Wednesday: Thanksgiving Dressing

Thanksgiving Dressing

Our theme at house church this week is meals that remind you of your mom.  I chose this not because it is her recipe, but because I loved watching and helping my mom prepare Thanksgiving dinner.  My favorite dish was the dressing.  There is an art to making dressing.  Notice that I don't call it "stuffing."  Stuffing is slimmey and disgusting and cooks inside a raw animal carcass.  Nasty!  I like my dressing to be moist in the middle with a nutty brown crusty top.  My mom made delicious dressing and I have taken her same recipe, with a few changes.  First, I make a homemade loaf of bread and batch of cornbread where my mom bought a box each of Mrs. Cubbisons cube stuffing and cornbread dressing.  Second, I added some shredded zucchini and carrots for color, texture and to sneak in some veggies.  I think this is the best dressing I have ever tasted and wish I could get a Scentsy candle that smelled like it cooking.  I hope you try it and love it as much as I do.

Margherita Pizza

Before we get into this recipe you have to see one of my favorite cooking show clips of all time.  It's from Iron Chef America with Todd English versus Mario Batali and their secret ingredient is pizza dough. Click here to see the shows introduction.  The only part I really like is from the 3:05 - 3:24 marks.  The way he says "pizza dough" is just hilarious to me!  I can't hear those words without thinking of this clip.

Anyway, I'm a big pizza fan and recently discovered a recipe from Tyler Florence that is delicious.  I made a few tweaks to the dough and sauce for my taste and have been using the dough to make bread sticks similar to Little Caesar's Crazy Bread as well.  This recipe makes two crusts so it's perfect to use one for the pizza and one for bread sticks*.  It's very simple to make in a food processor or a stand mixer, but can be made my hand with a little elbow grease.