By Thanksgiving Feast Part 3
Click here for Part 1 & Part 2.
This year I finally made the last Dressing recipe from the cookbook (Dressing with Sausage, Apples, and Mushrooms, which can also be found on The Pioneer Woman’s website here), as well as the No-Knead Cloverleaf Rolls (also on her site here).
The Day Before
As always, I like to get as much done in advance of Thanksgiving, so the day doesn’t become too chaotic! And I love that the Pioneer Woman lets you know exactly what you can do beforehand!
I started with making the cornbread, and then cutting all of the bread into cubes for the dressing to let them dry out overnight. I also chopped up the onion and cooked the mushrooms in advance.
For the rolls, I prepared the dough and then put it in the fridge (covered) to rise slowly overnight.
The Day Of
I started with getting the dressing ready, preparing everything up until getting it in the oven.
The meat was browned and set aside, followed by cooking the apples with onion, brown sugar and wine. The apples are tossed with the cubed bread.
Next, herbs are cooked in broth. Once the broth is nice and hot, it’s poured over the cubed bread (tossing / mixing the bread & broth as you pour).
And finally, the sausage and mushrooms are mixed in before the whole mixture is poured into a baking dish.
I got the rolls ready about 2 hours before I cooked them. After adding a little melted butter to each of the muffin cup, the dough is pinched off and rolled into small balls. The recipe doesn’t specify the size of the balls, which I found a little frustrating, but eventually I figured it out. Three balls are added to each muffin cup, and left to rise.
About 30 minutes before we were ready to leave, everything went into the oven and was baked until browned and ready!
Taste: 8/10 for the Dressing, and 9/10 for the Rolls
I don’t really like stuffing, but the flavor was good here. My husband thought the cubes of bread were way too big.
The bread was almost perfect! I thought it could use more salt, personally, but they were very light and fluffy. They were perfect with some salted butter and/or gravy!
Difficulty: Average
Nothing too challenging about these. For the stuffing, I’d say mixing it all together without it spilling out of the bowl was probably the most difficult part! And the rolls do involve yeast, which can be finicky, but I think cooking it over the stove with sugar helps immensely.
Cost: Average / Pricey
It’s a holiday, so most people probably aren’t too concerned about spending a little extra for good food, but the dressing is a little on the higher end of what you’d generally spend.
The rolls included a lot of ingredients that you probably already have on hand, so chances are you won’t have to spend much.
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