Preparing Hattie’s cornbread stuffing is more of an art, than a precise execution. Depends on how much you’re making. Sorry. You’re going to have to wing this using all of the basic ingredients.

2-3 batched of Hattie’s cornbread. Ca be prepared up three days in advance and refrigerated.
Whole Wheat Honey Bread (to be toasted)
5 large Spanish onions or 7-9 small onions.
3-5 large green bell papers
3-4 large bunches of celery
Lawry’s Seasoning Salt
Lawry’s Seasoned Peper
Rubbed Sage (Opened less than one year)
6-10 cans of Pet Milk (low fat evaporated milk, if you can find it)
A little sugar
Butter (She now uses a butter/olive oil blend as a healthier choice)

A package chicken gizzards and livers (just use the livers, neck and gizzards from the turkey if you can’t find the chicken gizzards and use their season broth.

First step is to chop up the onions first (save some onions, celery and bell beepers for roasting your turkey); put in a plastic bag. Chop up the celery for the dressing; put in a bag. Chop up the bell peppers; put in a bag. Hattie uses her food processor to do all of the fine chopping. She remembers doing it by hand as a kid. That was hard work. If you don’t have a food processor, consider buying one. Hattie wouldn’t consider doing it by many anymore. It a lot of time to do it that way. She normally does this two night before the big dinner and refrigerate.

The evening to morning the dressing is made, put the turkey heart, liver, and neck in a large pot with the extra chicken livers and gizzards. Put in some chopped celery, onions and bell peppers. The season with salt and pepper. At a low boil, cook until done. Turn off and allow to cool a little. Chop up in food processor or by hand. Put aside.

In a very large skillet, put in butter. Melt it. The put in most of the celery. The key to Hattie’s dressing is a lot of celery. That’s way she always buys at least three bunches of it. Add chopped onion. Should be twice as much celery as onion. Add bell pepper. Should be less than the onion added, maybe a lot less if you don’t like bell peppers. Sauté until soft, but not browned.

In a very large pot or oversized bowl, crumble up cornbread and toasted wheat bread (8-10 slices). Added sautéed onion, celery and bell peppers; then add in the chopped turkey and chicken pieces. The use the seasoned salt and pepper to taste. Added the rubbed sage seasoning, more than you think. At least a fourth of a small can. Pour in several cans of Pet Milk with some of the chicken/turkey broth. Add a little sugar, if desired. Taste. Continue seasoning until the desired taste is achieved. Then stir in two or three raw eggs. The mixture should be soupy.

Grease pans that will be used to cook the dressing. Hattie makes more than one pan so she always has fresh dressing ready for the left over turkey and late arriving dinner guests.

Either bake the dressing then at 375 and put in the refrigerator to heat on later or just put in the refrigerator to cook later. Frozen dressing will be good for weeks. Refrigerated dressing is good for about three days.

Because of the use of the raw eggs and soupy mixture, she never uses her dressing as a stuffing for her turkey. She after seasoning the cavity of her turkey with celery, onions and bell peppers. This time she uses more onions than anything else and puts some butter in the cavity. Then pour melted butter over the turkey and season the outside of the turkey with seasoned salt, seasoned pepper and paprika. Put in a meat thermometer, wrap in foil and bake at 425 until done. Check temperature after three hours, cooking time will vary greatly based on size of turkey.