After several calls, days of scouring Pinterest, and finally getting a headcount of my siblings, I finally figured out what I am cooking for us to eat for Thanksgiving this year! Since it is just me and the twins this year, I’ve decided to make Cornbread Bowls inspired by @therealbigpay on TikTok.

What is a Cornbread Bowl?

In the same realm as a bread bowl, to make a cornbread bowl, you’d make your cornbread in, preferably, a circular-shaped, disposable aluminum pan of your chosen size. Once it is done, you’ll want to let it cool first, then cut out a hole in the middle of the cornbread. Then, you’ll add your chosen contents to the hole you’d cut out.

How I’m Constructing the Bowls

Since it’s Thanksgiving, I am making some of my family’s holiday favorites to stuff our cornbread bowls. I haven’t cooked for Thanksgiving in quite a while, but I wanted to try my hand at a pescatarian-friendly menu that wasn’t a seafood boil or surf & turf that we’d normally do. To help me plan out the menu, I found some recipes for inspiration on Pinterest that I’ll be referencing for this year’s meal.

The Cornbread

If there’s one thing that my family is always asking to make, it’s cornbread. They always want my Honey Butter Cornbread!

Whenever there is a family thing or the siblings get together, there’s always someone calling me saying, “Desi, you bringing the cornbread, right?!” This is sometimes followed by, “You making a pan or muffins? Cuz you know we like the muffins!”

Depending on the time that I have to put into cooking, there are two ways that I will make my cornbread…from scratch or with Jiffy Cornbread Mix. When I have to cook a large amount of cornbread in a small window of time, I will opt for the Jiffy Cornbread Mix method so that I can be efficient. When I have more time on my hands to really get into cooking, I am going for the scratch-made method every time!

So, if you haven’t already guessed it, I am going with the Jiffy Cornbread Mix method for this meal.

What’s Going Inside the Bowls

If you don’t already know, cooking for people is one of my love languages. I LOVE TO COOK FOR PEOPLE, especially the people that I love! Now, cooking for myself is a whole other feeling that we won’t decode here.

Since I have no problem cooking on a regular basis, I frequently look for creative ways to cook the things that I love and new things to try all together. Now, let’s be honest, as a black woman who has been cooking since I was about 7 or 8 years old, I look at recipes for inspiration and add their techniques to how I’d normally cook my food.

To go inside our pans of honey butter cornbread, I’m making Cranberry Honey Glazed Salmon based on the recipe by Oriana Romero of Mommy’s Home Cooking (for me), Slow-Roasted Smoked Bourbon Turkey Wings based on the recipe by Cindy’s Online Recipe Box (for them), Baked Bourbon Candied Yams based on the recipe by Amanda of The Chunky Chef, Oven-Baked Macaroni & Cheese based on the recipe by Heather Johnson of The Food Hussy, and Collard Greens and Cabbage based on the recipe by Shauntay of The Glam Kitchen (minus the meat for this one).

Learning new ways to cook the things that I loved to eat growing up is a way that I regularly challenge myself in my cooking. When I chose these recipes to use as inspiration for this meal, I looked for flavors that I knew would satisfy both my picky-eating siblings and myself since I don’t eat meat anymore. Not only that, I also looked for these recipes to have techniques that could help me save time because, no matter the person, I am never too happy about cooking in someone else’s kitchen.

I’m going to be cooking this meal at my sister’s house she works in retail and will have to go to work, so I have to plan everything out ahead of time. For this meal, I have to cook proper portions in smaller batches than I’d normally cook for a holiday, and I have a limited amount of money for ingredients, so there is no room for error. Everything has to go exactly as I planned!

Honorable Mention

In addition to the cornbread bowls, for me personally, I can’t have Thanksgiving without my dressing! So, I’m also making a personal-sized pan of dressing for me to eat. My siblings don’t really care for dressing as much as I do, so I normally get a larger portion of it to myself on holidays when we’re eating together as a family.

From store-bought stuffing to Southern style, there are several ways to make dressing, but my favorite is the way my mom makes it. Every time I make it, no matter how many times I’ve made it, I can’t feel confident about making it unless I call my mom and have her walk me through the recipe, one more time! She can expect the same thing to happen this year, even though she won’t be in the same place with me.

Final Thoughts…

With everything planned, I’ll be going to the store to get the ingredients tomorrow so that I have everything ready ahead of time. I will be leaving out early on the morning of Thanksgiving to head to my sister’s house in Indiana for the holiday. When I cook this meal and put it all together, I will come back here to share the results. If you are interested in seeing how it all comes together, come back here to check it out!

Check out my Pinterest board with the recipes below!