Bear Paw Meanderings

This month, Bear Paw Meanderings will be all about Thanksgiving. This week how about a recipe for that perfect dressing?

There are several things to know about dressing. It can be dressing which is not ever put in the turkey to cook or it can be stuffing which is stuffed into the turkey and cooked with the turkey juices. Some people call them dry and wet dressing, dry is not in the bird and wet if it was stuffed into the bird

More and more people seem to favor cooking dressing out of the turkey. The joy of this recipe is that it can be cooked either way and it does not have to be baked at all. When it is ready and all mixed up, it is ready to go.

You will knead in spices, some sage and some rosemary and at this time of year in the spice department of the grocery store you might find a package called turkey spices. That one has thyme in it. Chop all those spices fine.

The most important part of your dressing is to find a large box or sack of seasoned bread crumbs. Do not use croutons. Use only bread crumbs and only the seasoned ones. For a change, maybe add a box of corn bread stuffing in with your bread crumbs. Put them in a large mixing bowl the night before you are going to make your dressing along with your sage and rosemary and a bottle (drained) of green olives or black olives or both. Add salt and pepper generously and let the mess sit on the cupboard over night.

The next morning you are going to saute. Saute up about a pound and a half of good breakfast sausage that has been turned into very small pieces. Then in lots of butter, saute a large onion, a box of fresh sliced mushrooms and several stalks of celery that has been chopped. Add that to your mixing bowl of crumbs and mix well together.

Then, in your same saute pan, heat and mix together a couple cups of turkey or chicken broth and a can of cream of mushroom soup. There is something about that soup, that the dressing won’t be the same without it. Mix all that with the rest of the ingredients and put in the refrigerator until Thanksgiving Day. Stuff your turkey with some of the stuffing and call the rest dressing and get it good and warmed though. That is all you need and you are serving dry and wet dressing at your table that will give everyone something to rave about.

There just is something about that mixture that really goes well together.