Friday, November 16, 2012

Old-Fashioned Cracker Dressing & Stuffing – Do You Dare?

Here we go again, delving into the treacherous topic of changing up your traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. This time, it’s an old-fashioned cracker dressing vying to be that surprise, uninvited guest.

Sure some you alternative lifestylists may go for the cornbread, but generally, bread-based variations rule the day. There’s a great reason for this; they’re easy, delicious, and most importantly, very familiar. Therein lies the problem.

Why mess with past success? Your loved ones wait all year for your Thanksgiving feast, so why take the chance of disappointing them on the big day? You have the entire rest of the year to do that.

Anyway, I’m not going to try and convince you that this is a superior dressing, or that you should change your regular routine, but if you’re someone who's looking for a change of pace dressing, that’s still very familiar and comforting, this could be the one.

Of course, you can use whatever ingredients you normally add to your bread dressing, and it should work just the same. By the way, I never stuff my turkey, so if you choose to use this as a stuffing, please refer to the roughly one million Thanksgiving turkey cooking guides linked online. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 16 portions:
1 pound saltine crackers (4 sleeves)
1/2 cup butter
1 large or 2 small yellow onions, diced
3 or 4 ribs of celery, diced
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
cayenne to taste
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
2 3/4 cups chicken or turkey broth
1/2 cup cream or milk
1 or 2 eggs
*Tip: you can cook a small nugget in a pan and taste for seasoning
Bake at 375 degrees F. for bout 45 minutes

View the complete recipe