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The past few years I have been branching out in my stuffing repetoire and have decided that this year I am going back to my basic cornbread stuffing. Last year I tried a really yummy sounding wild rice stuffing, which was really just wild rice and the year before that it was some sort of strange fruit overload recipe, which just didn't taste right. And was thus left with lots of leftovers that nobody wanted to eat. So again I will be a traditionalist and go the route my mom and grandma have gone for a million years and have never had a complaint :)

I'm relatively young so I haven't actually prepared my own Thanksgiving feast...yet. But, if I had to pick my favorite stuffing recipe, I'd go with something that involved cranberries, lots and lots of cranberries. So I picked this one, because it involves bread, apple, a whole bunch of great spices, and ...cranberries!

Hillary
Chew on That

I have made the same stuffing (which my granny called filling) that my mother and her mother before her have made since right after my people came to America on the big boat for the thanksgivin (sp).
I have made this stuffing in 4 states and once with a Cajun fried turkey.
I use sweet italian sausage, bread cubes du jour, onion, garlic, celery, chicken broth, butter, sage, thyme, italian parsley and a handful of locatelli cheese. I bake it beside the bird. It is magic, poetry and fantastic the next day.

We always call it dressing here in Tennessee.
Homemade.
Cornbread.
Salt, pepper, stock, onion, celery, a pinch of sage.
ALWAYS served on the side.
No additional fruit, grain, seafood, meat or nuts.
We always go pretty traditional and of couse, hearty.

We Southerners Live To Eat! :o)

Oh, my, can I do a half-hour on this topic. The family stuffing, via the maternal side, of course, is white bread-sage-onion-oysters. I am eternally curious about how oysters got into the stuffing of a family living on a farm in Missouri, and will never know, although I suspect the fact that the county in which they lived borders the Mississippi River may have something to do with it.

Over the years, as such things do, it's evolved. The broth I use is stronger than my mother's/grandmother's. I save stale bread in the freezer, so it's not just stale supermarket white bread. I don't use a whole stick of butter for sauteeing the onions. I doubled the amount of oysters. And since I married Mr. Meatloaf 13 years ago, I switched to fresh oysters and added minced mushrooms, also scraps from the freezer. Much richer now than previously, not surprisingly.

My grandmother had an absolute horror of dressing being dry, so it's pretty much like a bread pudding in terms of consistency. She stuffed the bird and poured the rest of the dressing around it so the drippings would moisten it. (What's inside the bird is the tastiest.) We weren't a gravy family, but Mr. Meatloaf's family is, so I put the remainder of my dressing in a casserole and put it in the oven when I take the turkey out, for seconds and next-day stuff.

When we have extra guests at Thanksgiving who are fussy eaters, I also make, separately, James Beard's recipe for a fresh bread crumb-piles of butter-pine nuts stuffing that's very good, very "safe", and soaks up gravy well.

97% of my thanksgiving plate always, without fail contains stuffing. Moist, dry, inside, outside, oysters, celery, cornbread, whatever. It's the thing I am most thankful for every November. Aside from Stove-Top, I've never actually made it, but my wifes uses a moist, delicious recipe that contains artichokes and mozzarella.
Semi-off topic, here's some little known thanksgiving history to chew on.

Lemons, I'm with you on moisture. I will always err on the side of bread-pudding consistency rather than risk having it dry. That's why I sometimes add the eggs/milk!

Erinay77, my husband hails from Middle Tennessee, so we spend a lot of time there. Bless the hearts of my MIL and FIL (they're 85) for passing along to me all the old ways. My MIL's cornbread stuffing is awesome.

My dad's father was from Louisiana, so Dad makes the stuffing his dad's mother made -- cornbread with lots of crumbled sage sausage (e.g., bulk breakfast sausage). It's good, but I still use ordinary bread for mine.

Speaking to the lovers of leftover Thanksgiving stuffing/dressing, does anyone else eat dressing sandwiches? We bake outside dressing in a loaf pan, slice it cold onto white bread with a good bit of mayo and lots of cranberry sauce. Although I make cranberry sauce from scratch, it is essential to buy a can of that awful jellied stuff for this express purpose! One of my favorite sinful pleasures... can't wait!!!

I love stuffing (bread, mushrooms, sage, onions are my traditional fave), but I guess these days I feel safer when it's baked outside the bird. Had a big family fight in the wake of Thanksgiving one year when my mom packed the stuffing so tightly into the bird (I wasn't there when she did it) that one of my guests got food poisoning that lasted at least 48 hours. Mom denied it, and I couldn't get her to understand, later, that the stuffing cavity has to reach 165 degrees to kill the inevitable bacteria and that packing it in inhibits heating (you really need to measure the temp, but I confess I didn't know all that at the time).

Oh, yeah, one more thing: I make the pocket that begins at the neck and goes under the skin as far back as I can go and pack stuffing in there, too. Insulates the breast, helps flavor it. Maybe not picture perfect for the advertisements, but More Places To Put Stuffing.

My family calls it stuffing. Although various version are made throughout the year, when it comes to Thanksgiving it MUST be the traditional sage/onion/celery/giblet stuffing we grew up on.

We stuff the bird (both ends) and the leftovers are put in loaf pans. I like the loaf pan stuffing better but the rest of the family likes the stuffing from the bird. However, is there anyting better than the hard, crusty, continuously basted bit of stuffing that always seems to come out of the bird? I think not!

My brother, sister, and I all like the stuffing before putting it in the bird so whoever hosts dinner saves in a small bowl in the frig for tasting for the other two!

Leeks not onions are my secret ingredient. Sauteed with celery and lots of butter. And a mix of good stalish bread saved in the freezer for a couple of months in advance. Finally, the New England secret stuffing weapon: Bell's Seasoning. A ton of it added to the saute pan.

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