Cheese Dressing (or Stuffing)

This is another one of Dena's recipes. She tells me her family are not generally stuffing eating folk, but this cheesy recipe is devoured and she's asked to bring it year after year! I can't wait to try it.

2 boxes Mrs. Cubbins Herbed Dressing (do not use the crumbs at the bottom)
2 cups hot water (use just enough to moisten bread)
5 eggs (stir in bowl to break up yolks)
1 large onion (diced small)
1 1/2 lbs cubed mild cheddar cheese
2 cans evaporated milk
1 lb melted butter

Moisten boxed dressing, fold in the rest of the ingredients until mixed. Bake in a 9x13 baking dish at 350 for 1 1/2 hours. Do not cover so the top will be crunchy.

Wilted Lettuce

Wilted Lettuce or Swiss Lettuce is a family dish passed down since my ancestors were in Switzerland. Every year at thanksgiving we enjoy this salad. When I asked my mom for the recipe she told me it was one that my Grannie had taught she and my aunt Jonna Lu to make and that as far as she knew there was no formal recipe written down. So here is what we came up with.


1/2 lb bacon sliced into bite size pieces and cooked
1 head iceberg lettuce shredded
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup flour

Cut up and fry bacon in a pan. Pour off half of the fat and add flour to make a roux. Add salt, pepper, garlic salt and onion salt. Add apple cider vinegar and water to the bacon/flour mixture slowly and bring to a boil to make the thick sauce. Taste the sauce you want the roux to taste salty because the plain lettuce will need lots of flavor. (The salt measurements above are only estimations. Taste it as you go and add more as needed it is a very tangy sauce that thickens a little upon standing) The sauce is poured over the broken up lettuce and mixed thoroughly. Add sauce to lettuce right before serving.

Sweet Potatoes

My aunt Lisa has the best recipe ever for Sweet Potatoes, its more like a dessert and I promise you can't resist going back for another spoonful. She gets assigned to bring them to our thanksgiving feast every year because no one can top them, they're divine. When I asked her for the recipe this was her response. "You mean the quadrupled recipe for luscious pecan/buttery topping with the single recipe of sweet potatoes underneath?"

Ingredients for Potatoes:

3 C. Sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed (4-6 small sweet potatoes, about 2-2.5 lbs.)

1 C. Sugar

2 Eggs

1/2 C. Butter

1 tsp. Vanilla

1/3 C. Milk

Mix ingredients and pour into shallow (9 x 13-in) pan. (The shallower the pan, the better because then you end up with fewer potatoes and more topping.)

Ingredients for Topping

1/2 C. Butter

1/2 C. Flour

1 C. Light brown sugar

1 C. chopped pecans

(NOTE: You might as well just double the topping ingredients because if you don't, you'll wish you had. In fact, in all honesty, I'd go as far as to triple or quadruple the topping ingredients, although at that point, you could probably just leave the sweet potatoes out altogether. Why bother with a vegetable at all?)

Mix topping ingredients together. Spread on top of potatoes and bake at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes (maybe longer).