Homemade Stuffing

We all remember the smell of homemade stuffing/dressing on Thanksgiving day. That smell of carrots, onions, celery cooking in a pan of butter. It always made my tummy growl, long before the smell of the turkey started up.  I used to think my Mom and Gramma slaved away for hours over the stuffing, it always tasted so perfect, how could it not take ages?

Yeah, well, it's pretty darn easy and I kick myself for not realizing it before now.  Homemade stuffing is not just for special occasions and a simple stuffing is so much easier than you might think.

There is nothing wrong, at all, with a boxed stuffing like Stove Top or something similar to that, nothing at all, but there is just something about the smell of the veggies cooking, the feeling of making something from scratch, that when I have the time, makes the little bit of work this takes, more than worth it.

You'll need:

-1 cup chopped celery
-1 cup chopped carrots (I used baby carrots so I didn't have to peel and chop as much)
-1 cup chopped onions
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp pepper
-1 tsp thyme
-1/4 tsp garlic salt
-Butter to saute in along with a bit of olive or vegetable oil
-1 pkg bread crumbs (about 7 cups or so) You can use seasoned ones or unseasoned one, cubes or just   crushed bread crumbs, it's all personal preference.  I would suggest however, using either white or wheat crumbs with this combination of herbs.  A cornbread stuffing needs other flavors.
-2 to 3 cups chicken broth or stock - you can make your own, but I always buy the broth/stock, it's just easier.

Now sage is more traditional or even a poultry season mix, but I was out of sage and didn't feel like making a trip to the store so I used thyme and left out the sage.  You could use a different combination of herbs if you like, just go with what you enjoy and take the portions in moderation so you don't over power the taste of the carrots, celery and onions.

In a hot skillet or saute pan, add a splash of olive or vegetable oil along with about 1/2 stick of butter.  Make sure the pan you're using is large enough to get everything in without overcrowding things too much.  This weekend, I was making double this recipe for a series of leftovers I'm doing this week and used two good sized skillets and just spread things between the two.

Once the butter is melted and the oil is hot, start adding your vegetables and herbs and garlic.  You can either chop everything up ahead of time or chop and add as you go.  If you go this route, start with the carrots as they'll take the longest time to get tender, then onion, then celery.

Saute over medium to high heat for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on your pan, some pans cook hotter and quicker than others, stirring things around every few minutes to keep things cooking evenly.  You want to end up with a nice caramelized look to your veg, those little brown edges give the stuffing much more dimension.

While this is cooking, in a large mixing bowl, pour in your bread crumbs.  Once the carrots and things are done, pour this over, butter and oil included and stir into the bread crumbs.  While your pan is still on the heat, pour about 3/4 cup or so broth into the pan and de-glaze the pan.  This is basically just letting the broth get hot and picking up all the nice brown sticky bits that otherwise stick to the pan.  This gives you even more of the caramelized flavors from the vegetables, but also makes the pan easier to clean.  Can't complain about that!

Pour this hot broth over the bread crumbs and then add the remainder of the broth about 1/2 cup or so at a time, stirring after each addition.  You want to make sure that the stuffing comes together, but isn't soggy. If it's too dry you can always drizzle more broth over the top, but if you've added too much broth, the stuffing is going to be a bit mushy.  That won't kill it, in fact for some recipes, a mushier stuffing will let you re-heat in the oven without it drying out too much.

Spoon all into a casserole dish and cook at 350º for 30 to 35 minutes.  Everything is cooked already, you're just making it all come together.  If you leave uncovered, the top will get a nice slightly crispy texture that is wonderful.

You could also stuff a chicken or turkey with this instead of putting into a casserole dish, you just want to make sure the temperature on the stuffing is at least 165º.

The stuffing can be made ahead and cooked the next day, just prepare as above, but leave in a covered casserole dish in the fridge until you're ready to cook.  Do not stuff your bird the night before though, if you're going to stuff a chicken or turkey, prepare the stuffing the night before, but wait until you're ready to go into the oven before stuffing into the bird.

The left over stuffing is great, easy to reheat and holds up well for a few days. The flavor is remarkable and the thing that takes the longest is chopping the veggies.

Herb Butter

An herbed butter can come in handy for all sorts of recipes. I almost always make some whenever I'm doing roast chicken or turkey, but it can be used for breads, potatoes, just about anything.

It's quick, easy and keeps well in the fridge, so if you're anything like me, that's a big plus.

The thing to remember with this is that any combination of herbs you like can work in this, it is very versatile.

This particular combination was what I used on the roast chicken that I'll be posting next. This is a nice combination for poultry, especially if you plan to keep the broth and the separated butter after roasting for chicken and noodles or a casserole.

You'll need:

1 stick of butter, softened

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp celery salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp thyme (if dried, more if fresh, chopped nicely)

1/2 tsp garlic salt or garlic salt with parsley

I also added 1/2 tsp Mrs. Dash - but that is just because I wanted a little extra kick, this is not necessary by any means.

Soften your butter in a bowl that will give you a bit of room to mix in, a large soup bowl works well. Mix all the herbs in, making sure to get fairly even distribution.

Taste just a bit to see if it has the right combination of flavors for what you're doing.  You can always adjust.  If it seems to strong, add more butter, not strong enough, add more herbs.  The butter will melt away, leaving you with the lovely tastes and will season 

You can use this immediately to rub down a chicken or chicken breasts to roast, or you can store in the fridge to add a nice "herby" taste to baked potatoes or spread on a halved baguette and toast.

This can be kept in the fridge for a week or two, in a tightly sealed container. If you use fresh herbs, the shelf life might be reduced slightly as they may start to wilt.

This is one of the easiest ways to add flavor to anything with very little work.

Now, I've done this with thyme, sage, rosemary and garlic and is lovely for that Thanksgiving type flavor every roasted turkey needs. You could also do a mint or lemon pepper type butter for fish. The possibilities are endless.  Just remember, trial and error can help you learn alot and all you'll be out if it doesn't work is a stick of butter and a few dried herbs.

Rhubarb Compote

This is a sort of compote, but it's a bit of a cheater, very easy and a great use of rhubarb if you have any in your garden.  It's also a great way to introduce kids to something that they may not otherwise come to love.

We were blessed to have a good sized rhubarb plant in our garden, just about the only thing there, when we moved in.  It's grown over the years and has now split off into two separate plants that provide an over abundance of fruit from late spring all through summer and into fall.  I have made various cobblers and pies with it, but this is so simple, quick and easy that it is one of my favorite things. I've spent the last couple of weeks checking the plant everyday until I knew I had pieces large enough to pull.

If you don't have a rhubarb plant in your yard, many stores and farmer's markets sell it and it's fairly inexpensive.

You can change the amounts to make as much or as little as you want and this recipe is far from precise, more the way I was taught to cook at my grandmother's side, a pinch of this, a bit of that.

You'll need:

Several stalks of rhubarb ( I used about 20 smallish ones), any size really will do, cleaned and the outer bit just peeled. Trim the leaf and the root end if you pull this from your garden

about 3/4 cup flour

about 1 to 1 1/2 cup sugar

1/2 to 3/4 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla

After you've peeled and cleaned the rhubarb, cut into chunks about 2" long. Toss the damp chunks into a bowl and toss with the flour.  The idea is to coat the rhubarb with flour and that will help thicken the compote as it cooks.

Scoop out the rhubarb, leaving the excess flour behind.  Save the extra flour for now.

Put the dusted rhubarb in a casserole dish and stir in the sugar and vanilla. Cut the butter into chunks and drop over the top.

The extra flour can be dusted over the top of everything.

Cook at 350º for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  

The rhubarb will cook down to almost nothing, though you may end up with some stringy bits that don't cook all the way down.  That's perfectly fine.  Stir occasionally and taste. 

If the rhubarb is especially sour, you can add more sugar, stir it in and let it cook a few more minutes.  Be careful in the tasting since the amount of sugar in this will make it absolutely molten hot after it's cooked for a bit.  

If it seems to watery, add a bit more flour and bake a bit longer.  This is a recipe that can be scaled down or up very easily and tweaked while you're cooking it.

Just remember, you can't really go wrong with this, you can fiddle with it until you get it tasting just right. Depending on the season, the age of the stalks and the growing conditions will all affect the sweetness of the rhubarb.  I've made this at times with less than a cup of sugar, but it usually requires more.

Once you're happy with the taste and the rhubarb has cooked down, you'll be left with a thick, sweet compote that is lovely over vanilla ice cream or pound cake or really anything else that needs a little kick.

I almost always serve this over vanilla ice cream while it's still piping hot.  The combination of the slightly sour rhubarb and the sweet melting ice cream is heaven in a bowl. 

Easy Peach Cobbler

I always remember cobblers and crisps bubbling away in the oven as a kid and could hardly wait to get that first bite.  I invariably would burn my tongue, but it was always worth it. This isn't exactly as complex as my Grandmother's old recipes, but the fact that this is so easy, I almost always have the materials on hand and is quickly made makes this one of our favorites.

You'll need:

1 large can of sliced peaches with juice or syrup

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup milk

1 stick melted salted or unsalted butter

Using a large glass casserole dish, the deeper, the better, place the stick of butter into a preheated oven at 350º. Allow to melt.

While the butter is melting, combine all other ingredients except the peaches and juice, just until combined with no large lumps. Pour this batter over the melted butter in your casserole dish.

Place the peach slices on top of the batter, they'll start to sink in, the idea is just to get them evenly distributed. Then pour about half of the left over syrup or juice from the can over the top.  It looks a bit of mess, but trust me, you'll love the result.

Bake, uncovered, for 35 to 45 minutes.  The top, particularly the edges will take on a nice golden brown, but check by inserting a knife into the cake that rises to make sure the batter is cooked throughout.  You don't want to overdo it, but if you take it out too soon, the batter will not fully form into the cobbler/cake consistency that makes this so nice.  

It will rise quite a bit and if you're dish is too small, you'll end up with juices overflowing. Just toss a cookie sheet on the rack beneath if you're worried about that and it will catch any overflow.

Allow to cool for a few minutes and then dig in!  It's perfect on it's own, but is also nice over vanilla ice cream or with whipped cream on top.  

If you've really got a sweet craving, a simple custard is lovely poured over the top once in serving bowls.

Easter Dinner - Roast Lamb and Potatoes

We don't have lamb at our house very often, usually a couple of times a year as my hubby is about the only one that really likes it.  I did things a bit different this year and had the best tasting lamb roast I've ever had (in my humble opinion and limited experiences) and it's converted me.  We had this with some really simple roasted potatoes that we did in the same pan and some asparagus that we roasted by itself.

We used a 1/2 leg, shank portion cut that was really just the thick part of the leg, chopped off.  It had a nice thick bone through the middle and was about 4 lbs.  Also, most recipes I see for roast lamb call for rosemary, but my mother hates it and since she was joining us, I left that out.  You could certainly add some if you like, but this was lovely without it.

You'll need:
-A cut of lamb, could be the leg or the shank portion of the leg as we did, or really any nice lamb roast-style cut
-One fresh package of thyme or a large bundle of thyme if it's coming from your garden
-About 10 pieces of garlic, fresh, peeled
-Olive oil for drizzling
-One stick of salted (or unsalted) butter
-Potatoes - Any kind, any amount, but the more uniform in size the better. Yukon Gold works well, but so would red potatoes.  I wouldn't suggest tiny new potatoes or fingerlings as they'll be too small to really work for this type of prep.
-Salt and Pepper, maybe a bit of garlic salt if you like

Pre-heat oven to 450º (F)

In roaster pan, lay lamb, fat side up, sprinkle with olive oil, salt, garlic salt and pepper. We didn't use the rack and found it worked better without it.

Strip the leaves from a large sprig or several sprigs of fresh thyme and sprinkle a good portion of this over the lamb as well.  Allow this to come up to nearly room temperature.

While your lamb is resting and coming up to room temp, peel your potatoes.  It doesn't really matter what kind, but I used a Yukon Gold type that were nice and buttery without much work.  Boil the peeled potatoes for about 10 minutes, maybe a bit longer depending on their size.  You want them to be just starting to get slightly soft, but not mushy. This way they'll crisp up on the outside and be buttery soft on the inside.

Drain the potatoes and place around the lamb in your roaster pan.  Sprinkle the remaining stripped thyme leaves over the potatoes along with salt and pepper.

Peel about 10 pieces of garlic and crush slightly, place these around the lamb and potatoes.

Toss in a few sprigs of time around the lamb and potatoes and drizzle all with a little olive oil.  I also added a stick of salted butter as there wasn't much fat on the piece of lamb we get bought.

Leave uncovered and roast at 450º for about 15 minutes, then turn heat down to 425º. Again, all depending on your oven.  The idea is to start a sear on the fat side of the lamb and get the oil and butter hot.

Turn the potatoes about every 15 minutes or so, trying to get them brown and crisp on all sides, I also turned the lamb over about every time to, just to get a bit of browning all the way around.  The less oil and fat, the quicker things will brown, but the idea is to get the potatoes crisp on the outside and tender on the inside at the same time your lamb is ready to come out.

Depending on how you like your lamb, go by the internal temperature, allowing for it's resting period at the end where it will come up by 5º to 10º.  Once the lamb was in, we roasted for about 1 1/2 hours.  The smaller potatoes were almost to crisp, but the larger ones weren't so much.  They were all still lovely, but next time I'll probably try to get more even size ones to use.  The lamb ended up between medium rare at the very center to a nice well near the outside.  With a good thermometer you can figure out just what you'd like.

Lamb is something we'll definitely be having a bit more around our house, it was tender, flavorful and not gamey or muttoney at all.  I loved it and so did our five year old.

OMG

Oh my God, I can't believe how many little online projects I've started and then just let slip away. This being one of them.  I rarely find time to cook the way  I used to or the way I'd like to anymore, but this blog and another one I'm getting ready to start are going to be my inspiration.  I just planted my herbs for the summer along with loads of other pretty things so hopefully the coming months will be full of new recipes and happy kitchen stories!

Crab and Dill Puff Appetizers

After making the Bacon and Cheese Puffs last weekend, I decided to try a variation of that recipe. I picked up some crab meat and some fresh dill and whipped these up this afternoon. They were lovely and light, very filling and a great change on the original recipe.

1 package cream cheese, plain, softened

1 cup cooked crab, chopped into bits

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons fresh dill

1 tablespoon milk

2 cans crescent roll dough

Combine cream cheese, parmesan cheese, crab, dill and milk in medium mixing bowl until well combined and spreadable

Separate the dough into triangles

Spread cheese and crab mix over the dough and roll up

Bake on greased cookie sheet 12 to 15 minutes at 375 degrees until pastry is done and golden brown