Around the Kitchen Table - Thanksgiving Dinner - Traditional Stuffing

Everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. And today we're talking about Thanksgiving. We're on part 2 of our Thanksgiving prep for you guys to try and help give you some inspiration, you know, what to do around your table for Thanksgiving. And today we're going to be talking about stuffing. I'm going to prepare a just very simple homestyle stuffing, and Susan's going to talk about her very special stuffing that she makes at home and some of the ingredients that make hers which is really very delicious and hard to pass up from what I understand.

Oh yes, it's legendary. It's actually legendary.

Well, that's great. So I'm looking forward to hearing what you do. And as always, if you have questions, put them in the comments section and we'll get to them. Right now we're just gonna see how things are for a bit. You know, Susan, anything new up and coming in your life? I know you're moving very soon.

Yes.

It wasn't Wednesday. I saw that, that that was confused. And it's— when is it, next Wednesday?

Yes, can you believe it? My attorney made the mistake and said, can you move last Wednesday? I said sure, packed everything up. I mean, packed up clothes, packed up everything, and then turns out that he got it wrong and it was this Wednesday. So now it's 2 days from now, and I mean, not— there was there's more to pack up anyway because our kids are going to be living here in this house for a little while longer till we sell it. But, you know, emotionally, the— I mean, moving is a big deal enough, the back and forth. So, so it's funny. So this, this weekend we were able to just chill a little bit, you know, which is good because, you know, most of— most everything was done.

Well, that was good.

Everything was done.

That in itself was a little bit of a break and was probably something that was well needed. So you got to just relax and not be as panic-stricken. I remember moving, and it was not, not a happy day, even the day we moved. And then we started as soon as they finished loading up that big tractor trailer with our household goods that we were bringing. We got in the car and we started driving down. So at least you don't have an 8-hour drive on top of that to start your day with.

No, I have a mile and a half actually.

Well, that's not bad.

No, no, that's not bad. I think the weather, there won't be much change in the weather and so on. And, you know, but I am fully prepared. I am one way or another. I have all my, all the boxes, everything in a spreadsheet, and I will have my usual Thanksgiving. I've had our Thanksgiving. I mean, I can't remember when I haven't had it. And I love it and I do everything from scratch. And not so much the desserts anymore. Sometimes I do depending, but I'll tell you this, I have to say this and I may have said it last week, that sometimes I've been so busy and with 3 kids and working, running a business that I wouldn't go shopping sometimes until 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Wednesday. I would first go shopping 3 or 4 PM on Wednesday. So then I'm home at 5, and then you know what? It's such a bloody disaster, which is what I'm going to talk about in my slideshow a little bit, that I would just put my hands up and say, you know what? I don't know how Thanksgiving dinner will get on the table. But I know it will be there. And that's all you can say when you work like that. So I'm coming from— it's kind of chaotic, but sometimes there's a method to my chaos. So, you know, so everyone does Thanksgiving a different way.

You know, I always work better under pressure. I don't like to plan too far ahead of time because I'll forget about it if I do., and then I'll be up against the wall even worse. But I understand, although I don't think I've ever gone out Wednesday afternoon, maybe for more things that I forgot, but usually Monday is when I shop and I get the turkey and, you know, give it a chance to sit around for a while and make sure I have everything else. Now this year, one thing I did do, although I'm not eating the stuffing I'm making now, but I have guests coming over, so I have to make regular stuffing, is that last year I could not find my bread cubes. You know, I know, you know, it's not like it's a big deal making them out of fresh bread. But I'm like, I can't believe— and I'd ask people in the stores, you know, don't you people celebrate? You know, I can't find them. So this year I saw them and I scooped up a couple bags because they were my favorite.

No, you've got to get your specific ingredients. That's true. In fact, my husband, who's more organized than I am, And of course, when I go out 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, then I go from market to market to market. So I'm not the ideal in terms of organization. But I hear you on that. Somehow you've got to get your tried and true.

Yeah, for me it's Martin's Potato Bread. I don't know if you've seen those.

No, I haven't heard of it.

Martin's Potato Bread. And I was actually surprised. It's a Pennsylvania Dutch company. Surprised to find them down here because I was just looking for any kind to make the stuffing with, but I did see them. And potato bread is always my bread of choice when I was making stuffing or bread pudding because it always seemed to have like a more buttery taste to it on its own without even adding the mounds of butter that we're going to be adding to mine.

So yeah, I gotta have butter. I buy 2 or 3 boxes of butter That's for sure. So lots to talk about today. And yes, I will share. I will share. I don't have, you know, all of my ingredients here, and I don't have the method of cooking and the cameras that Chef does, but we will cover all kinds of stuffing.

Absolutely. All right, well, let's get started on this, on the very basic stuffing. And now, of course, when I make it, I'm using a much larger pan than this. Because I am making a greater amount. But no matter what you're making, if you're making it for 2 people, if you're not, if you're cooking a turkey breast, you don't have to cook a whole turkey. If you're roasting a big chicken, whatever works for you, that's what you want to do. So the secret, the real only big secret to my dressing is butter. And don't skimp on it. I may not cook with as much butter in anything else,, but when it comes to Thanksgiving and stuffing, butter makes it.

Yes, that's for sure.

Now, one thing, you know, I've been testing my gluten-free recipes, and the bread is what's a little bit challenging on gluten-free, but I have found that the one big thing— and if you are gluten-free and you haven't made a stuffing, or you've made one and it hasn't been very good, the whole secret that I'm coming to find out about from from reading and looking at other recipes is that you have to butter and season your bread and toast it on each side before you cut it up for cubes. Because I think there's just something about the density of gluten-free bread that just doesn't work like regular bread.

So— Interesting.

I hopefully have that down. Now I'm going to add in celery, onions, The only other difference that I do, and it usually is mushrooms, because Lisa likes mushrooms. Now, if I was making this just for us or family, I would probably put the giblets in too, because my father did that and I always liked the flavor of them in the stuffing. It just adds, you know, I put them in the food processor and I grind them up so they're pretty small, so you can't really see them. You won't know they're there, but they add all that flavor.

Yes, they do. I like to use every part of the turkey as well. And one thing I do also, the first thing I do when I make Thanksgiving is, and for the stuffing as well, is I make my turkey stock because I, at the end, I'll put turkey stock in the stuffing, but we'll talk about that in a little bit.

Now I do use chicken stock in mine. I save all my turkey drippings for my gravy. Because the stuffing, you're not really going to taste too much of a difference in it, but the gravy has got to have that rich turkey flavor. You know, if you don't have enough, you can supplement it with a little chicken stock, that's okay. But you want that turkey stock to give your gravy a nice flavor.

Yes, that's true.

I was at one restaurant and we were doing turkey packages. My boss decided we would do turkey package— packages to go out on top of, you know, one of the busiest days of the year cooking. And I think I cooked 156 turkeys for that. I had ancient ovens and I was literally putting them in. I started on Monday cooking them, putting them in, and I lived across— I had housing, so I lived across the parking lot. I would go to sleep, come back in the middle of the night, take them out, put some more in, and keep them so they were cooking 24 hours a day to try and cook all these turkeys. Well, needless to say, we cooked too many turkeys, and he kept buying more. I finally said, "Enough!

I've cooked enough turkeys!" Oh my gosh, I can't imagine that. You must have hated the smell of turkey at the end of that. How did you have Thanksgiving?

The worst. I didn't even make it to the line that day. I stayed at a side table just cutting turkey, deboning turkey, cutting them down. That's all I did was taking breasts off, taking thighs off, and slicing them down and passing them over. That's all I did for probably about 6 hours that day was just do that. After, of course, I made pounds of stuffing, and after, of course, I made gallons— I can't believe how much gravy I made. And I did add a little burgundy wine, I remember, to that gravy, and honey, and it came out really pretty good.

Wow, now I'm looking forward to that. When we finally talk about the bird, I want you to talk about gravy.

Yep, absolutely. So here, this is the root to your stuffing right here. This is pretty much all you need to do cooking-wise is to sauté that a little. You want to get some flavor into it by cooking it down because it's going to have a cooked flavor, not a raw flavor. Very simple. Then we bring our bread croutons, and these are the potato bread. You can see they're a nice shade of yellow.

Yeah, yeah.

Then I'm just going to mix this in, make sure I get all the butter. These are toasted already. These are not real toasted, but they're not real soft. Sometimes you get them and they're real crunchy. These are more, I guess I would say, stale than toasted because they don't have that real crisp appearance. Now one of the things you want to remember when you're doing this is if they're not quite real toasted and you haven't removed all the fluid from them, the type of bread you use could flavor your stuffing. So this is one reason you really never see like a rye stuffing or any kind of bread that's got a lot of flavor in it, because that's going to get transferred because it's still got some of the liquid in it to the stuffing. So this potato bread, like I said, has a nice buttery taste to it. And now all I've done is I've mixed this through a little because I'm trying to coat this with some of the butter before I put my stock in.

So, so what you're saying is the, the bread part you feel is more about the texture?

Well, and it's about being careful not to overdo it with liquids and how you put the liquids in. And this is what I use, Martin's Potato Bread.

Oh, you know what, I don't think I've seen that, but I know they make hot dog rolls. I know I buy those hot dog and hamburger rolls.

In my day of eating gluten, they were my favorite hamburger roll for everything. Cheese sandwiches, I mean, I was a big one. What do you have? I'm just— Anyway, I've got this in here. This is something you could really even do ahead of time if you wanted to. Depending upon the liquid, you could do it all ahead of time, actually. I just tossed it. I've got all the vegetables mixed out. I'm trying to get the bread just a little coated. With all the butter so that there's a little evenness to it and everything's got the richness. And then we're going to put the stock in. Well, before I do that, let me put in some poultry seasoning so we can spread it around when we do the stock. And poultry seasoning is the only other thing that I use in my stuffing. Very simple flavored. Toss it around a little bit. Now, if I put it in after I put the wet in, it might just clump in one spot, and that's why I'm doing it beforehand. I want to try and get it mixed through. All right, now we're going to put our stock in, and you want to put in maybe a third of what you're going to put in, and then you want to toss it.

Mmm, that looks good.

Yeah, Lisa's going to enjoy this tonight. Oh yeah, she's been eating gluten-free with me, you know, with a few exceptions. So, so you want to get enough, you know, it's, it's hard to tell you exact amount depending upon what you're using. But this is almost there. I didn't make a whole lot, but you want to, you want to try and separate the amounts of liquid that you're putting so that it's not all in at one time. Okay, and if for some reason it looks like there's too much, and you don't want an overabundance of liquid in there, and I have a little bit in here, I'm just going to add a little bit more bread.

Yeah, that's what I do too, kind of go back and forth with the, the ingredients.

So this is pretty much it. I mean, this is how simple— I mean, we used to buy— Lisa still tries to buy it on occasion for when I'm not here, but stovetop stuffing. And I'm like, really? You know, it's not rocket science, guys. I mean, this is your very basic. Now, anything else you like, you can put in it. I mean, again, we're not telling you— I don't eat mushrooms, Chef. Well, leave them out. I got to tell you though, onions, pretty much unless you're allergic to them, you got to have them in there. It adds flavor. Celery really doesn't add that much flavor, but it adds a little bit of something, a little color to it, and it's more traditional to put in.. But if you like, you know, like you said, cornbread, you're gonna make some, or if you wanted to put sausage in here, put sausage in. If you want to put— I'm trying to think of what else would go good in a stuffing. Oh, there's oyster stuffing, which I've never made just because the thought of it never appealed to me too much, but I know some people love it. We talked about the gluten-free one, and then Susan, are you gonna talk about a cornbread stuffing?

I am ready and anxious Yeah, share. Well, you know, I've been doing this stuffing way back in the day. The inspiration, the original inspiration was from the Silver Palette Cookbook. They have a stuffing in, I think it's the original Silver Palette Cookbook that it just turned me on. And then I made it one year and then I never looked at the recipe after that and just kind of made it my own. So, and it's probably so far from the original. So what I do is I start with different types of bread. I go to my market and usually they have a lot of freshly made loaves. So I may pick up a sourdough. They have a wonderful rosemary bread. I'll pick up a loaf of rosemary. I'll pick up a loaf of regular white. I'll pick up a loaf of whole wheat. I'll probably pick up about 4 loaves, 4 whole loaves of bread, you know, the freshly made type. So then I bring them home and then I piece them. I take all the pieces from those loaves and that takes a fair amount of time. But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Well, actually, maybe I'll tell you the ingredients as I'm preparing. So that's the first part. It's fresh, the fresh bread. And maybe I'll put them out on a pan to just kind of dry out a little bit, or maybe not. I don't seem to need them toasted. I never make them toasted. Then I have the— I will have onions. I will chop onions, several onions, maybe 3, maybe it'll end up being 3, 4, 5 onions, 4 or 5 onions. Celery, probably a whole bunch or close to it of celery, and chop those up all fine, and a big bunch of butter, big pat of butter. So sauté the onions and the celery. Carrots I don't do because I put that in my turkey stock. I make a fresh turkey stock. Gotta make the turkey stock. I actually do that first. So parsley, put fresh parsley in there, onions, carrots. What else?

For your turkey stock, what do you put in there? What turkey parts?

Oh, I put in whatever. I put in everything. Whatever is loose to take out from the turkey, which includes the neck and the giblets, you know, the little bag of giblets and also the neck. So I put all that stuff in and then cook that for a couple of hours until it's nice and rich. So now I'm sautéing the butter and the celery and the onions. And then, then, interesting, I will chop, I will get, usually I've been on a kick of adding apples. I will core and slice about, and I'll keep, I'll cut wedges in it, wedges of apples, and I'll keep the skin on and thin not so thin, not too thick, kind of chunky. I may add 6 apples into the stuffing. So that is also being sautéed. So it's one whole, you know, nice mush of veggies and not too mushy. We, you know, we don't want the celery too mushy, but then it gets there anyway. So then that's that section. Then I have the— oh no, it's not that section. No, I have another pan and then this is what I use, sausage.

Okay.

Then I add a few, probably I will use, I have 4 this year. I'll use either 3 or 4 of these. So that's in another pan. And then I add that to the vegetables and then just kind of put it all together. I think I do that, either that or I add it in separately.

Is that kind of a breakfast sausage, Jen, or a sweet sausage, or what kind of sausage is it?

It is. Now there's another brand, I cannot remember the name of it, but it comes in hot. It comes in a hot version. It might be Johnny what's-his-name, that singer who had those— huh?

Jimmy Dean?

Jimmy Dean. Jimmy Dean? He has sausages and they may be hot, so I'll get hot and regular sausage. Also then on the side, in addition to my breads, I'm getting cornbread. The cornbread mix.

You make the cornbread?

I make the— of course I make the cornbread. So making the cornbread mix, making, you know, nice big thing of that. Then that's done. And now the vegetables are done. And now the sausage is done. And now I do something that's probably not recommended for many reasons. So that's my disclaimer right now. But because I make so much I put everything into a plastic bag, a garbage bag, a fresh one, not a used one. It's a fresh one. And you know what I do? I shake it and shake it and shake it. And then at the same time, I put in— what's that turkey seasoning, Chef?

Sage?

No, I mean, it's a whole bunch of— it's in that turkey box. There's a picture of a turkey on it.

Oh, the turkey, yeah.

Yeah, but there's a bunch of different— yeah, so I also put fresh parsley in it, and I'll put a whole bunch of that seasoning in it, and salt and pepper. And so I'll shake it, shake it, shake it. Now I have about 4 serving dishes. I will divide it into each— oh no, I will butter the serving dishes, and I will divide it into each serving dish. And then at that point, I put the stock in. Because I don't know how moist it is already, and because I remember I'm not using dry croutons like you are, my bread is already moist, so I don't need a whole lot of— but I want that fresh turkey stock in there. So I will then, depending on how moist or not, and that's it. Then I will put it in the oven and have a nice crust on top. It'll be a nice and very moist underneath. Sometimes I will vary it. I have used chestnuts. I have used chestnuts. I have, instead of apples, I have used apricots, dried apricots. So I may do that. It seems to be a little different every year. You know, sometimes I'll put in fresh— I'll add fresh rosemary, fresh tarragon, that type of thing. So that is really my stuffing.

Wow, well, that sounds delicious. You got that one right when you said it was a winner. I love the sausage in it. I love— and I love how you mix it up. For years, I mean, even when I would make a lot at home, I just bought a new one here because I didn't bring it down with me. I had a bus pan, and that's where everything— I mean, I'm used to work, so, you know, when I'm making large amounts of anything I'm making buspanfuls, and that's how I kind of gauge how much— like at school, I knew I had to make 3 buspans of stuffing when we had turkey. You know, that I knew how much I had to make. So that's— we had one, and Lisa would crack up because I'd bring— I'm bringing the buspan out, or if I was cooling something down and filling it with ice to chill something, you know, it was my multi-use buspan. So I just got one at Restaurant Depot, but it's in my car for transporting frozen stuff from Restaurant Depot, so I have to get another one.

I think I need one of those. I think I need one of those. But you know what, I have a few, just a few images to show about, you know, the craziness Thanksgiving is. You want me to go ahead?

Absolutely, let's do it.

Okay, let's see, where do I go? I go over here. Oh no, I don't. I have to screen share first. Okay, here, let's do a little screen share action and Hmm, okay, no, yeah, see, I'm not on my other computer, so I'm a little confused where to go.

You have the box with the green arrow? The green box with the white arrow, I'm sorry.

Oh no, I'm already in the screen share, I'm already, oh, Lightroom, this is, this, pictures. Let's see if this is it. Yeah, no, I'm— yeah, it's— I don't want to take too much time. You know what I wanted to— I don't think I'm going to go there, but I will. There are a couple of things I just want to mention. And that is— and then we'll go to comments, too. And that is that I'm not the most organized person, but like I said, Somehow it gets done. And you know what I have found? If there are people around, people want to help. Get those teenagers, get those little kids, get your friend, whoever is hanging around. They really want to help. And give them a job, give them a recipe, let them help. You know, sometimes for years one of my kids had— his job was to peel the potatoes, and that was it. And that was a tradition that That was enjoyable to him. I don't know, at least I think so. But you know, people want to help. Have you done Thanksgiving where people have pitched in?

No, I'm kind of anal and I'm more like the Soup Nazi, get out of my kitchen. If you don't possess the same level of skill I do, no.

Okay, okay, alright, but what about a sous chef? Assistance, just put them over there. And that's another thing with your— looking at your induction cooktop, Chef, that will— I've said it before, you put that someplace else in your kitchen and that will expand your kitchen tremendously.

Well, the nice thing about this is, you know, when you're doing kind of buffets and you need to keep things warm, you know, you can always put this on. Like, I have that big, big pot and fill it full of water and I could put small containers of things in there to keep warm. I have my big crock— slow cooker that I use to hold food in, too. There's a lot of ways. Start thinking about how you're going to hold food. The biggest issue I have when I would go to someone's Thanksgiving dinner was they would try very hard to make it perfect, and they would sometimes overextend themselves trying to make things, too many things and trying to make things that really weren't time-friendly for other things they're making. So think about your meal. Think about it. Stop down. Lisa's always amazed. "Well, you know, I'll wrap something up and I'll put it in the oven." The turkey— pull the turkey out an hour before dinner. Let it sit. It's not going to hurt it. It's actually going to help it because the juices are going to go back in. In that hour, you can get everything else prepared put in the oven and warm in a low oven to keep it warm. Then when it's time to serve, everything comes out at one time hot. To me, that is the biggest problem. If I go out to eat, is the food hot? If it's not hot, you're done. It's over. The food has got to be hot, number one, and then taste comes second for me on that. If at least it's hot, you've won part of the battle. Battle. But you know, think about it and don't make yourself crazy, right, Susan? It's about Thanksgiving.

It really is. It really is. And, you know, it's all, it's all good. And it should be fun and put on the music or the football game, or I'll tell you something. I almost— it's, it's— I would almost venture to say that for Wednesday night preparing than, you know, with all the chaos, than the perfection of Thanksgiving. I know that's really bad to say, but I just, you know, it's just enjoyable, it's soulful to do the cooking and have your hands in the once-a-year meals.

Yeah, it's just funny, kind of, you know, I'm used to this kind of thing in a restaurant where you work all day to make dinner, you sit down and half an hour later it's done.

Oh, is it frozen?

No, no, I'm saying after you've worked all day to make it.

No, no, no, it was frozen for a little bit. I couldn't hear what you said, it was frozen.

Oh, no, I'm sorry, I said the worst thing about— I thought you said the dinner was frozen. No! I said the one thing that is kind of crazy is how you work all day. I'll get up, I'll start at 8 o'clock in the morning, morning, you finish, even if I prep things, and then when we sit down at 2:00, and you eat, and it's like a feeding frenzy, pretty much, and you eat for half an hour until you burst. Then you've just cooked for 8 hours, and it's over in half an hour kind of a thing.

It is. I know. I always get stingy with leftovers for that reason, which is really bad. Not a good thing. So a couple of comments. Koji Moore says, ever try Owens Original Bob Evans sausage? I haven't heard of that.

I have not either. I will look for it.

Yeah.

Elena wanted to know about your corn muffins. It's new to her. Kind of a polenta?

I don't think so. It's—

It's just cheesy and corn. It's like cornbread, actually, Elena, and it's a mix of cornmeal and flour and some seasonings. And actually, Jiffy makes one of the best ones around, and they've been making it since, I think, the beginning of time.

Yes, that's what I'm holding up right now, a box of Jiffy. They have been making it since the beginning of time.

I remember they were like 10 cents a box, I remember one time. And they have cake mixes. They had all kinds of things. Well, we had a few other comments. Let's see, Zara Altera is in the house. Thanks, Zara. And Elena, we said hi to. And I think— who else was in here? Oh yeah, Aslan Blore, she stopped by to say hi.

And Elena says, "I use crumble bread." I assume she means what I was saying to rip apart the bread. Cool.

Some recipes, they call for breadcrumbs too, and, you know, some stuffing when you look at it is almost that real crumbly texture, and it seems to get a little dense and heavy for me when it's all that way. So I do like, I do like it a little lighter using the whole bread and letting it puff up. I mean, you could even put some egg in this if you wanted it fluff up a little bit more, almost like a soufflé. I've never done that, but you could. Susan was saying some of the things she adds. One year, I think I put raisins in it. Nobody was happy with it, but I did.

Yeah, I put pecans in, but they're a little crunchy. You know what I would love, Chef? I would love— I'm sure you would, too— if our viewers talked about what's in their stuffing and put it in the comments stream. I mean, I would love some new ways to freshen up stuffing. And I'd love to hear what everyone else does.

Now here's the one big question too. Do you stuff your turkey or do you leave it unstuffed?

Me, I leave it unstuffed because I use my turkey stock.

Okay.

So I figured that, that is exactly why I put that into my stuffing, Chef.

Okay.

You know, what do you think about that?

Well, this year I'm not going to stuff it with a traditional stuffing because me being gluten-free. I'm afraid that it'll— the gluten will soak into the turkey or something. I think I may try it with my gluten-free stuffing because the stuffing in the turkey always seems to taste just a little bit better. It always seems like it's a little richer. On the downside of that, people will tell you not to stuff it because it takes longer for it to heat up, and there's a greater chance of bacteria building up. Technically, I would tell you don't stuff your turkey. Leave it unstuffed. Make sure you rinse it out. Just like with any poultry, let's think a little bit about some health and safety concerns, too. You should wash it out with water, not soap, but just water. Rinse it out. Rinse the outside out. Rinse the inside out. Let it drain a little bit. Let it sit out even for half an hour, 45 minutes before you put it in the oven. So it can come down to temperature a little bit, so it's not as cold. It will cook more evenly and it'll cook a little faster if it's not freezing cold. And if it's not stuffed— now, if it's not stuffed, you can throw some seasonings in there, you can throw a carrot in there, an onion in there, anything else you want to kind of like liven it up a little bit. But if by leaving it unstuffed, it will cook a little faster. Have you ever used a bag to cook your turkey?

Susan? I have not, no, but you know what I have done? I've grilled a turkey. I've had it butterflied. I've had it butterflied and I've grilled it. One year it was the best turkey I've ever truly eaten in my life. Other years, I don't know what happened, it didn't come out great.

Yeah, I've never grilled one. I will use a bag on occasion, and it really— well, it cuts your cooking time down. First of all, and it really is a kind of a moister turkey. Now granted, I don't know what that bag's doing to it because, you know, thinking about your health, if you put it in the oven and it doesn't melt, what's that saying for the bag, right?

What? Yeah.

So, you know, I might shy away from that from now on, but, you know, I have used it in the past, and the only good thing about it is if it's 10 o'clock and you haven't gotten the turkey in yet and you're looking at the time that bag does help you. Even with a convection oven, you know, that will help.

When I put it in the grill, it was indirect grilling with the coals on each side, and I don't know why I got lucky one time. It was so moist and very, very flavorful.

I know, and buying free-range turkeys is a wonderful thing if you can find one. I have I bought those presidential turkeys, the heirloom variety. I spent about, I think, $85 or $90 one year for this turkey, and it was not very good. I was sorry to say, it was not overly juicy or overly flavorful. Butterball, for the most part, unless I can find a nice free-range one that's not going to cost an arm and a leg, it's a about a good meal and what you do to it. One way to keep it a little moister too, if you want, is if you— when you are seasoning it, and generally I season mine with olive oil, salt, and pepper pretty much like I do everything else, but if you can get some separation in the skin with your hand going under it, and you can put some butter between the breast and the skin, like soften some butter up, and even if you want to season the butter, like say you want to put some rosemary in it or some thyme or something else in it, season it like a compound butter, and then pat the skin back down on it. When it cooks, that butter will go into the skin because the white meat doesn't have a lot of fat, so that will help it stay a little bit better.

That's very interesting you say that because my future daughter-in-law just said to me the other day— she said that I did that, I don't know, one year recently. I don't even remember doing that. She said it was very delicious. She asked me if I was doing that again. I think I'll try that. Thanks, Chef.

Meat thermometer. Get it out when it's done. Don't let it sit in there and sit in there and sit in there and dry out. Get your meat thermometer, 165 degrees internal, which means generally you can pull it out at about 160 and be safe. It's going to keep rising about 10 degrees. Most meat will keep going up about 10 degrees once you take it out of the oven. Just because you take it out doesn't mean it stopped cooking. The heat's already in there, it's going to keep cooking. So keep that in mind. So that'll help it from drying out as well. But you know, I can't— got to use an oven thermometer.

Right. And Chef, and freezing stuffing is— I mean, if you really want to make a big batch, which I do, I mean, I freeze— say they do freeze stuffing, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Freeze stuffing, freeze your leftover, take, you know, then you take everything off the turkey. If you know, I generally make a massive turkey even for 2 people. And Lisa loves croquettes. So I have a recipe that I use leftover stuffing and turkey with for croquettes that she loves. So that's, that's old diner food if anyone wants to know what a turkey croquette is.

Oh yeah, yeah. Do you fry those?

I sauté them. I don't make them in cone shapes. Usually I make them in patties, but I have been known to make them in cones because traditionally a croquette was like a cone, and you would get 2 or 3 of them from your diner, and New Jersey was the diner capital of the world.

Well, you know what we have to do after Thanksgiving then.

Leftovers. Leftovers for sure. All right, well, I think that will about wrap it up. Anything else we have to do? I don't see any Heather is saying she likes prune and apple stuffing the Danish way. That's pretty cool.

Yeah.

And Coach Moore has left a couple links for us for Bob Evans and sausage. Bob Evans sausage biscuits and gravy. Gotta love that, Coach. Now we do have Cracker Barrels down here, so, you know, that was always our equivalent of the Bob Evans for for the South.

Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you very much. And Susan, good luck with your move. Is it this Wednesday?

2 days from now. So I will see you— yep, next Monday. I'll give you a little tour of the kitchen.

Sounds good. And we'll be talking a little bit about desserts and some things maybe to help you with— do something a little ahead of time or something new for your dessert ideas. So if you have any questions about desserts, leave them in the comments too and we'll hopefully get to them next week too. Alright, well have a great day and I'll see you all Friday on Good Day Google+.

Bye everyone.