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Back during the summer,
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with people that send me letters and recipes.
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And so this was probably late August
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that I got the sweetest card
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from a man named Luke.
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And he said, "Dear Paula,
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Miss Paula," he called me Miss Paula,
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"Love watching your videos.
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You have always been a bright spot in my day.
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Your cooking reminds me so much of my mama,
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who is also a wonderful cook.
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I've attached a few recipes of hers.
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One is for a casserole.
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The squash casserole tastes just like cornbread dressing.
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The dessert is a favorite of everyone in the family
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and expected my mom to have it every holiday."
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So I haven't seen the dessert recipe yet,
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but I'm gonna check it out.
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And he said, "PS, blessings to you and your family,
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Theresa and Eddie too,"
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because he knows they're part of my family also.
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I can't tell you what it does to me
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to hear these kind of words come in from y'all.
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In fact, now is a perfect time
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for me to remind y'all,
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if you enjoy watching my videos,
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you know, if you would tell a friend
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and it's very important that you hit subscribe.
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It doesn't cost a thing, it just lets the network know
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how many people are actually watching my videos.
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It's just a information source.
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So don't forget to hit subscribe.
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It will help me a lot.
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So Luke, you know what?
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I think that this would make
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a good side dish for Valentine's Day.
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You know, I went to a function Saturday night
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and it was at a fancy place like The Cloister (chuckles)
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and they served us a pork chop.
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That pork chop was that thick.
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So I cut all the meat off the bone and gnawed the bone.
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'Cause, you know, to me that's the best part
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And some people took some pictures
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and we have laughed about that.
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Paula might be from the country, but she ain't.
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So this would be good
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served alongside one of those nice thick pork chops,
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'cause it tastes like cornbread dressing.
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by sauteing the onions.
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Let's see, does he call for butter?
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One stick of butter melted.
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There we go, mama. (laughs)
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Luke didn't put a whole bunch of directions in here,
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you know, but Luke says,
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"Saute the onions and celery until translucent
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and then mix all the ingredients
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together in a buttered casserole dish
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and bake at 350 for approximately 35 to 45 minutes."
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Well, he doesn't say anything about sauteing the squash,
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but I'm gonna do that,
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Luke, and hope maybe that's how you do it.
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But anyway, we got our stick of butter melted.
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We're gonna go in with our onions and celery.
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And this is two ingredients
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that definitely make cornbread dressing.
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So I'm gonna turn that down a little bit and get this going.
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And then I'm gonna throw our squash in.
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All right, so I'm gonna go ahead and throw in our squash
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'cause all of our butter is almost melted.
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I think he said just cook it until it's translucent.
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You know, your onions and celery.
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So I think I'm gonna put the lid on this, Luke.
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And just let it get hot pretty quickly.
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And the other ingredients that it calls for
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is a can of cream of chicken soup,
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two cups of cooked cornbread crumbled up.
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And I would recommend using a southern cornbread,
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not one that's sweet.
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That's good. That's not sweet.
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Two eggs, a medium onion, and 3/4 cup of celery.
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All right, so while our squash onions
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and celery is cooking,
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I'm going to mix up our other ingredients,
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which is a cup of chicken,
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cream of chicken soup.
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Going to get it all out. (spoon rattling)
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And I've lightly beaten up
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So we'll mix that together.
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Luke saying this tastes like cornbread dressing.
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I can visualize that.
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All right, I'm gonna pull this off.
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and the water that we got from the squash
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has given us some juice.
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I think I may temper these eggs a little bit,
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'cause you know I don't like scrambled eggs
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(spoon thudding) (container clinks)
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with my casserole dishes.
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And after I get this tempered, I'll add it back into that.
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(spoon thudding and rattling)
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Okay, I think that's good, tempered.
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So we've got our two cups
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of crumble cornbread,
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and like I said, it's a southern cornbread,
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If you're buying boxed cornbread,
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my cornbread is not sweet
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because I just, you know,
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I would rather you add, if you like sweet cornbread,
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to add your own sugar.
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And so the cornbread makes much more versatile.
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All right, so now I'm gonna take
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And I've greased my casserole dish.
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I think Luke said a eight by eight
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- [Theresa] Eight by eight.
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Yeah, I can just see this
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kind of propped up on a fat pork chop.
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And your valentine just drooling.
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- [Theresa] I like the concept of the cornbread
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'cause it'll give it a texture.
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- [Theresa] Like, the breadcrumbs, but not-
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Look, there's a little bit of egg left. (chuckles)
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Alright, I'm gonna have to get this close
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because you know what?
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These pans are getting so heavy
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when you get 'em full of food.
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You know, I adore my cast iron.
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But great time of day,
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the older I get, the heavier it gets.
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About 30, 35 minutes, y'all.
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I want to thank you, Luke,
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for the beautiful card that you sent
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and sharing the memories of your mother with me.
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It's very, very sweet,
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and I'm gonna dig into this and taste.
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And remember, Luke told us
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it's tasted almost like cornbread dressing.
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So I'm gonna, looks delicious.
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I thought I'd let it cool enough that I could eat it.
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This is delicious, Luke.
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I mean, I think you could get people that say,
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"Oh, no, I don't like squash,"
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I think they'd like this.
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I think you could get 'em to eat squash.
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It's yummy. (fork rattling)
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although you didn't tell us to cook off the squash some,
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Luke, I'm glad that I did,
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because that made our squash so very tender.
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Thank you, darling, so much,
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and I hope you have a happy Valentine's Day.
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Make this for your sweetheart. (chuckles)
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Hey, y'all, it's Paula Deen.
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Now, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to like it
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and click the subscribe button as well as the notification
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bell to be alerted when I post a video.
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Love and Best Dishes Y'all.
