Mom’s Bread Stuffing

Every family has their favourite holiday stuffing and ours is bread stuffing. At Christmas time we make it using the broth from turkey giblets but at Thanksgiving we don’t do turkey…we do meatloaf. Long story but it’s how we roll. Since we don’t have giblets to make stock I improvise and doctored up some stock from an organic chicken bullion cube. It works just fine.

Ingredients

• 1 loaf of French white bread cubed allowed to dry out out the day before.
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 large sweet onion, diced
• 4-6 stalks of celery, diced
• handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 2 springs fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2-4 cloves garlic minced
• 2 Tbsp poultry seasoning
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Stock

• 1 cube organic chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp pepper balls
• 1 allspice ball

Method

1. Put the stock ingredients in a medium pot over medium heat and stir until stock cube dissolves.
2. Turn heat to low and leave it to sit while you do the rest.
3. In a large frying pan, melt butter and add onions, sauté for 5 minutes.
4. Add celery and continue sautéing for another 5 minutes.
5. Add poultry seasoning and give it a good stir.
6. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute or until garlic starts to smell.
7. Stir in parsley and rosemary.
8. Place bread cubes in a large bowl (big enough to allow you to toss the ingredients)
9. Pour onion and celery mixture over top of the bread cubes and mix well.
10. Start adding the stock a bit at a time and stirring as you go until the bread cubes are moist but not soggy (you manot need all the stock, but I used it all).
11. Pack the stuffing into a 1 quart casserole dish or make a stuffing log using aluminum foil. At this point you can either cover it tightly with foil and pop it in the fridge or dot with butter and bake uncovered for 35-45 minutes at 350 F. If you put it in the fridge to cook later, remove it at least 30 minutes ahead to let it come to room temperature then cook the same way.