Homemade dressing

Today I am making homemade dressing. Normally we only eat it once a year at Thanksgiving but I've decided to make it all year round now. In fact, I made it 2 weeks ago.
It's easy to make just a little tricky in getting the liquid to bread ratio correct and also getting the sage amount just right.
(all heat temps are farenheit)

1 loaf of Italian or French bread
1/4 stick of butter
3 celery stalks-chopped
1 small onion-chopped
1 egg-beaten
1 tall can chicken broth or 3- 15 oz cans, probably won't use it all
Ground sage-tablespoon? to taste
Salt and pepper-to taste

I tear the bread into small pieces and put it on a large cookie sheet that has edges, or into a 9x13 cake pan. Then I stick it in my oven to dry for a few days. The oven is NOT on. I just keep it in there so dawg hair won't get into it. LOL Sometimes I keep it in the microwave depending on the size of the pan. And yes I have forgotten I've had bread in the oven drying and needed the oven for something and turned it on to preheat and ended up with brown toasted bread. Sigh. Then I have to buy new bread and start over. Sometimes the bread isn't dry enough the day I plan to make it and then I turn the oven on the lowest setting (170 degrees) and stick a large spoon in the door to keep the door propped open. Then I watch it ve-e-e-e-ery carefully to not toast it too much. I don't want to brown it at all.

So once I'm ready to make the dressing (some people call it stuffing), I put the bread into a huge bowl.
I also take the butter and melt it in a skillet, then add the onions and celery and saute until they are really soft. I also don't want to brown the onions and celery, so I have to watch that carefully too. Did I say this was easy to make? Hmmm....oh..it is! don't give up yet!

Once the onions and celery are soft, I add them to the bread. Then I add enough chicken broth until the bread is totally saturated. Then I add more until it's kind of runny. Here there is also a fine line between too dry and too runny. Being a little bit too wet is better than too dry because the liquid will evaporate in the oven. I take my hands and dig into the bread and keep squishing the lumps of bread between my fingers to break them up. NO LUMPS! When that's done I then add the sage. I also sprinkle some salt to taste and pepper into it. I do NOT add the egg yet because I will be tasting the dressing while it's raw. Now sage is a tricky little seasoning and really this dish is to taste with the sage. Some people like a little sage, some like a lot. Our family likes a sagey dressing but there's a very fine line between a lot of sage and too much. If I burn it with sage it's almost inedible to eat. So I add it in increments, stir, then taste. I'd say I use a tablespoon or pretty close to that for this amount of bread. So I add a little sage, taste, more sage, taste, more sage taste. I do NOT add the full tablespoon of sage all at once!  It's just something that after all the years of making this I can pretty much tell how much to add. What can I say, it's a gift.  <rolls eyes>

Once I get the sage right I add the egg. I beat the dressing as I stir it. I stir it real hard and beat air into it. It'll make it fluffier.
Then I pour it into a cake pan, cover with foil and cook for  about 1 1/2 hours at 335. For me, 325 is too low and 350 too hot so I compromise with the 335. Weird, eh? I don't know why people only cook in 25 degree increments. I blew that concept up a long time ago. hahaha  I take the foil off the last 10 minutes to get the top brown.
I will try to remember to post some pics later.
Here's the bread in my oven:

The celery and onion first starting to cook in the butter.

When the onion and celery are soft enough.

The broth I used. I didn't even open the square one. Didn't need it.

I poured the onions and celery into the bread.

My new toaster oven. LOL

The chicken. I decided to try something new. I realized that most of my favorite family dishes were made with onions and celery. Our dressing, our potato salad, our liverpaste. So I decided to make extra onions and celery and I put it under the skin on the chicken, inside the cavity and on top. So those brown chunks are the celery and onions.

Mix the bread with the liquid and really make sure there are no hard pieces of bread when all done.

This is what it looks like after squishing and squeezing.

This is the wet consistency needed. In fact this is a bit too wet so I did cook it at 350 to get that liquid to evaporate quicker.

The first bout of ground sage. It looks like a lot but it's actually not thick underneath it. It's sprinkled in.

The first bout of sage wasn't enough. Here's the second amount and it was perfect.

This gives you an idea of how runny this is. And remember this was a bit too runny, but not much.

 

I just plop the egg on top.

 

Then I mix the egg in with the spoon.

After that, I really beat the mixture for about a minute.

Poured into the casserole dish. Spray it with PAM or a cooking spray first so it's easier to clean the dish afterwards.
I'll be back with pics of the cooked dressing. It's still in the oven.

Done! Normally I'd cook it longer than this and it'd be more brown but it was already 9:00 at night and Da Man was hungee!!