When I was growing up, there was a dish my mother made that I always loved. She called this dish dressing, but others might call is stuffing. It took a long time to make because we couldn’t make it until we had enough bread heels saved up in our deep freezer. We never ate the two heels at the ends of the loaves of bread and that was just fine with my mom. She would throw them all into the basket in the deep freezer and when the basket got full, we could make a nice big pan of dressing. You are probably wondering what made this dressing so great. Maybe it was just because mom made it and there was a lot of it when she did.

I am going to try to share the recipe with you, but there was never a set recipe. So, to start, we always got out the metal cake pan that was the typical 9” x 13” x 3” deep pan. The bread would all be taken out of the freezer and allowed to thaw. One of us kids would be given the task of tearing the bread into small bite-sized pieces and tossing them into the pan. Mom would get a medium yellow onion and dice it up and toss it in. She may have even used the dehydrated onions on occasion if fresh wasn’t an option. She always kept the dried onions on hand just in case. Once the pan got full, she would add a bunch of ground sage (this is commonly found in the larger bottles in the spice aisle of the grocery store). She also added a generous amount of ground black pepper. Then she would add the chicken broth. As I recall, she used Swanson’s chicken broth in the big cans (about 46 ounces?) and usually one big can or maybe two was enough to moisten all the bread. It got stirred around until everything was mixed well.

If it was too soupy, we added more bread. If it was too dry, we added more chicken broth or if we were out, water worked too. She would taste it to decide if the seasonings were right and add more of something if she deemed it was needed. Once it was ready, she popped the pan in the oven, uncovered and baked it for about 30 minutes. I am guessing the temperature of the oven was most likely 350°F. It is a very easy and forgiving recipe. The only thing that needs to really cook is the diced onions.

When it is finished cooking, it smells and tastes wonderfully savory. It looks rather like a casserole I suppose and could actually be made more presentable for a potluck by baking it in a casserole dish instead of the huge metal pan, which never looked presentable or new for as long as I can remember. Whatever wasn’t eaten the night it was served would be put into the refrigerator. The next day when you wanted some, you just cut a piece much like a cake and put it in a microwavable dish and reheated it. Very easy. There is not much to spoil in it so it kept until it was gone and was a very inexpensive dish to make.

This was also an example of not wasting anything. You can use any kind of bread that is leftover to make it. When bread gets stale just toss it in the freezer. I have been known to make it with fresh bread and just used whatever we had on hand or bought the cheapest white bread from the day-old bakery outlet. The bread can be cut instead of tearing it up, I’m sure mom just wanted us to feel like we were being useful. When I got married and had a household of my own, we ate a lot more wheat and oat bread instead of just plain white and I noticed the different kinds of bread gave it an even better taste. If we had been one of those households where the mom cut the crusts off the sandwiches, I’m sure the crusts would have been saved to use in the next batch of dressing. We were not that type of household, we learned to eat things like bread and pizza crust. This was likely Mom’s way of making something delicious and filling out of old stale bread, but to me it is comfort food.