*Homemade Holiday Stuffing...My Brother's (No Longer) Secret Recipe

Today the calendar may say December 19, but we are celebrating Christmas Eve with our boys and daughter-in-law, and my mom and stepdad.  We celebrate whenever we can gather family together, and this weekend we will commemorate Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

I have simplified our menu so that I can enjoy the day a little more.  We're having rotisserie chicken, Mom's rolls and mashed potatoes, my homemade cranberry relish, and for the first time, my brother Eric's yummy Sausage Stuffing, my first ever attempt at making stuffing!

It all started a couple of decades ago when we celebrated our first Thanksmas together, which initiated the tradition of celebrating Christmas directly after our Thanksgiving dinner with any available family members in the western United States. (That sounds pretty comprehensive. Utah and Idaho are currently the only western states participating in this regional event.)  My brother Eric asked what he could bring that first Thanksmas all those years ago.  I requested stuffing.  He agreed to try. What a relief.  I had never made it; neither had he, but being the good sport that he is, he set about teaching himself to make stuffing. He didn't pass the buck to his wife; he did it himself.  

I love this about the men in my family.  My dad's gingerbread cookies and German Christmas bread (Stöllen) are famous.  My brother Danny (and Eric) can replicate mom's rolls beautifully, WITHOUT a KitchenAid mixer).  My sons are becoming grill masters, and have no problem finding their way around the kitchen.  There's something so appealing about a man who knows his way around a kitchen.

Over the years, Eric has perfected his recipe, and has even experimented with providing us with two different recipes, but the one we all love is his Sausage Stuffing.  In all fairness, the recipe he started with most recently was from Thanksgivingworld.com, but there is just as much of his handwriting as there is of type on the page; I think we can safely call this HIS recipe.  This recipe makes enough for a heaping 9x13 pan.  And it is to die for.

Last week I had to drop off some things at my brother's house and while I was there, he gave me his recipe with all of his notes on it.  Honestly, I was grateful for his commentary because the recipe that was online left out a lot of details!  He has eliminated most of the butter, and bulked it up with yummy mushrooms. If you hate mushrooms, leave them out!  If you love butter, grease it up! The beauty of any recipe is its ability to be adapted to suit your tastes.

Eric's Sausage Bread Stuffing

16-20 cups of bread cubes (one and a half loaves)  (NOT Wonder bread, it gets too wet.  Eric uses generic white bread.  My preference would be for a whole grain, but during my first experience, I always use what the chef recommends! Fresh bread will yield a soft, moist dressing, and dried bread will produce a lighter dressing that is fluffier.)

1 lb. Jimmy Dean regular sausage

2 T. butter (original recipe called for a CUP!!! Not necessary.  Eric uses a bit; I used none.)

1/2 c. chopped onion

1 c. chopped celery with leaves

1 package of mushrooms, sliced

1/2 t. black pepper

2 or more t. each of poultry seasoning AND sage (Eric says you have to smell it to see if it smells right. It should SMELL like yummy, yummy stuffing before you pop it in the oven.)

1/2 can or a cup of hot broth

Cube bread and place into a very large bowl while cooking sausage and veggies.  Add seasonings to bread crumbs and distribute the seasonings on the bread crumbs using hands or large spoon.

Brown the sausage in a large fry pan.  Add chopped celery & onions to cooking sausage.  Then add in mushrooms.

Add sausage mixture to bread cubes.  For a moist stuffing, pour 1/2 can or about a cup of hot broth over stuffing mixture.  Stir to moisten stuffing.  

Bake in a foil-covered 9 x 13 pan for 35 minutes in a 325 degree oven.

Remove from oven, add more broth (I would add any desired butter, melted, to the hot broth), uncover, and bake 10-15 minutes.

Prepare yourself to be wowed.  It's easy; it's pretty quick, and it is oh, so yummy!

Just before it goes into the oven.

Tomato Soup and Beef and Cheese Rollups: Quick, Quicker, Quickest!

You can make this dinner as fast or as slow as you'd like.  If you're short on time, this one can be on the table in a half hour.  QUICK...QUICKER...QUICKEST...choose the method that works for you.

QUICK
Thaw some frozen dinner rolls for 4-5 hours. (I would use homemade rolls, if I had them, but I don't, so...) Rhodes Multi-Grain Whole Wheat Rolls were my choice tonight.  During the last half hour of rising, flatten each roll and place two thin slices of roast beef and a half slice of your favorite cheese on the dough.  Roll it up and place seam side down on the greased baking sheet.  Let rise for 30 more minutes, preheating the oven during the last 15 minutes.

Open a can of tomato soup and a can of diced tomatoes.  Heat these up in a pot with half a can of water and half a can of lite creamy alfredo sauce.  Season with garlic herb (Mrs. Dash) and basil. Serve with shredded parmesan cheese.

QUICKER
Use a can of crescent rolls, following the suggestions above. Bake according to directions on the can.

Heat up a can of tomato soup with a half can each of water and milk.

QUICKEST
Make grilled cheese sandwiches, adding roast beef slices, if desired.

Heat up a can of tomato soup with a can of water.

We have loved this for dinner, and have had it all three ways.

*Ginger & Spice Waffles with Chunky Peach Syrup

Hold on to your hat, folks, we've got a winner right here!  I had some leftover Peach Syrup in the fridge, and I've been dreaming of utilizing some ginger, and there is nothing more tempting than waffles for breakfast.  Enter my latest concoction:  Ginger Spice Waffles with Chunky Peach Syrup.

This is the way I did it, but feel free to tweak this recipe to suit you; you know I would, and did!

Peach Syrup

Bring to boil 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water.  Add 2 cups of diced, fresh peaches to the syrup and let it boil for one minute. Remove from heat.

Ginger Spice Waffles

Forgive me for using Krusteaz Pancake mix as a base; it's just what I do when I don't feel like measuring out baking powder & soda, and salt.

1 cup of All-Bran, soaked in 1 cup of almond milk (or whatever you drink) in a small bowl

3 egg whites, beaten until stiff peaks form in a medium bowl

1 1/2 cups of Krusteaz in a large bowl, to which you will add:

1 teaspoon of ginger (I'm going to use FRESH next time)

1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

I did not add any sweetener (sugar or Stevia), but you could.  One thing I will experiment with NEXT time (translation: TOMORROW) is to crumble a couple of ginger snaps and add to the batter right before cooking.

Combine the All-bran mixture with the dry ingredients with enough water to make a fairly stiff batter.  (Start with a cup, and go up from there.)  Then gently fold in the egg whites

Cook in waffle maker.

Top with Chunky Peach Syrup, and whipped cream or topping.

Pleasing Pumpkin Waffles

FINALLY!  Two pumpkin recipes that WERE NOT epic fails! We just dined on sumptuous Pumpkin Waffles with whipped topping and REAL maple syrup.  AND...for later (or now, as the case may be) Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.  

I took the advice of one of my young friends, Nicole, and went with the failsafe recipe from Weight Watchers:  1 (15 oz.) can of pumpkin + spice cake mix at 350 degrees for 20 minutes = cookies.  I like adding mini chocolate chips and walnuts to my cookie dough.  Now I am in autumnal heaven as the rain continues to fall, and our grey day settles over us like a comfortable blanket.

Nicole knew I needed to try something simple to build up my baker's sagging confidence.  (I almost wrote "sagging baker's confidence," but didn't like the implication of my skin heading south, which it is, but I didn't want THAT meaning at this particular time!)

Why did I need to buoy up my failing self-esteem in the kitchen?  Here, let me shed a little light on THAT depressing subject.  I had been chomping at the bit to fill our home with the heavenly scent of pumpkin mingled with cinnamon-y spices, and found some GREAT recipes!  

First I tried Pumpkin Pie Muffins.  Don't those sound DIVINE?  Yeah, well, they're not.  They are kind of gross.  Imagine a doughy unsweetened muffin with a dollop of baby food pumpkin purée on top.  Don't worry, I removed THAT pin from my Clean(er) Eating board on Pinterest. I would hate to lead anyone else down THAT disappointing pumpkin path.  The only way we salvaged those healthy little suckers was by loading them up with my homemade cream cheese frosting. Even with that, they were pathetic.  I've never had a dessert that tasted so much like cardboard.

THEN, oh, MY-lanta!  I tried the basic All-bran Muffin Recipe, to which I added pumpkin and spices.  Easy enough, yes? Well, my husband was there to witness THIS fiasco as it was unfolding. He watched me fill all of the muffin tins and mini loaf pans, and then he watched me dump everything back in the bowl so I could add the SWEETENER.  There was NO WAY we were going to have TWO unsweetened pumpkin treats in a row.  With that little omission fixed, I merrily popped the pans into the oven.

Imagine my horror as I pulled pathetic flat little muffins and loaves from the oven.  Guess what ELSE I'd forgotten to add to the batter?  Baking soda.  Such a minor little ingredient can make such a major difference.  Look.  Just take a look...

Don't tell my husband, but I ended up freezing them.  I decided that although they are not GOOD, they aren't BAD.  They're better than those nasty CLIF bars my husband snacks on.  I'm freezing them for a "rainy day."  There are moments when desperate times call for desperate measures.  I will be glad to have them on a day when there is no other snackage available.

After posting our experiences on Facebook, another one of my young friends asked for my waffle recipe.  Yeah, about that. I don't have a recipe.  I just know the gyst for making waffles, and followed my heart.  I assured her I would retrace my footsteps, so to speak, and figure out a recipe for her.  And here it is for you, Miss Courtney!

Pleasing Pumpkin Waffles

Wet ingredients FIRST (to allow the vinegar to "sour" the milk for a homemade buttermilk)

1 cup milk (any kind; we used almond)

1 tablespoon vinegar  (allow the first two items to sit for about 10 minutes while prepping other ingredients)

Then add 2 beaten eggs and 1 tablespoon of oil.

Add 1 c. of pumpkin to wet ingredients.

Put dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl
1 cup flour

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. pumpkin pie spice

1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda 

dash of salt

Stir dry ingredients with a whisk to incorporate all of them together, then add wet ingredients to dry.  Stir together.  Cook in waffle maker.  Voilá!  

Buff Pumpkin Stuff OR Crustless Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin-flavored anything makes me weak in the knees this time of year. Back when I started becoming aware of complex carbs and protein, I wanted to be able to make some of my own meal replacements, and not just rely on protein shakes and bars. What I ended up with was my original recipe for Buff Pumpkin Stuff.

One of my most favorite foods on earth is pumpkin pie, but I'm not a crust eater. I began to look at what was already in it...eggs, pumpkin, milk...and I remembered the "impossible pie" recipes from Bisquik back when I was a teenager in the seventies.  I used that as my basic recipe, and added cottage cheese for additional protein, and oats for fiber. It packs a lot of protein, and when baked, has a creamy, custard-like texture. An idea started to form, and I tweaked this recipe for a few years. This dish actually won in the Healthy Richfield Recipe Contest several years ago.

It is not the most appetizing-looking dish, as I bake it in a large casserole and scoop it into individual containers. One of my girlfriends, who is a big fan of my "Buff Pumpkin Stuff," lovingly calls it Pumpkin Poop. Others simply call it Pumpkin. If you bake it in ramekins, or in Corelle bowls, as shown in the picture, it has a much better presentation, and could respectfully be called Healthy Pumpkin Custard. Whatever you call it, all I know is it is a big hit with people who love pumpkin as much as I do, and want to eat something that tastes like a dessert without any guilt!

Makes 10 servings...I just freeze half of the recipe in individual containers for the next week...

Buff Pumpkin Stuff

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In blender, combine:

24 oz. carton fat-free cottage cheese

2 c. fat-free milk, or milk substitute

2 c. old-fashioned oats (Originally I used All Bran cereal (let this soften in blender while assembling other ingredients)

In a large bowl, mix together:

1 large can pumpkin (29 oz.)

1 rounded cup of Stevia (or a sweetener that can be BAKED!)

8 egg whites (or four eggs)

1/2 T. cinnamon

1/2 T. pumpkin pie spice

Combine blended mixture with pumpkin mixture in large bowl.

Pour into two 9x13 pans. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. This makes ten 1 cup servings.

According to my calculations, each serving provides: 148 cal., 6 grams fiber, less than .5 grams of fat and 15 grams of protein. In Weight Watchers, one serving is 2 points. I used this as a meal replacement once or twice a day.

My guilty pleasure? A little Cool Whip or whipped cream on top makes this perfect!

MORE RECIPES FROM RANDOMOCITY

FASTER AND HEALTHIER AMISH BREAD (without all the mushing the bag, and no waiting!)

JACK MORMON MUFFINS

PUMPKIN SWEET ROLLS

SNICKERDOODLE MUFFINS

BREAKFAST COOKIES

WHOLE WHEAT STRAWBERRY MUFFINS

PUMPKIN PIE SQUARES

COOKIE DOUGH HUMMUS

*The EASIEST Chili Cornbread

I was in a panic about what to take a potluck dinner tonight. My step-sister had shared a yummy recipe with me for Chili Cornbread that I thought was a good possibility because it was so simple, and we had already spent over two hours in the kitchen making that infernal vegetable juice. (I really need to get a better attitude.  I'm working on it.  Sort of.)

The original recipe was pretty simple: Add 1 pound of browned hamburger to 2 cans of chili; top with Jiffy cornbread made with Mexicorn. Bake.

I wanted even SIMPLER.  The less time in the kitchen, the better, on days like today.  Anyone who wishes for more time for reading and relaxing can relate!

Here's what I did for The Easiest Chili Cornbread.

Ingredients:
3 cans of chili (I used Stagg brand: Silverado beef, Classic, and Vegetable Garden)
2 c. Fiesta blend cheese, divided in half.
1 can Mexicorn, undrained.
1 bag of Marie Callendar's Lowfat Honey Butter Cornbread (sounds like an oxymoron to me, but I'm not going to argue...I just want to keep things easy)  May  I suggest here that you might want to forego adding the Mexicorn and keep it REAL simple by just buying the cornbread mix that already has the corn and peppers added to it?  Next time, I will.)

1.  Spray large casserole with Pam.  Pour in two cans of chili, sprinkle 1 c. cheese over that, then pour in last can of chili.

2.  Mix up cornbread according to package instructions.  Then add in the UNDRAINED Mexicorn, and one cup of cheese.  Mix well.

3.  Top chili with cornbread mixture and bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes, or until cornbread is golden brown.

It doesn't get much easier than that, folks.  Now we just need to head up the canyon, and our dinner can keep warm in the oven while we visit.