Mama Kat Thursday: That One Recipe...

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The Mama Kat prompt I've chosen today is, 
"Write about a recipe no one makes quite like your mother."

I grew up in rural Indiana with parents from Minnesota, so our Thanksgiving had a more Northern flavor:
We'd have just Turkey. (No ham)
Home-made mashed potatoes with home-made giblet gravy.
Sage Dressing made with a combination of white and wheat bread. 
A vegetable, like broccoli with Velveeta cheese sauce or Cauliflower with Velveeta cheese sauce.
 Home-made Parkerhouse yeast rolls and fairly often, jellied cranberry sauce.
 Finally, pumpkin pie in home-made lard pie crusts. Served plain. No whip cream.

Mother made the best Sage Dressing! 
She'd freeze all the bread heels during the year and any used bread or buns, then cube those up to make the Thanksgiving dressing. Then she'd leave them in a bowl over-night to dry.
If she didn't have any bread saved in the freezer, she'd cube up fresh slices of both white and wheat bread and dry them in the oven. (In a gas stove with a constant pilot light, they'd dry out nicely over-night.)
Then she'd season them up with dried sage and poultry seasoning, celery and onion, broth and egg then bake it in 10 x 13 pan.
I do recall one year when she used the roasting pan,  filled the bottom with dressing, then lay Turkey legs and thighs on top, letting the juices flavor the dressing instead of baking a whole bird.

I remember how good that Sage dressing was the next day as a leftover--even for breakfast. Delicious!

But, this is the one recipe Mother made I've never been able to master.
 I've tried. I even have her recipe--but it has just never come out for me. I can never seem to get the moisture right. I've tried other recipes for Sage Dressing from Pinterest as well and while close, still all of them lacked that something hers had.
But with just 2 of us, I really don't need a 10 x 13 pan of dressing and I've moved on to have my own specialties for Thanksgiving.

Comments

John Holton said…
Chances are good that, even if you followed her recipe to the letter, it still wouldn't taste the same. It'd be good, for certain, but not exactly like hers. Mary and I are the same way: there are just two of us, and we might get a turkey breast, but more than likely we'll have ribs or something...
Oct 15, 2020, 10:57:00 PM
Trudy said…
I love dressing! Especially when combined with turkey and gravy. It's great that you have your mother's recipe, even if it doesn't turn out quite like hers. Some of my mom's recipes were "I just added a touch of this and a pinch of that..." And even the few written recipes she used were tweaked to her liking, so kind of difficult to duplicate.
Oct 16, 2020, 9:35:00 AM
Patty said…
That dressing sounds so delicious! I'm a big user of Sage in my dressing and the smell that drifts through the house on Thanksgiving is wonderful!

What caught my attention was the Giblet Gravy you listed. I just made that for an event at the gun club my hubby and I belong to and it received rave reviews! Most of the men at the luncheon table commented about how "it was something their mother used to make" so it made me feel good to have put in the effort.

Thanks for sharing!
Oct 16, 2020, 1:49:00 PM
KatBouska said…
I love the old school recipes and how things were made from scratch. I do wish I paid closer attention to my mom in the kitchen because my copycat recipes never hit the mark either!
Oct 21, 2020, 11:39:00 PM

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