Stuffing/Dressing Poll

[Barbara L]

Since Canada's Thanksgiving is upon us and the United States' Thanksgiving is fast approaching, I thought it would be interesting to find out about our stuffing/dressing preferences. Do you like bread, cornbread, or rice? Do you call it stuffing or dressing? Do you stuff the bird or use a casserole? Do you prefer moist or dry? Or do you do yours totally different? Check your choices and share your reasons here.

Barbara

 

[Andy M.]

Stuffing, bread, casserole.

Thanksgiving is about family and memories for me.

I make a traditional bread stuffing like my mom's. However, I don't stuff the bird as I feel it cooks better empty.

I read somewhere that it's called stuffing if it's in the bird and dressing if it's in a casserole but I'm not sure oif that's true. It's more likely a regional difference.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Dressing....Cornbread (and a few biscuits) Cooked in a Casserole. (Cast iron) I prefer it moist, light and fluffy as opposed to dense, and compact. Why? It is an old family recipe, brought into the Mississippi Territory in 1803 from Georgia.

 

[YT2095]

we call it Stuffing here in UK, and I never put it inside the cavity (it can lead to food poisoning probs). I doo it separate but in the same dish as the roast, I like it moist inside and a little crunchy in places around the edge.

 

[Robo410]

I call it stuffing, I stuff the bird, I like it moist but not wet, I use both bread crumbs (course dry) and wild rice together. I usually make it quite savory with pecans and sausage or pancetta too. And the usual celery and onion.

But if I'm stuffing a salmon, I like curried bread and veggie stuffing with shrimp! oh yum!

 

[justplainbill]

Seems to be one of the best uses for chopped chestnuts and pork sausage.

 

[Michael in FtW]

If I stuff it into something I call it stuffing - if I bake it in a casserole or skillet I call it dressing. That's how I learned to call it from my grandmas.

I never stuff a turkey but I do stuff pork chops and chickens,

I like my dressing moist but not wet - and it's perfect if it comes out with a nice crunchy top surface.

When I do a turkey at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas I do two dressings, one bread with mushrooms and oysters and the other cornbread with pecans and either smoked bacon or pork sausage. Pork chops usually get cornbread, chickens can go either way ... but I also like to stuff them with crawfish and rice.

 

[Michelemarie]

I don't like stuffing.

 

[flukx]

I use a slowcooker for my dressing/stuffing (either term for me). Bread cubes, pork sausage, celery, onions, garlic, lots of herbs. Yum.

 

[ChefJune]

Dressing, cornbread AND bread, casserole, moist!

Andy's right. Thanksgiving is all about memories, and this does it for me. In fact, on the occasions when I have dinner at someone else's house, the food item that I miss most is the Dressing.

This year, I'm missing Thanksgiving altogether. I'll be in France taking an advanced course in Gastronomy at LCB and University of Reims. I'm betting we won't be having "Dinde" on November 22nd.... and I'm planning to make a Thanksgiving dinner when I get back!

 

[Foodfiend]

I call ours stuffing and if the whole family gets here we get a big turkey and stuff the turkey. But if it's just the 2 of us I'll get a breast and put the stuffing in a casserole dish. We usually use day old bread torn up in chunks and pressure cook the neck, gizzard, and heart and chop those up in the stuffing (I fry up the liver and Dad and I share the liver), add in some celery, onions, various herbs, and then add a small can of oysters (cut up) to it. We use the water from the pressure cooker, and some of the oyster juice in the stuffing to keep it moist. One thing I can't stand is dry stuffing. Yummy!

 

[AllenOK]

Dressing, Cornbread, Casserole (actually a cast iron skillet), and fairly compact and dry. I like to spoon my delicious gravy over the dressing, mashed potatoes, and meat.

 

[kitchenelf]

Stuffing, bread, casserole, moist.

I might go the dryer route for some this year - I do recall having a nice crust on the outside one year that was deeeeelish!!!

I'm another one that thinks if it's stuffed it's stuffing - if it's in a casserole it's dressing

 

[Barbara L]

I don't like stuffing.

How un-American! LOL Just teasing! That just means there's more for me!

I love the huge variety of responses! It just proves that we can all be kind of the same, yet different at the same time.

A couple of you mentioned tradition. I will try new things most days of the year, but unless I am visiting someone on Thanksgiving, my Thanksgiving dinner is exactly the same every year--exactly the way I love it. Our Thanksgiving meal is the same one I grew up with. Turkey, dressing (I waver and sometimes call it dressing and sometimes stuffing, although we have never stuffed the bird--I think it depends on who I am talking to and what they call it), mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar on them, gellied cranberry sauce, cranberry salad, Waldorf salad, yeast rolls, fruit salad, black and green olives, and pumpkin pie. We always had peas with all of this until the year my mom cooked them in the microwave and we found them hours after we ate, and no one had noticed they were missing! LOL I still make them sometimes, but not always. I also include other kinds of pies sometimes (pecan, cherry, or apple), but pumpkin is a must. (Don't worry Alix, if you ever visit us on Thanksgiving, I will make sure to have something in addition to the pumpkin pie just for you!). I keep my Thanksgiving menu, recipes, and shopping list all in a Word file so I can pop them all up with a click and don't have to go looking. I don't need a recipe for most of it, but if I don't use that shopping list, I will forget something and have to go back!

Barbara

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Stuffing/dressing is my absolute favorite part of the Thanksgiving dinner. With turkey, I love a good bread dressing, with sage, onion, celery, giblets, and breadfast sausage, all moistened with turkey broth. If I'm making dressing for cornish game hens, or chicken, it's brown rice, wild rice, celery, thyme, and onion, usually flavored with chicken broth.

For pork, it can be either cornbread or bread based, again with sage, and possibly some chopped fruit, such as apple, or peaches.

If placed on top of a pork crown roast, I like a rice and fruit dressing. For Beef rouladen, it has to be a sage-based bread stuffing.

There are so many applications for good stuffing/dressing/forcemeat. Stuffed veggies, stuffed fowl, stuffed pork, stuffed beef roasts, etc.

After Thanksgiving is done, there is no better snack than a turkey and dressing sandwich with Miracle Whip salad dressing on whole wheat. Yum!

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[Caine]

If it was shoved up the bird's butt, it's stuffing, but if it was cooked in a dish next to the bird, it's dressing. I prefer cornbread but will eat plain bread too, and I want mine cooked inside the bird, but my former S.O. refused to eat anything that came from inside a turkey, so I ate stuffing and she got dressing! Both stuffing and dressing should be moist enough so that if you grab a handful and squeeze it, it stays together.

 

[jennyema]

Stuffing, bread, casserole (no thank you to food poisoning) and wet.

 

[Jeekinz]

Moist, stuffed, bird.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I have to say that I ate stuffing for better than twenty years, that is, the stuff that was cooked inside the bird. That's how my Mom made it; that's how my Dad made it, and that's how my Grandpa made it. I never once got food poisoning from anything I ate at home or at my grandparents. Indeed, I'm still trying to capture that wonderful flavor they achieved. Mine is good, but not as good as their's was. But then again, I'm speaking strictly about bread stuffing. I blow them out of the water with other variations, such as rice or cornbread.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[justplainbill]

I have to say that I ate stuffing for better than twenty years, that is, the stuff that was cooked inside the bird. That's how my Mom made it; that's how my Dad made it, and that's how my Grandpa made it. I never once got food poisoning from anything I ate at home or at my grandparents. Indeed, I'm still trying to capture that wonderful flavor they achieved. Mine is good, but not as good as their's was. But then again, I'm speaking strictly about bread stuffing. I blow them out of the water with other variations, such as rice or cornbread.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

...Amen...