#261_Homemade Croutons for Turkey Stuffing or Dressing

What exactly are Croutons?

Croutons refer to small, crisped pieces of bread that were sautéed or baked to remove moisture. Croutons are used as a garnish and sometimes to add seasoning to dishes as well.There are several dishes that are typically served with croutons. Soup is one of these. Salad is another. Croutons may also form an ingredient of a bread stuffing.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-croutons.htm
In simple homemaker words, croutons are bread that are cubed and dried, plain or seasoned.

How to make Croutons
for Turkey dressing or stuffing

Store-bought French Bread

Making croutons is real easy. Use day old bread such as French bread, baguettes or your home made loaf of bread. Slice the bread into about 5/8-inch thickness and spread some butter on each slice. Season with garlic salt if preferred. Cut these pieces into cubes.

Spread the cubed bread on a shallow baking sheet and bake in a
pre-heated low temp oven, 275 degrees,
until the bread cubes are dry and crisp, about 25-45 minutes.
Done!

Turkey Dressing with Italian Sausage

Recipe #42, click here

Notes from MaMely:

1) time for drying bread cubes varies depending on the amount and size of the cubed bread on the baking sheet. Start testing the cubes after 25 minutes of baking and go from there. You want your bread cubes to be dry and crisp.

2) If using pre-sliced sandwich bread, cube the bread into same thickness as the slices.

3) I use homemade Garlic Butter on the bread slices, which gives the croutons simple but wonderful flavor.

For Garlic Butter recipe click here.

#42_Stuffing with Italian Sausage

Let me back track and post a recipe or two from the Thanksgiving dinner before everything gets so crazy again this month. I am afraid I will never get caught up with all the recipes I intend to post from last month's event. So I better squeeze in this one recipe:

Stuffing or Dressing with Italian Sausage
before it hit the oven

I've never stuffed the turkey with the dressing, but always baked it separately from the turkey like a casserole. It probably has something to do with psychological effect rather than taste.

Home-style Stuffing Bread

Stuffing bread is one of the few items that I make days ahead of time, but there was a disastrous moment that occurred this year as I tried making the stuffing bread few days before Thanksgiving day. I was multi-tasking at the time I had the bread cubes in the oven, and didn't hear the timer go off, so I ended with burnt bread cubes. I went and bought these stuffing bread from a local grocery store, who makes homemade style stuffings, by that I mean the bread cubes are larger and do not have too much crumbs, unlike the kind you buy in boxes.

sausage is sauteed in skillet

Recipe for the stuffing:
2 packages (1 lb. each) Italian sausages
1 can black olives, sliced
1 onion, chopped
5 stalks celery, sliced
1 lb. stuffing bread
1 tsp salt
1 tsp. poultry seasoning
1- 1/4 to 1-1/2 cans chicken broth (updated)

Procedure:
Heat a skillet. (there is no need to use cooking oil). In it, saute the sausages and onions together until the sausage starts to render its fat. Cover and let it simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally, until the meat is tender. Turn off heat then add in the celery, olives and seasonings, stir well; then add the bread cubes. Pour in chicken broth (more if you prefer very moist stuffing) and lightly mix together.

Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish (or aluminum foil pan) then cover with aluminum foil and bake in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for about 30 minutes.

Optional: You can add coarsely chopped pecan nuts before baking.