Actually, my Nana and my mom have both confessed to me they don’t really have a recipe for stuffing. They just put in a little of this and a little of that. It’s comforting to know I come by it honestly.
Anyway, this is Nana’s best estimate for how she would have made the walnut stuffing I remember from childhood, loosely based on the favorite cookbook she has referred to for 62 years, the Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book.
Submitted by Dorothy Goodnough
- 1 ½ cups butter (3 sticks)
- ½ cup finely chopped onion
- ½ cup chopped celery (optional)
- 1 lg loaf 2-day old bread, cut into ½” cubes
- 1 Tbsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- 1 ½ tsp poultry seasoning (or about ½ tsp each thyme, marjoram, sage, and savory)
- 1 to 2 cups walnut pieces (or almonds, brazil nuts, chestnuts, pecans, or pine nuts)
- 1 to 2 cups water, milk, cream, or chicken broth (optional)
Melt butter in skillet or pot large enough to hold all the bread. Add onions and celery, if using, and saute until tender. Stir in walnuts and toast for a few minutes.
Add bread cubes and seasoning. Heat until butter is completely absorbed and cubes are toasted, stirring constantly. If stuffing is more dry and crumbly than you like, add a little liquid at a time until it is the way you like it.
Note: When I make this recipe for Thanksgiving, I will use hearty whole grain bread plus a couple tablespoons of wheat germ, probably substitute extra light olive oil for at least a third of the butter, and use chicken broth for the liquid (I love moist stuffing).
Last weekend’s Thanksgiving feast almost blew our collective minds with how tasty everything was. Actually, as we tried to express how good everything was, we kept trying to find just the right superlatives. We agreed that we should establish a sort of best-of book, since so many of the recipes were the best we had ever had. We jokingly titled this hypothetical publication, Obscenely Good Recipes, due to the responses elicited by the taste testers.
Allow me to elaborate our menu:
- Turkey with Sausage Stuffing
- Mashed Potatoes
- Sweet Potatoes
- Rosemary Roasted Winter Vegetables
- Green Peas and Baby Onions
- Jellied Cranberry Sauce, still shaped like the can
- Pecan Crunch Pie
- Cherry Pie
- Pumpkin Crisp
We had the best ever Pecan Crunch Pie to start off the weekend. It actually got sampled Wednesday night, because we figured it might get overshadowed on Thursday. And that was an excellent decision, although our taste test ended up being half the pie!
The turkey was incredibly moist, even though it had been cooked without a tent. We suspect this was due to the sage butter infusion: Dawn softened some butter, stirred in chopped fresh sage, molded it into a log, and froze it in a sandwich bag for 10 minutes. Then she sliced the butter into dimes and slid the pieces between the skin and the meat. The center cavity of the turkey also was stuffed with some savory items, including a whole onion. Add to this a studious attention to basting the bird, and it came out with so much flavor it made us weak in the knees.
When it came my turn to sample the sausage stuffing, my only response was to pick up the dish and run from the room, shouting €œI’ll see you tomorrow!€ Then I relented and returned it, seeing that there was more than enough to share and I wanted to pair it with the turkey. But it was that good.
Whit made her sweet potatoes with walnut crunch topping for the third year in a row. Same recipe every time, but we all agreed that these turned out the best ever. Perhaps the third time is just automatically charmed.
I tried a new recipe for roasted vegetables. Due to a kitchen time-share scheduling conflict, I ended up actually fire-roasting them outside on the grill. I used carrots, parsnips, turnips, baby tomatoes, whole garlic cloves and fennel. It was both a pungent and flavorful treat! However, my personal opinion of the result was that they should be part of a simpler meal, so they can shine instead of competing with the traditional Thanksgiving spread. Next time I might also use fewer different vegetables, so the ones that are there can speak for themselves. But I can promise you, there will be a next time. Roasted veggies are going to become part of my regular lineup.
Other indulgent dishes were spread out over the weekend. On Friday, we had Next Day Turkey Soup with Dumplings for lunch, followed by Dawn’s famous Artichoke Dip, served with Wheat Thins and crudites, during the game. I love the word crudite (CROO-dih-tee), because it makes cut up veggies sound so exotic!
While we decorated the tree Saturday evening, we snacked on peppermint bark (new family favorite), spiced pecans, and sugar plums. All are simple to make and store well. I also think they are a complimentary trio. Unfortunately the item which goes the fastest, the pecans, are also the most expensive. Maybe a cup of peanuts or mixed nuts served alongside the pecans would make them last longer?
And for Sunday brunch, Dawn made stuffed french toast. Again, this is a simple dish. It is assembled the night before, to allow the eggs to soak into the bread. It can be served with syrup, but it is certainly sweet enough to stand alone. I think the perfect companion for this breakfast would be a bowl full of clementines and a pot of coffee.
Hard to believe, but I think that covers all the exceptional recipes we trotted out over the weekend. Maybe you found something there to inspire you for a future event, even if it is as ordinary as a Saturday morning.
- 3 cups cut up cooked turkey or chicken
- 1 pkg stuffing mix, prepared
- 4 cups fluffy mashed potatoes
- ¼ cup gravy (optional)
Preheat oven to 350°.
In a 2 qt baking dish, place layer of turkey pieces. Cover with layer of stuffing. Top with mashed potatoes, then drizzle gravy over all.
Bake 30 minutes, until heated through. Serves 6.
*Note: Best made with leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, then frozen until after the holidays, when you want to recapture “that lovin’ feeling”. To thaw, place in refrigerator overnight. Add 10-15 minutes to cooking time.