Stuffing

I have a minor allergy to onions, it is painful enough that I go pretty far out of my way to not have them. So for this last Thanksgiving I decided to bring my own stuffing to the Thanksgiving dinner, this would allow everyone else to have onions in theirs.

I always found having stuffing as a vegetarian a little bit odd. The entire point of stuffing is to fill the hollow cavity of a dead animal for cooking. It is a Thanksgiving tradition though, so I just go along with it.

Here in the US we do not have stuffing very often, but the rest of the world uses stuffing quite frequently. Because of this we often think of stuffing as mainly bread and celery. In reality stuffing can be made out of several different things. You can make your stuffing out of most any starch, including things such as corn meal, and potatoes. You can also use eggs to make your stuffing.

Most of my recipes come out tasting pretty good on a whole. This time I did make a small mistake though. I modified my original recipe to use McKay's chicken seasoning. I forgot to remove the salt from the recipe. The chicken seasoning has almost too much salt to begin so this dish was a bit saltier than I desired. Mixing it with my mashed potatoes solved that problem.

I like a mix of whole bread crumbs and a bread pudding like texture. I use a lot of liquid and bake mine for a while stirring occasionally then when it is close to done I add more toasted bread cubes. This still retains a lot of the bread cube textures but gives a smooth under taste. You can modify this recipe easily to make a sweet stuffing. You can add cranberries and mandarin oranges and leave out a lot of the more savory seasonings.

No Stuff Stuffing

8 cups Toasted Bread Cubes
5 cups Water
1 cup Chopped Celery
4 tablespoons McKay's Chicken Seasoning
1 tablespoon Sage
1/2 tablespoon Rosemary
1 tablespoon Thyme
1 teaspoon Black Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Bring water to boil with all seasonings.

3. Place half of the bread cubes into a baking pan.

4. Pour liquid over the bread cubes until almost covered.

5. Bake for 35 minutes stirring occasionally.

6. Add remaining bread cubes and bake for another 15 minutes. Or until top is nicely browned.