The Turkey Trials (Episode 2)

Last night, the turkey trials continued with a venture into the world of stuffing.  You may be thinking, who needs to practice such an all-American classic?

I do!

Growing up, my grandmother always brought the stuffing to Thanksgiving.  Her stuffing is a super moist meaty-bread concoction that, to the naked eye, does not look like stuffing.  Don't get me wrong, it's DELICIOUS (I mean it's full of bread and meat, how can it now be), but it's not your traditional all-American stuffing (which she gets away with because she's adorably Portuguese).

My grandmother still brings her wonderful stuffing to Thanksgiving every year, but last year I decided to add a second type of stuffing (because, you know there's not ever enough food choices on Thanksgiving).  It all started when we went to a Friends-giving get together at my friend VT's house the weekend before Turkey Day last year.

VT has this amazing gift where she can stay totally calm in the kitchen and throw together a massively fabulous meal without (seemingly) any practice or prepping.  Last year she whipped up a last minute stuffing for our Friends-giving and it BLEW MY MIND.  My entire perception of stuffing was changed and it seemed so simple.  There was some sausage and some green apples and oh man it was crazy good.  With only a few days to go before Turkey Day last year, I attempted my own VT-style stuffing and it turned out pretty decently.

With more time to plan this year, I've decided to attempt VT's yummy stuffing again.  I searched for recipes and found one that looked pretty close so last night, I gave it a whirl.

Here is the recipe I used.

I melted some butter in my wonderful dutch oven and threw in 2 chopped Granny Smith apples.

Butter + apples + heat = a deliciously fall scent!

When those looked slightly browned, I removed them to a bowl and added some more butter (mmm....butter) and threw in the chopped celery, onion, and sweet Italian sausage.  All of that goodness cooked up and looked amazing.

At this point, in went the chicken broth and a whole lot more butter.

In a separate dish, I mixed together the stuffing mix, a bag of croutons, 1 beaten egg, a whole lot of chopped sage, and the apples.

Look at how pretty that is!

When my sausage/broth/butter mix came to a boil...

(Ok so my awesomely professional cell phone camera could not capture the true boiling that was going on here but just believe me, it was.)

The bread/apple/sage mix then promptly went to mingle with the sausage broth mix.  I threw a cover on there and into the oven it went for 45 minutes.

Get in your time machine and travel 45 minutes into the future with me.

Sha-bam!  There you have it!  I took the lid off for the last five minutes of baking to get some crispy-ness going on up top.

There it is served up next to some yummy mustard crusted chicken (that was a little too mustardy but that's a story for another night).

Drumroll please for the verdict....

Pretty delicious!  Hubby liked it too which is a big plus.  I kind of wanted the apples to be a bit crispier, they were super soft.  Hubby said he liked them soft and would not like them crispy so I'm thinking next week I'll have them somewhere between crispy and squishy.

Either way, this is definitely on the T-Day menu...although I may add a few changes to the recipe last minute.

I would love any stuffing-related hints!!