"What Can I Bring" & "The Cornbread Book" - Ozark Cornbread and Slow Cooker Chicken and Dressing

Date I made these recipes: December 31, 2009

What Can I Bring? Cookbook by Anne Byrn (a/k/a The Cake Mix Doctor)
Published by: Workman Publishing
ISBN: 13: 978-0-7611-4392-5
Recipe: Slow Cooker Chicken and Dressing p. 172-173

The Cornbread Book – a love story with recipes by Jeremy Jackson
Published by: William Morrow
ISBN: 0-06-009679-9
Recipe: Ozark Cornbread – p. 36

Well, folks, my family came in to town to help ring in 2010 and amid all the celebration, I managed to cook up a storm.

On Tuesday when everyone arrived, I made spaghetti and meatballs using my family’s sauce and meatball recipe as well as Italian Wedding Soup, made from a recipe I saved from a Good Housekeeping magazine from the early 1990’s. (Dang, that soup is good). But seeing as how the recipes aren’t in cookbooks, I will not post them on my blog (and you can beg and beg all you want but nobody is getting my Aunt Rose’s sauce and meatball recipes - nobody.)

As to New Year’s Eve, I was planning to do a basic pot roast in a crock pot and then a turkey breast with stuffing but seeing as how I had so much leftover chicken from the Italian Wedding Soup recipe, I changed it up and went with a slow-cooker chicken and dressing recipe instead. Both were made in a crock pot which allowed us to spend most of the day tooling about town just enjoying being together. (I think the first lines of this recipe says it all – “Don’t you just love the slow cooker? It truly is the busy cook’s best friend.”)

Since the dressing recipe called for cornbread, I pulled out The Cornbread Book and looked for a recipe that did not include sugar; it’s not the sugar is a no-no, it’s just that I believe cornbread used in a stuffing shouldn’t contain the sweet stuff. The recipe for Ozark Cornbread turned out to be perfect. (By the way, the author of this cookbook was all of 27 when he wrote it – sheesh.).

As to the chicken and dressing recipe itself, once again, my own failure to read the serving size (8 to 10—there were 5 of us) resulted in an overabundance of dressing but I wrapped up leftovers for my sister-in-law to take to her brother and sister-in-law, reducing our quantity to something more reasonable.

And of course, what all-American meal would be complete without a viewing of the very Italian-American movie, Big Night? (It’s a family favorite). So we stuffed ourselves at the dinner table, drooled over all the wonderful dishes in the movie, poured the champagne, rang in the New Year and everybody but my husband and I went back to the hotel…only to return what seemed like mere hours later to go to breakfast! (Can we say "doggie bag?")

Ozark Cornbread – makes 9 pieces (Note: if you are going to make the entire chicken and dressing recipe, then make 1 and ½ the cornbread recipe) (I’ll list them conversions below)
2 tablespoons plus ¼ cup canola oil (or 1 ½ tablespoons per pan plus 1/3 cup oil)
1 2/3 cups cornmeal (preferably whole-grain) (or 2 ½ cups cornmeal)
1 tablespoon baking powder (or 1 ½ tablespoons baking powder)
1 teaspoon salt (or 1 ½ teaspoons salt)
1 cup milk (or 1 ½ cups milk)
1 large egg (or 2 eggs)

Preheat your oven to 400F. Put the canola oil in an 8x8 or 9x9-inch baking pan and put the pan in the oven to heat.

Stir together the cornmeal, baking powder, sand salt. Add the milk, egg and the ¼ cup oil and stir until just combined. There should still be small lumps in the batter.

Remove the hot pan from the oven, pour the batter into it, then shake it carefully to spread the batter into the corners. Bake for 22 to 28 minutes or until firm and just beginning to brown.

Slow-Cooker Chicken and Dressing –serves 8 to 10
4 cups shredded cooked chicken (about 1 pound; from 1 rotisserie chicken)
6 cups coarsely crumbled corn bread (I put the corn bread in my Cuisinart)
8 slices firm white bread, torn into pieces
2 cans (about 14 ounces each) chicken broth
2 cans (10 ¾ ounces each) cream of chicken soup
1 cup chopped onion (1 medium-size onion)
3 ribs celery, chopped (about ¾ cup)
4 larges eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon ground sage
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
Vegetable oil spray, for misting the cooker
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

Place the chicken, corn bread, white bread, chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, onion, celery, eggs, sage, pepper and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine well.

Mist a 5-quart round slow cooker with vegetable oil spray and add the chicken mixture to the cooker. Dot the top with the butter. Cover the cooker and cook until eggs are done, 3 to 4 hours on high heat or 7 hours on low hit. Stir the chicken before serving.

The author notes that if you want to double this recipe, you will need to use another crock pot as it’s not possible to make a double batch in one pot.