As I’m getting older (and hopefully wiser) I seem to enjoy Thanksgiving more and more each year. Now I don’t know if it’s because we’re all getting older and the time together seems much more important these past years … or maybe it’s just because all the food that we share is so good. Well to be perfectly honest it might just be a little bit of both.
First the food part – I admit it’s easy to fall into a pattern of making something to eat that’s easy and quick with both boys out of the house. So having turkey & ham, along with dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, tons of desserts, … well you get the picture right? It’s so much to be grateful for. The spread was awesome!
And to be able to have most of the family there to sit down to enjoy this food is pretty cool in itself. With the little kids coloring and the big kids playing card games, it’s a time in your life when you think that all is right in the world. Now granted I’m not so naive to think that everything in the world is good – but there is a time during this day when you look around and you just know that when you have your family around it just seems so much better.
So my part of this feast was to bring the dressing. I am the furthest from being any expert on dressing and it just amazes me when I’ve been asked more than once to bring it for a family gathering. It’s really simple and if you can literally boil water you can make it too!
Easy Peasy Dressing
- 1 box Dressing (like Stove Top or any other brand works too)
- chicken broth or water for dressing
- ¼ C butter
- 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup (condensed cream of mushroom soup works also if you run out of the cream of chicken soup)
- 1 C cut up cooked chicken (you can add more or less if you like)
- 1 container of dried onions – Optional
- Velveeta Cheese
Cook the boxed dressing to the instructions. Now this is where I used the chicken broth instead of the water that is says on the box. But if you don’t have the chicken broth on hand? Water works just fine.
After the boxed dressing is done, add the condensed soup and the chicken and stir.
Put this in a pan and top with sliced Velveeta cheese.
You can also add the onions at this time on top of the cheese if you like onions. I put onions only on half today. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. And that’s it! Be careful if you add the onions. I left mine get a little too hot and the onions got a little brown.
If you’re wondering how much to make for a crowd – I made an 8 x batch and it filled a roasting pan. After we got home tonight, the dogs were barking like crazy at the cows or something out by the barn, and it was driving me crazy! I can not stand a dog barking!! So I left them in the house so they would stop and honestly I think it was a plot for them to get into our living room and take a nap. 
Are you wondering how my second batch of soap turned out? Well it worked!! And our kitchen smells really good these days. You can smell lavender & oranges now when you walk past my ‘drying station’. But the only problem that I have is that I’ve run out of room on my old stove to dry any new batches. I’m seeing that I’ve got two options with this problem. I can stop making anything new until I get these first batches dried or I can find a new spot to dry the next ones. Hum.. I think I’ll start looking for that new spot in our laundry room 🙂
And finally I snapped this picture last night while during chores for the photo of the day. It was snowing pretty good and even though the cows are used to me taking their picture – they were sure wondering what I was doing just hanging out in the snow tonight. 