Mamma's Southern Cornbread Dressing

Right now it looks like a Thanksgiving bomb exploded in my kitchen, but I'm OK with that. It means there's yummy goodness being concocted and soon to be consumed.  While there are many traditional dishes on the menu this year, my all-time favorite is Southern cornbread dressing.  Please don't try and feed me any of the mushy bread stuff...nope. Not for this Southern girl.  Cornbread and bacon in one amazing dish.  Douse it in gravy and well, it's just a little piece of Thanksgiving heaven on a plate.

Mamma's Southern Cornbread Dressing

4 boxes of cornbread (I use Jiffy or make it from scratch)

1 cup onion

1/2 cup celery

1 green pepper

1 red pepper

8 slices of bacon

1-2 T poultry seasoning

2 eggs

2 cans chicken broth

salt and pepper to taste

• Make and bake the cornbread.  Crumble into large bowl.
• Cook and crumble bacon.  Set aside.
• Saute onion, celery and peppers in the bacon grease. (I told you it was Southern!)
• Mix cornbread, bacon and veggies.
• Add eggs, broth and seasoning.
• The mixture should be very wet so make sure you add enough chicken broth.  If it's too dry your end product will be dry requiring you to douse it with more gravy...which is not necessarily a bad thing.
• Pour into baking dishes about half full.
• Add little pats of butter on top...because...butter makes everything better!
• Bake at 350 for about an hour.

NOTE: I've also made a gluten free version of this using a GF cornbread mix.  Turned out great!

Happy Thanksgiving!  May your table be filled with good food, family, friends and a giant helping of thankfulness.