STUFF IT

Your dinner guests for a holiday meal will probably assume that some type of stuffing will arrive at your Martha Stewart look-alike table. (Yea, right.) As a rookie, I sweat over this one, especially since my Mother always seemed to get it right and stuffing is, after all, very traditional. The next issue becomes whether to put the stuffing inside the bird and bake it altogether or put the stuffing in a separate pan and serve it more as a side dish.

As a young girl, I was trained to put that stuffing in a shallow baking dish and bake it separately. If you were a turkey, would you want somebody stuffing your insides? The bird is having a bad day anyway just ending up in that previously referenced cooking bag, turning a golden brown, and having his legs feel like they are ready to fall off.

After years of trials and errors, I feel strongly that my Mother had it right about stuffing. The baking dish approach provides more control and assures that everything is fully cooked and in plain sight. The final product of baking stuffing in a baking dish should be a golden brown appearance that is slightly toasted on top.

Of course, if the stuffing thing is a real concern, Stove Top stuffing makes a quick adequate substitute on top of the stove to meet the very minimal requirement for the stuffing tradition. If you feel like you have to go this route, be sure to hide the box in the trash and maybe nobody will notice. If somebody says something, tell them that most McDonald's are open at least part of the day on major holidays and no matter where you are, there's always one within a short driving distance. And remember that young kids actually prefer Stove Top stuffing because that's what they get served at home.

My Mother taught me a simple recipe for stuffing - bread, celery, onions, turkey broth, and salt and pepper to taste. She used to lay the bread out on the counter the night before the holiday to let it get stale. I have progressed past this and lightly toast mine in the oven on both sides - just plain bread, nothing else with it. Then I chop it into cubes about an inch across and throw it in a mixing bowl.

The celery is a midwestern tradition and my training was very specific. You know when you get whole stalks of celery with those little flowery things on the end? (You don't get those if you just buy the celery stalks.) I was specifically told to wash the celery and then chop up the little flowery things for the stuffing because those gave stuffing a specific taste and appearance. You can also add some of the stalks (also chopped), but apparently those little flowery things were the ticket to traditional stuffing glory in the midwest. Preparing the onion is pretty simple - just chop up one large or two small yellow onions and throw those in the mixing bowl, too.

Now comes the control part - the broth. Remember that cooking bag recommendation I mentioned before? Unless your cooking bag blows a gasket during the baking process, there should be plenty of turkey broth in the bottom of that bag after you remove the bird from the oven. I use about three cups of broth and dilute it with about two cups of water for one baking dish of stuffing. When diluting the broth with water, I also whisk one egg into this mixture. I'm not sure why the egg is important, but I suspect it is because my Mother did that, her Mother did that, and her Mother's Mother did that too. Maybe it just kind of glues everything together. So goes tradition.

Oh yea, I also buy a couple of small cans of turkey or chicken broth as a backup in case my turkey tries to escape while baking, punches out of the cooking bag, and causes the broth to bake to the bottom of the roasting pan. Scraping turkey broth off the bottom of a roasting pan with a putty knife is not a fun adventure, although I have done it in my earlier years. Somehow, the taste just isn't quite the same. Just remember to pick up a couple of cans of broth.

And I must comment on the recent changes to canned chicken broth. The newer cans say it is Fat-Free. If there's no fat in the broth, then what's in there anyway? Broth is all fat. My Mother taught me that. That's why it tastes so darned good. I will forever be suspicious of Fat-Free canned chicken broth. Somebody is pulling somebody's leg there.

When you get to the stuffing assembly process, I mix everything together in a mixing bowl before pouring it into the baking dish. This gives you a chance to fine tune the mixture. The stuffing shouldn't be too dry or too wet. I try to be sure that all the bread is wet but not dripping wet. Add water if you need to. I also taste test the mixture to see if the salt and pepper level is appropriate - I like to taste the salt and pepper in the stuffing but not be overwhelmed by them. I usually add a teaspoon or two each of salt and pepper. I also add some sage, basil, and thyme - probably about a teaspoon of each to taste. And you don't need to grease the baking dish. Broth is all fat and will grease the dish all by itself, except maybe that Fat-Free stuff. I would need to look into that further.

If you are having a Martha Stewart day, you can get real fancy dancy and add a variety of special items to the mix. For those who like oysters, you can buy oysters in a can, drain the liquid off them, and mix them in. For those who are oyster lovers, fresh oysters would do the trick, but they are hard to find at holidays in the midwest. Personally I hate oysters. Oysters remind me of balls of mucous that shoot out of kids' noses when they are sick in the wintertime and sneeze all over everything in a 2000 square foot house with just one explosion. But my Dad likes oysters so sometimes I make a separate smaller pan of stuffing with oysters for him. Then I send that pan home with him and he is happy as a clam. And so am I.

My recent branching out with stuffing has involved chopped apples and raisins. I know a lady who adds fresh cranberries. I recently saw a recipe that included chopped kiwi and pears. I seem to notice a trend toward chopped fruit here. Hey, knock yourself out. If you are a true rookie, I would use the basic recipe, bake it at 325 degrees until it is no longer mushy and slightly toasted on top. That will certainly meet the minimum requirement for traditional stuffing.

By the way, I don't have a Martha Stewart table and yes I do use paper napkins. I do draw the line at paper plates and plastic eating utensils. I use the real thing. That's why they make dishwashers and husbands. I figure if I can do the cooking, he can certainly load a dishwasher. Happy stuffing....