A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Thanksgiving Sides: Ozarks-style Slow Cooker Dressing/Stuffing

 

One of my favorite Thanksgiving tricks is to throw the dressing/stuffing into the crockpot.  It saves room in the stove, you can fix it and not worry about it, and it cooks up deliciously. Is it "dressing" or is it "stuffing" at your house?  I live in and was raised in southwest Missouri and while we use both terms, my family tends to stick with the southern version:  "dressing" while most of the rest of the country, it's my understanding, usually calls it "stuffing." Either way, it's yummy carb-licious.

Speaking of delicious, my favorite dressing has a couple of extras: chopped sweet apples and Missouri black walnuts in a southern cornbread base. English walnuts are a great option too but black walnuts are native to our American Midwest and more than 65% of those are grown in Missouri, with the largest black walnut processor, Hammons Nut, residing in Stockton, Missouri, just a rock skip from Springfield, Black walnuts are a treat we've grown up having plenty of and loving.  For the uninitiated, like the differnece between cream cheese and goat cheese, black walnuts have all the creaminess of an English walnut but with a little more zip.  One of my dearest memories of my mother was how she would hand-shell bushels of black walnuts through the fall that we kids had scavenged from the woods around our house, and then use them in Christmas cookies and candies.  As a child I took it for granted, as an adult I admire her tenacity.  Hand-shelling nuts is not the most fun job in the world but we loved the final result, for sure!

 
Mrs. Cubbison's Stuffing mix is spiced in a way that goes particularly well with the apple/black walnut combination, I've found. It's slightly sweet and very savory which highlights both the sweetness and savoriness of the fruit and nuts, which seems to me to be the quintessential tastes of fall.

Mrs. Cubbison's, a true American success story, was started by Mrs. Cubbison in 1890's as a bread bakery, then moved to crackers, and eventually to stuffing (dressing).

For tons of Thanksgiving recipes, decorating ideas, and table setting ideas, please go to www.thanksgivingtips.com for photos, recipes, and videos.

 Mrs Cubbison's:  Facebook Page

 

Jordan's Hand-breaded Shallow Fried Mushroom Caps & Home-made Honey Mustard

The number one great thing about teaching kids to cook is that they learn how to make their own snacks!  Plus, they can help with dinner, but making their own snacks is at the top of the list.

Niece Jordna had jones for fried mushrooms the other night and, let my little heart beat with pride, instead of buying pre-breaded 'shrooms, she bought fresh white buttons and breaded them herself.  Way to go, Jo! Very proud. From scratch over boxed any day.

 

Ozarks Regional Cooking: Mashed Potato Rolls from Homegrown in the Ozarks cookbook

Homegrown in the Ozarks:  Mountain Meals and Memories, 2007, by Rolland Love and Mary-Lane Kamberg  (Click for link to Amazon listing)

Looking for a fast, easy dinner bread recipe yesterday to go with our beans, I grabbed this newly purchased cookbook and gave the Mashed Potato Rolls a whirl.  I'll definitely be adding these to my repertoire.  They went together quickly, for bread, were a fast rise, and because of the high potato and fat ratio, had a solid dense crumb, almost similar to a corn muffin.  In fact, I crumbled half a roll up into my beans and felt almost like I'd made cornbread.

The cookbook itself is a soft back treasure for those of us who grew up in these "mountains", filled with uncomplicated (my hand is heavier when it comes to spices)  recipes from my youth that I haven't thought about much since my youth, to be honest.  There are old-fashioned favorites (not always my personal favorites but I remember these being around when I was a kid) like gooseberry pie, persimmon bread, cornbread, catfish, bass, venison, rabbit, and even squirrel. Along with the "wilder" stuff, there are also great recipes for pork chops with mustard sauce, several breads and cornbreads, many vegetable dishes that showcase the fields and woods of this area, and desserts of all kinds, including a black walnut pie.

Reading a lot of the recipes reminds me so much of being a kid growing up in small rural town where we  often scavenged the woods around us for trashbags or pillow cases full of black walnuts, persimmons, morel mushrooms, gooseberries, etc. for Mom, who repaid us by working up our treasures into delicious eats.  The one thing I miss the most are persimmons, a wild version much smaller and sweeter than the $3/each persimmons I occasionally see at the grocery.  I ate buckets full of those as a kid and then whatever was leftover got made into bread.

Back to the bread recipe...