Early Thanksgiving

It was early Thanksgiving at our house yesterday. Although I didn't actually roast a turkey, I did roast a chicken. Really, all I wanted was stuffing. Namely, the family recipe stuffing. It's so good. I get it maybe once a year (on Thanksgiving, imagine that!) so this was a treat.

Here is a picture of my lovely chicken and roast veggies:

I started a cooking extravaganza yesterday morning. I started out by making the stuffing and then moving on to Lemon Blueberry Bread, then Lasagna for tonight's dinner and then finishing off with Hearty Chicken Vegetable Soup. In between chopping and stirring, I also managed to clean out my entire kitchen cupboards and re-organize them. I know, weird right?

This stuffing is very easy to make. If you are really lazy, I suppose you could use those premade bread cubes that they sell in the store. In my family, we always used to save the ends of breads, aka: The Heels. Or, if a loaf was starting to get a little stale, we would throw it in the freezer for the next batch of stuffing. Since our freezer space is limited, I just bought a cheapie loaf of wheat bread and toasted it up in the oven to dry it out. It worked perfectly fine!

Can you believe that with all the cooking I do I didn't have most of the spices in this recipe? I have never made stuffing at home so I didn't have the sage, rosemary or poultry seasoning. So I had to buy them. At least I will have them on hand for next time. When I was growing up, my Mom used to tell me that there's a song about these spices. Is that true? That is how she remembered which spices to add. Sage, rosemary and thyme. Or something like that.

I didn't stuff the chicken. I didn't want to mess around with that. So, I baked my stuffing in a casserole dish. Don't do what I did: Overcook the stuffing. I probably should have pulled it out of the oven at an hour rather than an hour and fifteen minutes. It was still edible, although dry. Heck, I was craving it. It could have been burned and I would have still eaten it.

Even better? I pulled it out of the refrigerator today and sliced some off to make myself a chicken and stuffing sandwich. Yay for leftovers!

Stuffing

from: My Mom

2 eggs, beaten

salt

pepper

medium to large onion, chopped

one tablespoon parsley

1/4 teaspoon sage

1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning

1/4 teaspoon rosemary

1/4 teaspoon thyme

1 1/2 loaves bread, dried, cubed

4-8 tablespoons melted butter

boiling water (enough to moisten)

* Add all ingredients together and mix with your hands. Stuff in bird or bake in a casserole dish.