Tag: dressing

Thanksgiving Dinner – The Dressing

~ Dad's Turn To Cook ~ Leave a comment

Dressing?  Stuffing?  What do YOU call it?  I just call it “delicious” and a definite MUST for any big family feed.

Now, just as a point of order, if I disappear mysteriously after posting this recipe, you’d be wise to look at my Mother-In-Law as the prime suspect.  It’s her recipe and I’m divulging family secrets, but seriously, this is such a simple recipe and it is SO GOOD.

The worst thing you can wind up with is a flavourless stuffing that’s dry as sawdust and adds nothing to the turkey experience.  This one is moist, full of flavour, and much like the potato recipe I shared yesterday, I should have just gone ahead and doubled it.  I like it that much.

Note 1: the following was just enough stuffing to fill a 12 pound turkey.  You’ll want to adjust accordingly if you’re roasting a bigger bird.  Or learn from my mistake and double it from the get-go.  Leftovers of this are not a bad thing.

Note 2: you can buy a bag of bread cubes at most grocery stores.  I just bought a loaf of white bread and it out for a few days.  I saw the local Safeway had ‘dressing flavoured’ bread available, but I went with white as we’ll be adding our own spices to the mix and I didn’t want to over-do it.  Remember to keep your slices separated so they dry out nicely.  You can also expedite the process by putting them in the oven at the lowest temperature for about 5-7 minutes on each side.  You don’t want to make toast, you just want to suck out the moisture.

Nana’s Turkey Dressing

  • 4 cups dry white bread cubes
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 tbsp melted butter
  • 2 tbsp dried parsley
  • 1 med onion, chopped (pieces should be about double the size of ‘diced’)
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 2 tsp poultry seasoning
  • 1/2 cup chicken/turkey broth

That’s it!  If you’re sticking it inside the bird, you want the bread cubes to be DRY dry.  Stuff the bird, put in the oven and roast as you normally would a turkey (remember if you stuff you bird you need to ADD some cook time to the process).

If you’re not going to stuff the bird and you want to do this ‘on the side’, you can bake the dressing in a covered casserole dish at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or so.  If going this method, you’ll want a bit more moisture in the bread – so don’t use DRY dry cubes.  You could probably get away with chopping up some bread slices you’ve left out overnight.

It’s quick and easy and full of flavour, what more do you want?  Some people would take the turkey neck and put that in the casserole dish for a little more flavour.  You do you.  If you’re doing that of course, even if you’re not going to eat the neck afterwards, I’d recommend using a meat thermometer and making sure that it got to the proper cooking temperature.  I get super cautious when dealing with poultry and temps.  I got served raw chicken at a restaurant once – it didn’t end well.

Thanksgiving Dinner – The Potatoes

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Well, first of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow Canadians this past weekend.  Aside from some tight defensive battles in the CFL (Go Stamps!) we also saw the Riders clinch a playoff spot and me demolish enough turkey to conceive a food baby that turned out to be triplets. (In other words, I ate WAY too much turkey dinner…but in my defense, this is the first year that I handled the bulk of the prep for the big feed, and it turned out pretty good.

First up?  The taters.  Now, these are no ordinary mashed potatoes.  These are creamy, cheesy (yes, cheesy) whipped potatoes that you can actually prep up a few days prior to the feast so you can really limit the amount of work (and dishes) you’ll require on the big day.  I have to give my Wife’s aunt Connie a big shoutout.  She brought these to a family gathering potluck over a decade ago and they’ve been in our rotation ever since.  Well, at least whenever we have the time and ambition to ‘fancy’ things up a bit.  It’s well worth the time and effort, and honestly, I forgot how fast they disappear so my best advice is to take the recipe and just go ahead and double it right away.

Without further adieu…start softening that cream cheese, here we go!

Creamy Oven-Mashed Potatoes

  • 5 lb red potatoes
  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened (1 brick of Philly)
  • 1 cup sour cream (1 250ml tub…the small ones)
  • 1 tsp onion salt
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 2 tbsp margarine or butter

Directions:

Peel the potatoes.  Chop them up into quarters, or smaller even if you want to minimize the boiling time.  Toss them into your biggest pot filled with water.  Boil until you can stick a fork in ’em and have them relatively break apart.  Drain all the water out.

Mash the potatoes with a hand mixer.  Soften your cream cheese and add all the rest of the ingredients in (with the exception of the margarine/butter – keep that aside for now).  Take a hand mixer and whip up the mixture.  It should essentially become a white smooth paste – the goal is to get all the lumps out, you want these to be fluffy.

Spray down a casserole dish with cooking spray (it will save you TONS of scrubbing when doing the dishes later).  Put all the potato mixture into the dish.  If you’re cooking right away, take the margarine/butter and dot it over the top, I dust a bit o paprika over the top as well like you might do with a shepherd’s pie.  Cover your dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

That’s if you’re baking right away.  If you are prepping these in advance…you can just cover and freeze in the dish and they’ll be ready to bake whenever you need them.  You’ll then take the dish out to thaw before putting in the stove.  You’ll want to add about 15 minutes to your cooktime as well.  If the potatoes are looking watery, just cook them uncovered and that will take care of some of that excess moisture.

You can also prep this the day before, toss them in the fridge and bake them the next day.  Again, you’ll want to put on the counter and bring up to room temperature before you bake, as well as add a bit of extra time to the proceedings.  Just hold off on putting the margarine/butter on top until you’re about to put in the oven.

Now, remember when I said you should just go ahead and double the recipe right away?  I really meant that.  These potatoes are delicious, and the best part is they keep really well.  Once you’ve baked them, you can keep them in the fridge for about a week and divvy them up with your leftovers.  They don’t NEED gravy, but it doesn’t hurt.

One thing I also like is you don’t have to be TOO fussy with the cooking temp.  If you have a turkey or other dish baking in the oven at 325 or 375, you’re fine tossing these in and adjusting your cook time accordingly (add a few minutes if you’re lower than 350, subtract a few if you’re hotter…)  They’re pretty much fool-proof which works just great for this amateur cook.

If you’re back-timing the whole process?  I made these up the afternoon before the big feed and whacked them in the fridge overnight when I took the turkey out of the fridge where it had been thawing for about 24 hours and put it in cold water in the sink to finish thawing overnight.

Tomorrow?  The stuffing!