Ingredients: |
Ingredients: 3 cups total of rice - I use 2 kinds of brown rice and about 1/4 cup of long grain wild rice
6 cups of chicken stock (preferred) or stock
1 lb sausage - I like the Italian herb or plain (best from butcher block)
Olive Oil
1 chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz sliced mushrooms
1 apple, cored and chopped
1/2 cup cranberries
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup chopped pecans
2 stalks celery, chopped
Chopped or grated carrots (optional)
Chopped or grated zucchini (optional)
Fresh rosemary
Fresh basil
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Directions: |
Directions:Cook up the sausage in a very large skillet. Remove the meat, but keep the juices in the pan.
In the same pan, add a little bit of olive oil. Cook up the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil.
Add the rice. Stir and return to a boil. Reduce heat (I use a "3" setting on my stove), cover with a tight-fitting lid, and cook until the rice is soft, but not mushy. In our altitude, that takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Try not to lift the lid if possible. (Glass lids are great for this.) If the rice gets too dry, add more stock or water.
When the rice is cooked, stir in the sausage, apple, cranberries, raisins, pecans, celery, and mushrooms. This is also the time to add in the carrots and zucchini if you're using them. Chop up the fresh rosemary and basil, add them, too. I use a couple of sprigs of rosemary, and about 6-8 basil leaves. Salt and pepper to taste.
If you are going to stuff the turkey, now's the time. Get a large spoon, or salad tongs, and stuff both ends of the bird. Place in the roasting pan back side up. (There's a line of fat along the spine that helps keep the turkey moist.) Cover the roasting pan with foil. Place the turkey in the oven and cook according to cooking charts for your size turkey.
You will have a lot of stuffing left over, so, place that in an oven safe dish and refrigerate until the turkey is done.
When the turkey is done cooking, remove from the oven. Using a turkey baster or a large spoon, take some of the turkey drippings and drizzle it over the rice stuffing that you didn't cook inside the turkey. You will probably want somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 cup.
Cover the stuffing dish and place in the oven to warm it up. You'll probably want to heat it for about 1/2 hour or a little longer.
Serve and eat! |
Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: Since some people prefer stuffing-in-the-side-dish to the stuffing-in-the-bird, we offer both at the main meal.
We try to eat any stuffing-in-the-bird at the main meal. The health department would say that you should not keep the in-the-bird stuffing even in the refrigerator as leftovers. I do, but I'm the only one who eats it, my husband won't. I've never had a problem.
That's usually not too much of an issue, anyway, because most of the stuffing-in-the-bird gets eaten at the main meal.
The stuffing-in-a-side-dish can be saved and eaten another day without problems.
This makes a big batch. You could easily cut it in half for smaller groups. We usually get about a 25 lb. turkey.
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