annies home: Dressing Traditional or Dressed Up

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Dressing Traditional or Dressed Up

As a child I can remember getting so excited to travel to grandmas house to have a delicious meal. She cooked it all herself with my aunts and mom bringing a few dishes that they wanted to show off as well. I can remember her dressing oh my so delicious and good. It was not the only time of the year that she would make it but Thanksgiving seemed so special. You see my family for many years had a large fish and chicken fry for the local area. Many individuals would help out and one thing that my grandmother did was prepare her delicious dressing for all to enjoy. While hers was made in a traditional style the dressing that I will share with my family this year is just a bit different one that will include prepared stuffing cubes and Italian sausage. While grannies always had a bit of turkey meat and a special bread tore into pieces I wanted to share an updated so to speak recipe with my family this year and I am sure there will be both cheers and jeers and questions as to why we changed the recipe so later I will share grannies recipe here on the blog as I have planned to make it as well allowing everyone to make their own choice. Traditions are hard to break but when you use Italian sausages that everyone loves you cant go wrong.

Italian Sausage Thanksgiving Dressing

Recipe by Our Best Bites

Ingredients:

1 lb. Italian sausage (in this recipe, I prefer hot, but if you’re worried about spice or want to control the heat, use mild and then season with a hot sauce like Tabasco to taste)

1 onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

5-6 cloves garlic, minced

1 c. sliced mushrooms

1 grated Granny Smith apple (use your food processor if you have one; your knuckles will thank you)

1 16-oz. package cubed stuffing or dressing (I like Pepperidge Farms; for this recipe, I try to stay away from Stove Top because the flavor is so overwhelming)

2 1/2 c. chicken broth

1 c. chopped pecans, toasted

1/2+ c. dried cranberries (optional)

Preheat oven to 350Instructions:

Heat a very large skillet to medium heat, remove casings, and crumble Italian sausage in the pan. As it starts to brown, stir in onions, celery, and garlic. As the sausage cooks, break up larger pieces–part of the awesomeness of this dressing are the little sausage bits in every bite.

As the onions begin to turn translucent, stir in mushrooms and apple. I grate it because I love the tart flavor of the apple, but I don’t like chunks of soggy apple in savory dishes like this. Icky, icky, icky.

When mushrooms are tender, sprinkle dressing mix over the sausage mix and then add chicken broth. Continue stirring as the dressing mix absorbs the liquid. Add in pecans and cranberries (if desired). When the liquid has been incorporated and the mixture is fully mixed, transfer to a 9×13 dish sprayed with cooking spray. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes. If you’d like to make this 1-2 days ahead of time, cover it after you place it in the 9×13 pan, and then bake it straight from the fridge.

shared at one or more of these parties