Dressing/Stuffing

I was never a big fan of stuffing growing up. It's rare that I didn't like something made by any of the great cooks in our family, but I did not like stuffing on Thanksgiving. Then I made it to college and I learned about Stovetop. I decided stuffing wasn't so bad. I hadn't known there were multiple versions of stuffing - some dry and some very..well...soggy. Apparently in our family, soggy stuffing was the creation of choice. And I didn't know that I preferred the dry version until I found out about the Stovetop thing.

And then I found out about this recipe. The guy I dated in college has an older sister and for the time that he and I were together - and even several years after - she and I were very close. We were both single and enjoyed doing crafts and shopping and watching chick flicks, so we spent a lot of time together. One year on Thanksgiving, she was alone, so she told me she wanted to make her favorite stuffing. A huge batch of it. And that was going to be Thanksgiving dinner. So after I finished spending time with my family, I headed over to her apartment for movies and stuffing. And ever since, this has been the only kind I'll eat.

Recipe:

1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup finely minced onion
4 cups coarse or fine bread crumbs or cubes
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon thyme
poultry seasoning to taste.

Melt butter in large skillet. Add onion and cook until yellow, stirring occasionally. Stir in bread crumbs. Keep stirring to keep bread from burning. Transfer into a large bowl. Mix in remaining ingredients. Bake for 20-30 minutes before serving.


I forgot to put the thyme and poultry seasoning in the picture. WOOPS! So... ** not pictured: thyme and poultry seasoning. **

I don't even bother cutting the bread. I just rip it and put it in this four cup measuring cup. I do pack it down pretty tightly. The more carbs, the merrier!

I bought a whole thing of celery for this one stalk. Sigh.

I know, I know...shocking that the girl who cheats and uses minced onion for everything would actually cut up an onion for this recipe! But this one is all manual labor for me. Ordinarily I'd use my food chopper but it was in the dishwasher from making broccoli salad.

I use real butter. Paula Deen would be proud.

I cook the onion until it's pretty tender.

When I add the bread cubes, I try to spread them evenly and stir them quickly so they get equal amounts of butter on them.

After a few moments, they look a little more like this. (Note - I used wheat bread because that's what I buy these days, but it works fine with white bread too.)

I put mine in a 2 quart baking dish, but something smaller would have worked fine. This just had a serving basked I could use. Add the celery, thyme, sage, salt, pepper and sprinkle of poultry seasoning.

After baking...looks pretty much the same. And it is SO YUMMY.