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| When times are good, our family clan heads to my sister’s house in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. A lot has changed now but the times I hold dearest are when the kids were teens and all the grandparents were still alive. This four-day marathon never varied. The assembly started on Wednesday and you got to see who had gained or lost a few pounds, how tall the kids were getting and who was growing frail. On Wednesday we baked pie after pie, started chopping the vegetables for the stuffing, made the cranberry sauce and ate pizza. Thursday morning my sister and I really got to work making the meal and trying, without much success to keep non-helpers out of the kitchen. Year after year Sis managed to fit 12 to 15 people into her rather smallish dining room. Once you were seated you stayed seated because if you needed to get up, everybody else had to get up too. And yes, that year’s turkey was always “the best ever.” Friday we collapsed, ate leftovers and played charades (the boys against the girls). The grand finale of the holiday gathering was the Saturday night talent show. You sang a song, or told a few bad jokes or recited a poem from memory. One year, being spectacularly untalented, I played 3 tunes on wineglasses tuned with varying amounts of water. The kids usually put a skit together and the whole shebang was taped. This collection of tapes is very precious now. Over the course of the years, the Thanksgiving menu might vary slightly from year to year, but the two constants were sausage stuffing and homemade cranberry-orange sauce. Grandma Toots wasn’t much of a cook, but she sure could fill up the kitchen, so we’d fix her a little out of the way spot and she chopped the celery and the onions. I’m giving the basic recipe for a smaller bird. We usually tripled the recipe. Sue Kleber |
Sausage stuffing 1 12-ounce package of regular or sage Jimmy Dean bulk sausage 1 large yellow onion, chopped fine 2 large celery ribs, chopped fine 1 stick butter 2 cups low sodium chicken stock 1 egg 12-ounce pkg. unseasoned toasted bread cubes or stuffing mix 1 to 3 TB Bell’s seasoning (yellow box with a turkey on the face) 1 tsp kosher salt 1/2 tsp black ground pepper Sauté the sausage until no longer pink and transfer to a large mixing bowl. In the same skillet melt the butter and sauté the onions and celery, without browning, until translucent. Add the vegetables to the sausage. Add the bread cubes and one tablespoon of Bells and the salt and pepper and mix. Add the chicken stock until you have the preferred degree of moistness. You may need more than 2 cups of stock if you like a moister stuffing. Now taste and add additional Bell’s if you like. (One year we added the whole box, but that was rather too much.) When the degree of spice is to your liking, mix in the egg and stuff the bird. You can make this the evening before and chill, but don’t stuff the bird until just before roasting. Fresh Cranberry Sauce 1 lb fresh cranberries 2 oranges 1 1/2 cups sugar Water 1/2 cups walnuts (optional) Grate the zest from the oranges into a saucepan. Juice the oranges and strain into a measuring cup. Add additional orange juice if necessary to make one cup and add water until you have a total of two cups of liquid. Add sugar and liquid to the saucepan and cook over medium heat until the berries pop and the sauce thickens. Remove from heat and add walnuts, if desired. Serve chilled. |
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