Dressing

Thanksgiving elicits a lot of food memories for most people.  Along with the traditional dishes, my family Thanksgiving meals usually involved a few specialties.

• sweet potato casserole (seeing as how NC is the leading producer of the crop in the US) 
• dressing
• deviled eggs
• Jello salad

In today's post, I'm sharing my grandmother's Dressing recipe.  Of course, she gave me this recipe as an ingredient list.  As the one chosen to carry on this tradition in our family, I've taken liberty and modified a little bit.  I do have to confess that I never measure the seasonings, so I'm going based on approximations.  You may have to adjust.  Without further ado...

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 small onion, diced
2. 2 ribs celery, diced
3. 1/2 sweet red bell pepper, diced
4. 1 can cream of chicken soup
5. 1 can cream of mushroom soup
6. 1 cup chicken broth (usually from bouillon)
7. 2 sticks butter, divided
8. 16 oz herb stuffing (Pepperidge farm cubed variety)
9. 1 t Sage
10. 1 t Mrs. Dash
11. 1/2 t Black Pepper
12. 1 t Basil
13. 1 t Parsley
14. 1/4 t Celery Seed
15. Salt, as needed

Directions:
Dice vegetables about 1/2 inch or smaller. Cover and microwave until tender.  Mix together soups, 1 stick of melted butter, broth and seasonings. Add vegetables and stuffing. Add salt and adjust other seasonings to taste, but remember that you're going to add another stick of salted butter in just a minute. You want this mixture to be fairly moist, so add some water if needed. I don't think I've ever added more than about 1/4 of a cup. Put mixture in 9x13 dish (no need to grease).  Cut remaining stick of butter into small cubes and press gently into top of mixture. Bake at 350* until golden brown. Freezes well, after baking (if it lasts that long).