Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Today, we in this great country are celebrating a holiday that is certainly one of my favorites: Thanksgiving.  Our family loves to gather together around home-cooked food and spend the day with one another and with friends celebrating the many blessings in our life.  On a different Thanksgiving morning, about twenty years ago, Yahweh taught me something I have never forgotten.

On that day, I arose early to prepare our traditional Thanksgiving meal.  As I began the early morning tasks of getting the turkey in the oven, finishing the touches on the cornbread dressing and setting the table with my favorite old china, I began to sing in the Spirit and to thank Yahweh for His goodness to me and my family, and to give Him thanks for all of His promises.  As Kingdom people, we are very aware of the promises of Yahweh to us.  We have very personal things that we believe in our hearts our Father has spoken to us….promises of healing, of loved ones saved and helped, of prosperity and blessing.  We love promises, and we have a right as His sons to expect to receive the promises of Yahweh.  Peter wrote about that when he said that through Yahshua, the Father has given us exceedingly great and precious promises!  How wonderful.

But that day in my kitchen preparing one of my family’s favorite meals, in His kindness and wisdom, the Spirit of Yahweh posed a question to me.  ”Are you more passionate about My promises or My presence, because My presence is only in ‘today.’?” In that moment, He taught me a truth I have never forgotten.  It is the PRESENCE of Yahweh that is His most precious gift to us; the presence of the Comfortor; the presence of His Word in our lives; the presence of the creative power that He has made available to us.  Perhaps this is why when asked by Moses, “What is Your name,” Yahweh replied, “I AM THAT I AM.”  The present tense being verb….AM!

When I relate to my wonderful husband of over 31 years, I do not do so based upon his promises to me.  There are many things that Ed desires to do for me…blessings he intends to bestow upon me in the future, some about which we have spoken and others yet unknown.  But I do not base my relationship with him on those promises!  I do not pester him about them, nor do I relate to him based upon the fulfillment of them.  I do not love him more or less based upon my expectations of those promises being fulfilled.  I trust him, and I know he has my best interest at heart.  I am interested in being WITH him….his presence…the person that he is!  All of the blessings and promises flow out of that!

And that is certainly true about my relationship with Yahweh. How wonderful to come into the knowledge that our Father who loves us has many things in store for us, but we must beware not to pursue the promises of Yahweh without being passionate about His presence in us.  If we do, we have become idolaters, and there will be no ongoing relationship between Him and us.

I am thankful for many things this Thanksgiving Day…and every day…but all the good and perfect gifts I have already received and know that I will receive in the future must flow out of my being in Him, and Him in me. Truly the Spirit of Yahweh fills my heart and my life with the very presence of the Father, and at the end of the day, that is all I need….all that I want.  The presence of Yahweh in my life.  For that beautiful, life-giving, creative presence…I am most thankful.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU ALL!

And speaking of cornbread dressing….

Several folks have asked for my cornbread dressing recipe….so here it is!

SANDY’S CORNBREAD DRESSING

(Note:  I have never used a recipe, so writing this down is difficult.  This is close!)

This makes two large 9X13 pan of dressing.

If you’re cooking for a smaller family, ½ everything, but still use a whole chicken and all the broth.

-Boil a large chicken.  De-bone.  Cut into small pieces. Set meat aside.

-Bake a 9” cast iron skillet of cornbread; recipe your choice; NOT SWEET! I use a classic southern buttermilk cornbread baked in the oven.  That’s best.  Sometimes completely from scratch, but the Martha White Buttermilk cornbread mix is a good starter meal.  It makes good dressing.  Cook according to package, but double up on the oil and buttermilk.

-Bake 4-6 biscuits (If you don’t make scratch biscuits, you may use frozen or canned; just make sure you don’t get flaky ones.  You need biscuits that will crumble.)

-5-6 pieces of white bread.

-Crumble/mix all three breads together in a VERY LARGE BOWL.  I use a dishpan. You don’t want any huge clumps. This is your bread base.

-Add the following:

6 raw eggs

1 cup celery

1 bunch green onions, both the white and green  parts

3 tsp poultry seasoning (some people like green pepper in their dressing; I don’t)

salt and black pepper to taste

All the chicken broth and extra chicken broth as needed to make the dressing very thin….almost drinkable! You will need to have several cans on hand; get extra. (I taste a bit of the raw dressing, and add the salt, pepper and poultry seasoning to taste.  But the seasonings do get stronger as the dressing cooks, so beware not to over season.)

-Cook uncovered at 350 for about three hours.  Stir after 1.5 hours, and again at 2.5 hours, so the edges don’t overcook.

-If the dressing gets dry, add more broth. -The last hour, I stir in the diced chicken. I serve with canned cranberry sauce; my family does not prefer the home-made from real berries.  And I make a gravy out of flour, butter, chicken broth and a can of cream of chicken soup with diced boiled eggs added.

And a 20# turkey, of course!

The secret to this dressing is to start with good cornbread and a whole chicken boiled tender and lots and lots of broth to keep it from being dry.  The biscuits and white bread serve to make the consistency nice and creamy, but the cornbread is still the dominant bread. And it freezes VERY well.  I usually go ahead and cook it, and then freeze it, then all you have to do is heat in the oven.  If I am going to freeze it, I usually wait and add the diced chicken on the day I am going to serve it….and I also have some extra broth to add the day I am going to warm it up.

This recipe is very old, from my mother’s mother and beyond!  Classic Southern cornbread dressing….nothing fancy, but it is very good. Enjoy!