So far I have not hosted Thanksgiving. However, I've helped my mother in the kitchen enough to know that she makes a delicious stuffing.

First, she uses low sodium chicken stock/broth - that way you can control the salt additions.

Second, she adds sausage to her stuffing and some sage - probably 1 Tbsp fresh, chopped or 1-2 tsp dried.

Third, she has been known to add chopped, roasted chestnuts on occasion, too.

The rest is similar to your recipe.

Yum, I like the idea of adding sausage! Sweet Italian?

I tend to prefer Greek stuffing: rice, sausage, onions, garlic, lemon juice, currants, and pine nuts.

Man, that sounds good! I have never attempted stuffing, having served Stovetop (which we like a lot) instead. Deb can't have the walnuts, but it could have, say, pecans instead. I note that basically it's fruit and nut flavored, as opposed to herb flavored. Well, fruit, onion and celery. I think of stuffing as having flavors like sage.

I've seen sausage mentioned as a stuffing ingredient and that sounds good too.

I was thinking of making my own this year, so this is a great post. I'll be looking for ideas.

For us I'll make candied sweet potatoes (for which I basically invented my own "recipe" based on knowing how it had to be done, including outlandish amounts of butter, brown sugar, and real maple syrup), but my stepmother and sister both sometimes make a sweet potato and apple dish that's fantastic. The apple in the stuffing made me think of that.

Yours is remarkably similar to mine. I love sausage and dried fruit in the stuffing. I'll take that over sage stuffing any day. My own tried and true stuffing is here

Jeff, she usually uses regular breakfast sausage - maybe with sage included.

Cook the sausage first and then saute the onions and celery in a bit of the leftover fat for added flavor.

Ah, I was picturing sweet Italian sausage like I'd put in spaghetti sauce to be different.

We use a similar recipe - Jimmy Dean's breakfast sausage is our classic. Instead of the apples & raisins I saute celery, onions, & mushrooms. Also, we usually cut the bread up into cubes a day or two before. Just leave it sitting out in a big bowl to dry. Every once in a while toss the cubes, so those on the inside dry out as well.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more comment on this!

Partly inspired by the post, I am contemplating making homemade stuffing myself for the first time.

The funky part is I have this idea to use Portuguese sweet bread cubed and allowed to dry a bit, mixed in with white bread - probably French/Italian bread like we eat regularly with some of our meals.

We have 10 or 12 for Thanksgiving and I tried this Sunset Cornbread and Chorizo Dressing last year. It has "sausage" squash and fennel and is quite different. It was a hit so it's included on this years menu. Good Southwest stuff!
http://food.sunset.com/sunset/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1119569

Too many decades ago, my grandmother made a stuffing (dressing) with oysters, and I have not encountered its match to this day. I have not done any searches yet, but am wondering if I might encounter any suggestions here.

On an earlier post, I mentioned that it was my impression that Hellmans mayo was east of the Rockies, and Kraft west. WRONG! It is Best Foods west of the Rockies.

Thanks!

Dale (dcvcav@comcast.net)

Cornbread dressing.

In a nine-inch skillet, make a cornbread. Cool it and crumble it.

Sautee a couple of medium onions, some green pepper, and celery. Add to the cornbread. Put the mixture in a casserole dish, add chicken broth until wet (beyond moist, but not soupy). Bake in a 350 oven till firm (about a half hour)

or,

Rice dressing

Cook 3 cups of dry rice.

In a skillet, cook two pounds of breakfast sausage. I use Jimmy Deans. Owens is good too.
Sautee a chopped onion and chopped green pepper. Add to the rice. Mix well.