Sunday, December 22, 2013

Family Recipe

Dear friends: 

My Family Recipe passed on now to many friends

Enjoy it for Christmas and Thanksgiving

One of the key ingredients of us making stuffing or dressing for Christmas is using the correct bread.  I prefer to have two breads.

The first bread should be a light colored wheat bread or whole grain bread.  The second bread can be a darker bread or a lighter bread( one excellent choice is a potato bread), but never use inexpensive bread that cost like $0.85 or $1.15 a loaf it's not what you want for making a good stuffing.


It is also important that the bread be somewhat stale but not dry/hard stale purchasing the bread to or three days before the holiday and leaving it out overnight after you've sliced it and dice the into cubes, will give you a bread that is both the right texture and the appropriate dryness, for your stuffing.

These are the ingredients you will need.  The amount of stuffing depends upon the size of the bird.  Therefore the recipe that I am giving you is for a 20 pound turkey plus a side bowl of dressing that you will cook for about 30 to 45 minutes near the end of the cooking time of your turkey.
 
1.        3 teaspoons of poultry seasoning
2.        two loaves of chopped bread
3.        three to four medium-sized onions
4.        one large stalk of celery (a stalk of celery will have many individual fingers of celery so this may be six or eight individual fingers for a stalk it's the way they sell it at the store not just one piece of celery) you will have a cuple cups aftr you chop it
5.        one half teaspoon of pepper
6.        three to four sticks of butter
7.        1 cup of chopped parsley
8.        one half tablespoon of sage
9.        optional -- one third of a cup of canned pineapple chopped finely
10.        optional -- 3 teaspoons of honey

11.        1 apple chopped into small pieces
12.        the next item has to be used carefully because
some people are allergic to nuts I like to add about a handful of chopped pecans or chopped walnuts into the stuffing but only if I know that everybody who's coming has no allergies to nuts
13.        on occasion I will add something else into the stuffing because I believe that it looks like it's going to be to either make it takes just a little tiny bit better this time on the items nine through 12 I always think at least one of those goes in the stuffing typically it's the honey but I've also used on occasion one to two tablespoons of blackberry jelly.


The key to getting this stuffing cooked right is to do the following

  • Melt your three to four sticks of butter in the same pan that you're going to use to cook your turkey.  I always suggest spraying the pan with an item such as Pam 1st so that nothing sticks
  • add the chopped up Onions first followed shortly thereafter by your chopped up celery
  • After that is cook for about 10 minutes and that will depend upon on how high of a heat you use.  Be careful not to burn the butter’
  • next add the sage, the poultry seasoning, the salt-and-pepper
  • Stir that quite a bit make sure looks good then add your chopped parsley your optional items and anything else you want to add to it.
  • After all these ingredients are thoroughly stirred together and it's starting to smell real good (don't forget your apple) let it cook for another five or 10 minutes
  • Turn off the heat, and take all the butter and juices and put it into a separate container for a few minutes.   Two things happen when you're doing this one is his hot mixture cools down a bit and secondly you can mix up everything that's left real well with your chopped up bread.  Mix that makes that mix that and then gently pour in the butter and mixture while continuing to mix all the ingredients with your chopped up bread
  • First stuff off the neck of the turkey, and then stuff the body cavity than take and put into a cooking container the remainder of your stuffing mix.  Put that in the refrigerator immediately and remember to cook it for 30 to 45 minutes so you can time it with the turkey being done.
  • With all this butter you will get a lot of drippings into your pan that you cook the turkey, therefore I'd like to suggest it is you're taking it out so you don't boil your turkey most of the turkeys nowadays have some water or sodium or something like that added to them.  Set that at mixture aside to make your gravy.
 send email if you need great gravy how to But it will be my wife's recipe  …
.
My beautiful wife Marianne makes the gravy.  Always start with a good rue.  In a future e-mail if I get a reply from you I will send you the instructions for making great gravy.  
 Gravy is subjective.

The stufing recipe above is a hand-me-down for my grandfather Ollie (AL) Gast.    It has been changed and modified since he passed away in 1968.  But the essentials of his expertise is being kept in the family with the benefits of the tinkering and testing for ongoing improvements over the past 42  years of experimenting.

I hope you and yours enjoy this recipe.  If you enjoyed it send me an email or share with friends

Email from Rob Denkewalter  

Have a Great 2014 and a wonderful Christmas


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