Undressed Stuffing... Unstuffed Dressing?

So, my Thanksgiving theme continues.  I’m trying to be helpful.  Plus, it gives me an excuse to enjoy all of my favorite sides on the lead up to the big day.  Besides, who decided we can only partake of stuffing (or is it dressing… since it’s not actually stuffed into anything?)  on turkey day?  I happen to know I’m not the only one with a fondness for the stuff.  Let me show you how I make mine. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

White bread
Cornbread
Sausage
1 medium onion
1 ½ cups diced celery
Sage
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup butter
1 cup chicken stock
1 egg
Cranberries (optional)
Salt & pepper

The first thing you need to do is get the white bread cubed and dried out.  I like to do that in the oven, especially with the humidity the way it is here.  Spread the cubes out on a baking sheet and bake them at 250° for about 20 minutes.

The bread should be crispy on the outside, but not browned.  Can you use already dried bread cubes from the store?  Sure!  I think it’s worth the effort, though, so that I can choose what kind of bread it is.  While those are cooling, we’ll move to the cornbread.  My local grocery store had these fabulous corn muffins, so I just used those.  If you want to make your own cornbread, knock yourself out.  Either way, just cut it into cubes.  It’s going to crumble somewhat in the process, but that’s fine.

Place the cooled white bread and the cornbread into a bowl with plenty of room for adding more ingredients and stirring them all together.  In my case, I had to use a pan because I didn’t have a bowl big enough. 

Next comes the sausage.  I use Beeler’s breakfast sausage.  In my book, there’s nothing better.  Not to mention, it’s all natural and they take good care of their pigs, and their customers.  If you can’t find it locally, you can order from them directly here.  (and if you do, be sure to get some of their Li’l Bites smoked sausages.  OMG they’re good!)

I had already used a third of the package for biscuits and gravy, so I had about ⅔ of a pound, which was perfect.  Go ahead and cook the sausage, breaking it up into smallish pieces in the process.

When it’s done, remove it from the pan and put in your onions and celery. 

 

Cook them until they are soft and translucent, then add the garlic.

Just stir it in and cook it for about a minute or so before returning the sausage to the pan.  Stir that in, and then turn off the heat.   

Now comes the most important part.  The thing that makes stuffing stuffing.  (or dressing dressing, if that’s what you call it)  Either way, you need sage.  It is what gives this dish its distinct flavor. 

Sage is a pretty potent herb, though, so you want little, tiny pieces distributed throughout.  Cut the leaves in half along the spine, then stack them up and slice very thinly. 

Separating the pieces with your fingers, sprinkle them over the sausage mixture. 

Now, smell your fingers.  Oh, don’t even go there.  Trust me, in this case, it’s a very good thing.  As you stir the sage into the hot mixture, your kitchen will suddenly begin to fill with the aroma of stuffing, rather than just sausage and onions.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those.  Ok, I got off track.  Allow the mixture to cool for 20 minutes or so.  I had leftover cranberries from making cranberry sauce last week, so I threw some in.  It added a beautiful color and a bit of tang, which was nice. 

Once everything is cooled and stirred together, melt the butter and mix it with the chicken stock.  The mixture should end up being right around room temperature so you can whisk in the egg without cooking it.  Pour the whole thing over the sausage mixture. 

Stir everything together, and pour that over the bread. 

Toss until everything is evenly coated and distributed, then walk away.  Give the bread at least five minutes to absorb the liquid before pouring it into a 9x13 pan.  Press gently to even out the top and get rid of air pockets. 

Cover and bake at 350° for 45 minutes.  Yes, I know I forgot to tell you to preheat your oven.  It should be pretty obvious by now that Seeley and I are horrible at remembering to mention that step and completely incapable of getting all the ingredients into the “ingredients” picture.  Oh well, no one’s perfect, right?  So, back to the stuffing.  After 45 minutes, remove the foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes.  It should be browning around the edges and lightly golden on top. 

Give it 5 minutes or so to cool and set, and then dig in. 

Me?  I had it in a bowl, for dinner.  No turkey, no mashed potatoes, just stuffing.  Who says it can’t be a main course? 

So, dressing or stuffing?  Which is it in your house?   

Cinnamon (Biscuit) Buns

The limit of biscuits as possibilities approach infinity is infinity. (calculus version)

You can make a lot of things with biscuits. (normal human version)

No, I will never be done doing calculus. I have at least 3 more semesters of it.

That's three more semesters of needing breakfasts on the go in the morning. And biscuits, in addition to being infinitely variable, are also highly portable.

This recipe, like most biscuit recipes, will also impress your brunch or overnight guests. They take about 10 minutes to prepare and 20 to bake, so it's very easy to have them made and on the table before anyone even realizes you're up.

So, we start with the basic biscuit recipe, just like we did when we were impressing Southern Boys, but we make a couple modifications. Instead of milk, or buttermilk, I used half orange juice and half milk. The OJ is a lovely background aroma that could totally be emphasized if you added a bit of orange zest to the cinnamon-butter mixture... but that's a few steps away still.

Cinnamon (Biscuit) Buns

What you need:

Biscuits:

• ½ c orange juice
• ½ c milk
• ½ c butter
• 1 c flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp vanilla (optional)

Cinnamon Filling:

• 1/4 c butter
• 1/4 c cinnamon sugar
• 1/2 tsp orange zest (optional)

What you gotta do:

So, just like last time, we start with cold butter, chopped into chunks, and flour, baking powder and salt (forgot to put the salt in the ingredients pic) in a bowl.

With a pastry cutter, or two knives, or, even two forks, chop the butter into smaller and smaller pieces until it looks more like crumbs than butter and flour.

In a measuring cup, combine the OJ and milk (and vanilla... I realized as I was eating the first one that a bit of vanilla would totally be awesome)

If you don't have oranges on hand to freshly squeeze, make sure you're using the "not from concentrate" kind of OJ. The concentrated stuff is often stripped of vitamins during the concentration process and reconstituted with a higher sugar content.

You could also use plain milk, buttermilk, or all OJ if you wanted. Just make sure you've got a cup of liquid and it's got some kind of acid content to react with the baking powder to fluff up your biscuits.

Mix the liquid into the flour-butter crumbs to get a soft, sticky dough.

My dough was very soft and sticky when I turned it out onto a very floured counter. Soft, sticky doughs make for sticky, doughy hands that are not good for taking pictures.

So, I floured and folded the dough (remember to only pat and fold biscuits, never knead them) until it was rollable.

Roll the folded rectangle into a flat rectangle. This was a seriously sticky dough and I needed a lot of flour. I also need a rolling pin, because a tumbler is not the best tool for rolling biscuit dough.

You want the dough only about a half inch thick.

See where it looks like it's kinda stuck to the counter? It was. Not enough flour. But, a butter knife works well to lift the stuck bits as you're rolling. And I happened to have a butter knife handy...

You want the butter for the filling to be nice and soft. Of course, my pound of butter was all cold (cold butter for biscuits, always) so I microwaved it for a few seconds... too long. Oops. Oh well, butter will harden again in the fridge.

So, I just poured in the cinnamon sugar,

and put it in the fridge for a few minutes until its consistency was more spreadable and less pourable.

Spread this sweet, cinnamony goo all over the biscuit dough.

And start rolling. Lift the stuck bits gently with the knife, and use floured hands so you don't stick to the dough.

Don't worry if it's not pretty and smooth. Baking does wonderful things to the appearance of dough.

Once it's all rolled up and floured, slice it into pieces that are 1 or 1.5 inches thick.

Use a sharp knife, but don't worry that the roll flattens. And it will flatten. Not a problem. Seriously.

Line a pan (or two) with parchment and reshape your biscuits as you put them in the pan(s). Leave a bit of space between them. They totally puff outwards because of all the folding and layering you did before you rolled them out.

See, they're round again. And in a 400 degree oven, holy crap do they get puffy fast.

That was after only 4 minutes!

After about 18, they look like this

Just barely golden brown on the edges, and the OJ has given them a nice yellowy, buttery look.

Once they've cooled, you can wrap them in pairs and freeze them for early morning grabbing.

If you wanted to go totally crazy with these, you could glaze them. OJ and icing sugar, or cream cheese and icing sugar would work just fine. Or you could put one on a plate and grab a cup of coffee and a good book and get back into bed.

What do you take in your coffee?