr]

Both walnuts and pecans suck.

 

[Behr]

All other nuts are good though.

Cool, you can has deeznuts.

 

[VolNExile]

Thanks Exie, knew you would come through for me.....oh wait.

seriously tl;dr lol

Well, it’s pretty useless as a recipe. More like guidelines. Very *waves hands*. Very very “until it looks right/ tastes right.”

I wrote this out with my adult kids in mind, only one of whom is reasonably organized in a kitchen.

Stuff you need:
9” cast iron skillet (for cornbread), other large skillet, really large mixing bowl, buttered/ oiled/ greased 9x13 Pyrex or similar baking dish; a 2-cup liquid (glass) measuring cup is handy

Ingredients you need:

• One pan of day-old cornbread (9” cast iron skillet)
• 4 slices of stale or very lightly toasted white bread (spring for the good stuff)
• celery to taste (I use ~3-4 long stalks)
• yellow onions to taste (I use 2 good-sized [medium-large])
• cooking oil, or butter if you want richer
• poultry seasoning, dried sage, salt, pepper to taste (buy new dried herbs; they’re cheap)
• 2+ c good chicken or turkey stock, not that thin Swanson crap. I like Trader Joe’s boxed organic chicken stock (not low sodium) or scratch homemade
• 2 eggs (optional, see below)
• chopped giblets and other icky parts if you like, which I don’t

If you’re cooking an entire meal (turkey etc.), make the dressing the day before to save oven space, sanity, and friendships/ marriages. Dressing is easily re-heated on the Day Of.

Chop the celery and onions down to the size of maybe a black or pinto bean - a bit bigger than pea-sized. Heat/ melt the oil and/or butter in the large skillet. Cook the celery and onions until softened.

While they’re cooking, crumble the cornbread and tear the bread slices into pieces (maybe the size of your end index finger joint) into the large mixing bowl.

Add sage, poultry seasoning (I use maybe 1/2 tablespoon of each), and salt and pepper pepper (maybe a half teaspoon of each) to the dry mixture and stir in well. I deliberately under-salt at this stage. Once the dressing is partly cooked in the oven, you can taste and adjust as needed. You can’t (easily) undo over-salting.

I usually preheat the oven at about this point to 350°. Make sure that the rack is at the middle level.

Add the cooked onions and celery (and any remaining oil/ butter) to the dry mix and stir in well, but throughout the recipe, don’t stir so frantically that all the cornbread breaks down to crumbs.

I use eggs, because they do make the dressing richer and “hold together” a bit better without it getting cake-y. Whisk them in the measuring cup (they don’t have to be perfectly blended) and add broth up to about the 1 1/4 cup level for the eggs+broth. (This is about a cup of broth.) Add to the mixture in the bowl, stir in. Add giblets if using.

Add more broth 1/4 c. at a time and stir in, up to probably 3/4 c. Mixture should be wet: not soupy, not thick. Spoon into greased 9x13 baking dish. Put in oven uncovered. Cook for 20 minutes, pull out and stir, taste, adjust seasonings if necessary, put back in oven. Cook another ten minutes, repeat, also adding stock if necessary. Cook another 5-10 minutes as needed for a total of 35-40 minutes, depending on oven, humidity, altitude, etc.

On the Day Of, stir up the cooked dressing so that the top is rough, not smooth, to get some nice crusts going. Reheat at 350° for probably 15 minutes, depending on how cold it was when you stuck it in the oven. Don’t use the microwave, which makes bread products soggy. (M/W is ok once you reach the leftovers stage.)

edited to repeat greased 9x13 baking dish, because OMG if it isn’t

 

[Sgt_Nick_Fury]

Both walnuts and pecans suck.

 

[VolNExile]

Thanks Exie, knew you would come through for me.....oh wait.

I now make two batches of cornbread, one the traditional version above and one with sausage and pecans.

For the second, I use the traditional version plus this recipe below for amounts and cooking instructions of the sausage and pecans.

Cornbread, Sausage, and Pecan Dressing

 

[82_VOL_83]

All other nuts are good though.

 

[PEPPERJAX]

.

 

[malinoisvol]

View attachment 512696

You all most got me to typing in that there thread.

 

[NorCalVol67]

You all most got me to typing in that there thread.

Since we can’t type in that thread, I’ll post one for Souce here.