Take Control of
Thanksgiving Dinner

For your enjoyment, here's an excerpt from the ebook that covers how to make stuffing. The overall ebook has you starting your shopping early, but you can jump in here. Note that this recipe is intended to span 2 days, with you doing some prep work on the day before Thanksgiving. Of course, you can do it all on Thanksgiving day, if necessary.

The great thing about stuffing is that you can vary the recipe dramatically and still end up with a perfectly delicious end result. The basic ingredients of a turkey stuffing are bread, aromatics (celery and onion), stock or broth, a few spices, and a bit of butter. Of course, lots of stuffings get fancy with sausage, oysters, chestnuts, fruit, cornbread, or any of a zillion other modifications. We're going to stick with the standard (though I provide other suggestions in the Upgrading sidebar [at the end of this excerpt]. If you have a family recipe for another type of stuffing, and your guests expect it, feel free to use it instead.

IN OR OUT? There are two broad schools of thought about stuffing: one says to cook it inside the turkey (in which case it truly is stuffing) and the other says to cook it separately (in which case it's sometimes called dressing). If you cook the stuffing inside the turkey, it will absorb a good bit of moisture and fat from the turkey—and along with it, lots of flavor. Stuffing the turkey is a (slightly awkward) extra step, as is removing the cooked stuffing, though using a stuffing bag can simplify both greatly.
But the main argument against stuffing the turkey is that the stuffing takes a long time to heat up, while spending significant time in contact with uncooked meat. That's a recipe for bacterial growth, and of course the last thing you want to do is make your guests sick! However, you can solve this problem quite easily. First, make sure the stuffing is very hot when you put it into the bird. And, second, before you take the turkey out of the oven, check the stuffing's temperature. If it's 160*F (71*C) or higher, you're completely safe.
Because the taste of genuinely stuffed stuffing is better, we'll be cooking it in the bird. But we'll also make some extra, cooked separately, because you can never have too much stuffing!

Most of the stuffing preparation should be done the day before Thanksgiving. Just before you put the turkey in the oven, you'll perform the last two steps: combining the wet and dry ingredients, and heating the stuffing.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (125 ml) unsalted butter
• (1 stick)
• 4 large celery stalks
• 1 large onion
• 1 teaspoon dried sage
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground pepper
• 2 loaves (16 oz./450 g each) white sandwich bread, dried or
• 2 bags (14oz./400 g) of plain dried bread cubes
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley
• 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth

Only if upgrading...
2 medium apples (replacing half the celery)
or
1-2 cups chopped fresh mushrooms

Ingredient Notes

• A few words about the bread: For the best texture, the bread should be thoroughly dried before you make the stuffing. You can dry fresh bread by laying the slices on a counter or, better yet, wire cooling racks for about 3 days, depending on the humidity. (It'll dry faster if it's already torn into small pieces.) If you are pressed for time, you can tear up the bread, lay the pieces on cookie sheets, and bake them in a 300*F (150*C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until thoroughly dry (but not browned). Or you can simply buy packages of plain dried bread cubes.
• It's a Wonder: Some brands of bread, such as WonderBread, come in 24-ounce loaves rather than 16-ounce loaves. Be sure to check the weight and adjust the quantity accordingly if necessary.
• As for chicken broth: If you have some homemade chicken or turkey stock, by all means use it. But you'll get dandy results using canned (or boxed) broth from the supermarket, too. For the stuffing (unlike the gravy), you don't absolutely need low-sodium broth, but buying just one kind of broth is easiest. If you have vegetarians at the table, you can substitute vegetable broth—and be sure to serve them the stuffing cooked separately from the turkey.

Preparation

1. If you are using fresh bread, tear it up into small (1 inch/2 cm) pieces—they needn't be uniformly shaped—and dry it thoroughly. (Refer to the explanation just previously.)
2. Chop the onion and celery finely (or ask your helper to).
3. Separately, chop the parsley finely. (If you have a pair of kitchen shears, you can use those, rather than a knife, to cut the parsley.)
4. In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. When it just starts to bubble, add the onion and celery and saute them until very soft, about 10 to 15 minutes. (If the onions begin to brown on the edges, consider them done.)
5. Stir in all the spices except the parsley (marjoram, sage, thyme, salt, and pepper), and the chicken broth.
6. Allow this mixture to cool slightly. Then transfer it into a covered container and refrigerate until tomorrow.
7. In a very large bowl (or two bowls, if you don't have a single bowl large enough), toss together the bread cubes and the chopped parsley. Cover this bowl loosely with a dry towel and set it aside until tomorrow.
8. When you're ready to stuff the turkey, warm the wet mixture slightly (in a saucepan or in the microwave), just enough to liquefy any fat on the surface. Combine the wet mixture and the dry mixture and mix thoroughly.
9. Following the directions in Roast and Carve the Turkey (page 69), microwave about 6 cups of the stuffing until it reaches 130 degrees F (54 degrees C). Then spoon it into the turkey (or the stuffing bag). Put the remaining stuffing in a casserole or glass baking dish and cover it, but don't refrigerate (if you think you'll be low on oven space, use a loaf pan instead).
   Better with butter: The stuffing you're baking separately will be extra yummy if, before you put it in the oven, you drizzle the top with about 4 tablespoons (half a stick) of melted, unsalted butter.
10. When the turkey has been roasting for 2 hours, put the remaining stuffing into the oven alongside or above it, covered with foil or a glass lid. Bake for about an hour, so the stuffing will be ready when the turkey has finished resting after it comes out of the oven.

Cutting Corners
Stuffing isn't at all hard to make, but if you're worried about getting everything done, there are always store-bought stuffing mixes. Frankly, I don't think any commercial mix can hold a candle to homemade stuffing, but this is ultimately a lower-priority menu item than, say, turkey or mashed potatoes.

Upgrading
This stuffing recipe, as it stands, is plenty tasty (especially the portion cooked inside the turkey). But it's also pretty basic. To add some pizzazz, you can try these suggestions:
* Replace half the celery with two medium-sized apples, peeled and diced into pieces about the same size as the celery.
* Add 1-2 cups of fresh chopped mushrooms.
* Look for other stuffing recipes. Among the thousands of stuffing recipes you can find online are ones that use rice or cornbread instead of white bread; ones that include sausage or oysters; ones that add chestnuts for some extra crunch; and numerous other variations. If you're feeling adventurous, substitute any of these recipes for the one here, but be sure to make enough to fill the turkey and an extra baking dish—at least 12 cups (3 l) in all.