Caboodle, I feel your pain. That dressing sounds awful. I am in search of a good recipe for the cornbread. I found this one and would like opinions. I have a cornbread recipe I like made with yogurt but it is more cake-like than perhaps it should be for stuffing. Southern Buttermilk Cornbread http://andreasrecipes.com/ I grew up on my mother's and grandmother's Southern cornbread, and I'm devoted to it. Southern cornbread has no sugar and is cooked in a cast iron skillet, which renders a lovely crunchy crust. You can eat it by itself with butter or apple butter, or you can eat it with beans or chili and spoon either on top of a slice. This is another recipe that I've played around with. Many cornbread recipes call for 1 cup cornmeal and 1 cup all-purpose flour. However, all that extra flour seems to detract from the corn flavor in my opinion. So I split the difference and I like the results. Equipment mixing bowl 9 or 10-inch cast iron skillet Ingredients 1-1/2 cup cornmeal 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour 1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 egg, beaten 1-1/4 cups buttermilk 4 tablespoons vegetable oil (or bacon drippings if you happen to have any) Preparation 1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 2. Stir together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in mixing bowl. Add the beaten eggs and the buttermilk, stirring just until all the dry ingredients are wet. Do not overmix. 3. Add vegetable oil to the cast iron skillet and place in the hot oven for 3 to 4 minutes. You want the skillet hot, but you don't want the oil to start smoking. 4. Remove hot pan from oven. Make sure that the pan is thoroughly coated with the oil, bottom and sides, then pour the excess oil into the batter and stir. Pour batter into the hot pan. 5. Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

I prefer a mix of breads, sourdough, wheat, rye, French/Italian, etc. Not into cornbread in there but I'll eat a little of it if nothing else is appealing. I know there's some who insist that cornbread must not be sweetened and to me that's about as arrogant as to insist that tea must be sweetened. I prefer both unsweetened but to each their own. Reminds me of some Youtube videos I've seen where people are saying "you don't want it to be ____..." or "you don't want large chunks (or small chunks or whatever)..." and I just think how the h#$% do YOU know what *I* want or like? Sheesh.

I just made stuffed pork chops last night. And bought a bag of the blue Pepperidge Farms stuffing cubes. I found all kinds of cool recipes for salmon dishes online, like shrimp stuffed or topped salmon, etc. but my husband is very traditional and likes plain food. He also doesn't like lemony things, which for me is a natural combo with fish. I've had salmon a couple of times for small Thanksgiving dinners, but didn't make dressing those times. I made roasted potatoes and other root vegetables for the starch, and wild or regular rice pilaf. Hubs doesn't want that. I don't mind indulging him. We are having to stay home by ourselves this year due to hubs recuperating from hip replacement surgery. His incision is still healing so he has limited mobility, but the worst thing is he is suffering from lack of sleep. He can't sleep on his back with his legs relatively immobile. He claims sleeping pills do not work. So he's stressed and not up to travel. Will be a couple more weeks before he can lay on his side, either side.

Being from Vermont we never had cornbread stuffing, but I do make it, just not on holidays, cuz, you know, tradition. My stuffing is a lot like my grandmother’s, but I use more veggies and herbs, and she used sausage, which I don’t care for, so don’t use. Saute a head of celery (it’s a head, right?) cut into 1/4” slices and 2 large onions cut similarly in butter and olive oil until soft and translucent. For the last couple of minutes of sauteeing add a large bunch of chopped flat leaf parsley, at least 12 chopped sage leaves, at least 12 sprigs of chopped fresh thyme and two of those wasteful plastic herb packages of chopped fresh summer savory. Let cool. Meanwhile, toast 3 loaves of best quality, dense, chewy (no wonder bread) white, sourdough or wheat bread. I use a mix of all, plus assorted bread leftovers that end up in the freezer. When cooled, tear toasted bread into 1-2” pieces, dump sauteed herbs and veggies into the bowl with the bread and mix well with your hands. Add about 2 cups of homemade or best quality chicken or veggie broth and a cup or so of whole milk, half and half, cream or oat milk and mix together with your hands until it’s uniformly moist, almost spongy, adding more liquid as needed. Taste and salt and pepper to taste, sometimes I add walnuts and that’s also tasty. Butter a large casserole dish and smush the stuffing down well (it compresses nicely) and bake at 300-350 for an hour +-. If you like a crust on top, bake uncovered, if not, use a lidded casserole or cover tightly with tin foil. My active duty USCG daughter is coming home on 12/29 for a few days and she has requested turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings, that’s when it will truly be the holidays in our house.