Friday, November 24, 2017

Italian Bread Stuffing with Sausage

Servings:10
  • 8 cups unseasoned bread stuffing or Italian bread
  • 1  1/2 stick unsalted butter
  • 1-1/2 cups diced onion (1 large or 2 small onions)
  • 1 cup diced celery 
  • garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage (sausage with the casings removed)
  • 2-3/4 cups low sodium chicken broth
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 1 tablespoon rosemary
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped sage
  • 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground black pepper


  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with butter.
  2. Place the stuffing broken up in a large mixing bowl.
  3. In a large sauté pan, melt the butter. Add  onions, celery cook over medium heat, mix occasionally, for 10 minutes, making sure vegetables are soft, add the garlic cook 3 minutes extra. Add the onion mixture to the stuffing bread. (Scrape out all onion mix so they will burn during the next step.
  4. In the same pan, cook the sausage over medium heat for 10 minutes until brown and cooked, breaking up the sausage while cooking (pieces should be no bigger than 1/4-inch). Add the sausage and fat to the bread mixture and onion mix.
  1. Add the chicken broth, egg, rosemary, sage, parsley, salt and pepper to the bread  mixture and mix until the bread is soft and moistened. Transfer  stuffing in prepared baking dish and bake for 60-75 minutes. Cook uncovered until golden and crisp on top.
  2. Make Ahead:  You can prepare ahead. assemble and refrigerate it until you're ready to bake, up to two days ahead of time. You can also bake the stuffing up to two days ahead and refrigerate. To reheat, cover with foil and place in a 325°F oven for 25  minutes until hot.

Pumpkin Pie

  • Pillsbury crust or homemade noted below

  • 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled with a knife
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
  • 6-1/2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
  • 2-1/2 tablespoons cold vegetable shortening, in 4 pieces
  • 4 tablespoons ice cold water



  • (15-oz) can pumpkin
  • 1 large egg
  • 3 large eggs yolks
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons flour
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg


Crust:

  1. Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in the bowl and mix for a few times to mix. Add pieces of butter, shortening and mix until  coarse and looks like chickpea-size clumps of butter and shortening.  Add half of the water and mix a few times to mix together. Add the remaining water and mix until the mixture is just evenly moist and crumbly.  Add the dough out onto a work surface and gather it into a ball. Pat the dough into a 5-inch ball and wrap it in plastic. Refrigerate 45 minutes.
  1. Take the dough out of the refrigerator.
  2. Dust your work surface lightly with flour and place the dough on top; sprinkle a little flour over the dough. Work the dough until  smooth  and round . Roll the dough, adding more flour if needed under and on top of the dough so it doesn't stick, into a 13-inch circle. 
  3. Drape the dough over the rolling pin and transfer it to a 9-inch deep dish pie pan  Turn the edges to create a rim on the crust 

  1. Make the filling by mixing together all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake for 50-65 minutes, until the filling is just set  but not dry around the edges and the center will jiggle slightly. Keep  eye on the pie as it bakes so that crust does not burn,  You can cut foil and add around the edges as a crust covering.  Cool the pie at room temperature for a couple hours. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
I like to use a Graham Cracker Crust for pumpkin pie

1 1/2 cups of Graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
6 tablespoon of melted butter

Mix together and form to pie pan.




  


Sunday, November 12, 2017

Thanksgiving Marinated Turkey


Turkey (12-14 pounds)


2 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups unsalted Chicken broth
1 cup of low salt soy sauce
3 medium size minced garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of pepper
2 large roasting bags


Mix together the first 8 ingredients and set to on side in refrigerate.  (1 cup will be used for basting)

Place turkey inside both bags; pour in the remaining marinated mix and close the bag up. Make sure the air is out of the bags.  Place the turkey in a shallow roasting pan and put in refrigerator overnight basting or turning it.