I have a confession to make.

I played a practical joke on my in-laws. Well, see it started off a year ago at Thanksgiving when B. Mom gave me the following stuffing recipe from Great-Aunt Maedel. As much as I love to cook and am happy to have a family recipe in my collection, I filed it away to make at a later date, as would any good daughter-in-law. Having never met Great-Aunt Maedel, I thought that she must be one interesting lady in her day as I read the recipe in her beautiful handwriting. (copied exactly as written)


Fast forward to this past summer. I wanted to make room in my freezer for some other food so I decided to cook a turkey and make Great-Aunt Maedel's stuffing. I followed the recipe and kept an eye on the clock for the three hour mark, not sure what to expect. The turkey kept cooking away and nothing unusual happened. It turned out beautiful and I happily served the turkey dinner to my parents and uncle who were over that night. The stuffing tasted fine, besides for the popcorn kernels that were still hard and not popped. 

Great-Aunt Maedel's stuffing

 While we were eating, Jeremy kept looking at the stuffing and then at me with a funny look. Finally he asked if that recipe was the joke recipe. I explained that his mother had given me the recipe and yes, the comment was a little weird on the recipe, but surely his mom wouldn't have given me a recipe that was a joke. I pulled out the recipe and showed my family.  Jeremy and I bickered back and forth for a bit about it, while my parents and Eric ate everything else except the stuffing. Finally I told Jer to call his mother to see if it was really a joke.

He quickly got his phone, called his mom, asked the question and then had her repeat her answer on speakerphone so we all could hear. She barely could answer that yes, it was a joke and she was surprised that I actually made the stuffing, because she was laughing so hard.  Jeremy smugly hung up the phone and my parents tried to make me feel better by agreeing with me that there would be no reason to suspect that I would be given a family recipe that was indeed just a family joke. Shortly there after, I got a text from my B. Mom, saying that they wouldn't say anything but dad wanted to know if I got the hell out of the kitchen!

Considering the all the individuals who knew about the joke on me (my parents, my uncle, my hubby, and my in-laws), I expect to hear about this at every Thanksgiving at least twice so I had to do something, otherwise the recipe will soon be renamed Charissa's Old Fashioned Turkey Dressing. Conveniently, Jeremy's parents were coming over for dinner the following week and so after several days of deliberation, I came up with the idea to make a 'family recipe' to share with them.

I made a kitty litter cake for dessert!
 (Before you lose it... kitty litter cake is made of cake, pudding, frosting, cookie crumbles and Toostie rolls. :-)

I made a really  nice dinner and we had a lovely conversation. Then as I was bringing out dessert (still covered at this point), there was a question about what I had made for dessert. I simply responded that it was a family recipe that I wanted to share with them, since they had so kindly shared their family recipe with me. I uncovered it at the table and got the following reaction...
 All three of them were game and ate their piece of cake. Though Jeremy asked for a 'small' piece. I did explain what the cake was made of before they took their first bite.

What can I say? I like jokes. Even when the joke is on me!