Thanksgiving Sausage Stuffing

I hosted Thanksgiving with my dad's family last weekend.  Yes, it was quite early, but it actually worked out really well and gives us a good break between Thanksgiving turkey dinners.  I made a traditional turkey (post coming at some point) with our family's sausage stuffing.  Its just a basic sausage stuffing, but its what we always have had and probably always will have.  Its very tasty!  The recipe below is the base recipe, which is for a 12-pound turkey.  I had an 18-pound locally raised, pastured turkey, so I increased the ratios.  I also wanted to do more than just stuff the bird.  So I made a quadruple recipe.  First, I stuffed the bird.  Then I threw the remainder into my big crockpot to cook.  Stuffing really shrinks down in size as it cooks, so even though it may look like a TON before you cook it, it will reduce in size by about half.  So just keep that in mind if you ever make it. 

As for ingredients, use what you like, but I like to use local, organic, and homemade as much as possible.  I was going to make the bread for the bread cubes myself, but decided last week that I would just buy some loaves from our local organic mill.  They are WAPFers and they use very similar recipes to what I've made in the past, so I feel totally comfortable getting their bread.  I toasted it in the oven to make the bread cubes.  I used my homemade raw milk cultured butter; as well as local, organic celery and onions from my CSA.  I used celtic sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and my home-dried sage.  I used locally made pork sausage with natural seasonings.  And I made my own chicken bone broth.  So I feel like it was a pretty healthy stuffing.  :) 

Sausage Stuffing
(for 12-lb turkey)

12 cups bread cubes/croutons
1 cup butter
1/2-3/4 cup onion, chopped
1/2-3/4 cup celery, chopped
1 Tablespoon sea salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 Tablespoon sage
1 pound sausage
1 quart chicken stock

Fry sausage. Add butter, onion, and celery. Cook until veggies are softened.

Put bread cubes in large bowl. Pour sausage, butter, onion, celery mix over top of bread and mix. Pour chicken stock over top until moist, but not soggy. Add salt, pepper, and sage. Mix well.

Stuff your turkey with as much as you can fit.  Put remaining stuffing into a crockpot and cook on low for 4-6 hours.


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