Stuffing!

In preparation for Thanksgiving, I spent the evening making four varieties of stuffing, in the convenient muffin style popularized by Rachel Ray. The basic recipe was:

9c cubed bread (roughly half and half pumpernickel and challah)
1 onion, choppity choppity
2 stalks celery, choppitied as well
salt, pepper, thyme, sage
lots of butter, most of a can of chicken broth

Fry up the onion and celery in the butter. I them took them out (leaving behind as much butter as possible), put the bread back in the pan with the broth, and brought it up to temperature. Mix mix mix everything together. This is the normal batch, with the three other varieties including one of the following:

1 link andouille sausage
5(ish?) mushrooms (there was some added butter here)
1 apple

I sauteed the shrooms, set them aside, and did the same to the sausage. I should have done the same to the apple, as it ended up a bit mushy.

The results?

Normal: Not bad. I should have put more herbs in, as it was a bit flat. Carrots would probably work too, as long as they didn't overpower. I needed to chop everything a bit more, as it was kind of lumpy.

Mushroom: Probably the best of the set. There was a lot of water still in the shrooms after sauteing, so it was a bit gummy. I used about twice the recommended amount of mushrooms, which I'd probably dial back to 1.5ish to help with this.

Andouille: A close second. The added oil helped the outside get a nice crust. The sausage had an excellent spicy hint, which helped perk up things. This was close to 4 times the recommended sausage content, but I think it was about right (something like a pound for a full batch).

Apple: I've had good apple stuffing before, and this wasn't it. Since I didn't cook them first, the muffins didn't set because there was too much moisture. It also had too sweet of a flavor, which a bit of carmelization would have helped.

Conclusion: It's easier to make stuffing when you're already making a bunch of stuff for thanksgiving. Mushrooms are good to add, as is sausage. Google will totally let you convert 6 tablespoons into quarter cups (1.5), and won't judge you at all for using retarded units. Don't eat four stuffin' muffins, as you'll feel like you're going to die.