Holiday Feasting: Granny Recipe #2-ish

This year I got SO EXCITED for Thanksgiving. It was a little unreasonable--my Mom and I were swapping recipe ideas a month in advance. But the idea of The Harvest is almost my ultimate fantasy, and I like to think of the Thanksgiving meal as the forum for making these fantasies manifest. In my most elaborate day dream, I raise traditional North American crops--this means corn, beans, squashes--using traditional methods. Realistically, there've been homegrown onions, potatoes and squash raised in my parents' backyard. And I'm aware that until I start eating deer meat (and/or meat of any kind), my obsession with historically accurate meals and food-raising is a little bit of a joke. I mean, it's already a little bit funny. But now I've shared my secret, so when I post some recipes from my new favorite book, Log Cabin Cooking: Pioneer Recipes & Food Lore by Barbara Swell don't be surprised. I love everything about it.

But back to Thanksgiving dishes! I thought I'd shake up my family's traditional meal with the wildness of a cornbread stuffing. My family rarely uses recipes, so please excuse all the estimations. And it was modeled after my grandmother's stuffing, which features grated carrot and sausage.

I used equal amounts of cornbread from a mix (sweet, textured) and anadama bread (more savory, refined), and set those out to get good and stale. Use whatever combo you like, but it probably equaled about 1 loaf of bread in total. Dump all that into a big bowl and add 2 stalks of celery and half an onion that have been sauted in butter. Add to that mixture a grated carrot, 1 cup of sliced sausage (I used a vegetarian "sausage"--you know it) and about 1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds. Also add some dried herbs, such as oregano, basil and thyme (oh, those were homegrown too!). To this add broth little by little until the stuffing starts to stick together when squeezed. It just needs to be damp enough to handle getting baked in the oven for about an hour. I baked it covered for about 45 min and then uncovered it for the last 15 min to achieve the wonderful tender/crispy texture.

Now desert! I was intrigued by this story of banana pudding from my friend Andrea's blog, Caketime. My Mom had recently introduced the family to the "bottomless apple pie" (read: pie without a bottom crust) after realizing that what was most beloved was warm sweet fruit and not soggy crust bottoms. And so the thought of a banana cream pie without the pie crust seemed completely appropriate. I can agree that after all the banana + wafer + whipped cream layering it was a lot pudding! But it was also super delicious. Thanks, Caketime!

And, sidenote: these wafers are worthy of the adjective "ultimate."