Full disclosure: I once baked a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving but neglected to take out the liner separating the two store-bought crusts, causing dessert-seekers to throw down their forks in horror when confronted with a layer of wax paper.
In the 20-plus years since making that mortifying mistake, I’ve significantly honed my holiday culinary skills. This has meant mastering a few menu items — including turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing (more on the latter dish momentarily) — and not getting hung up on having everything be perfect.
I’ve also learned to delegate as many side dishes as possible to other people, something anyone hosting a festive dinner shouldn’t be afraid to request from their guests. One baker friend typically brings a seasonally appropriate sweet thing to Thanksgiving, such as homemade tiramisu or pumpkin bars with hand-whipped cream atop them. Similarly, I welcome to the table green bean casseroles, Brussels sprouts, salads, rolls, stuffed mushrooms and whatever other dishes and appetizers float my friends’ and family’s boats.
But whatever’s on the Thanksgiving lineup must include Amy’s Stellar Stuffing (not yet trademarked). It’s a savory, moist dish I’ve spent years perfecting, and it’s become more than a bread-soaked vehicle intended to get dark meat and gravy into my system. It’s become a reason for the season.
With the turkey-focused feast in the near future, I recently decided to do a test run of my stuffing to see if it paired as well with chicken as it did with turkey. My boyfriend was excited about the project, and agreed to join me on a reconnaissance mission to seek out ingredients we didn’t already have on hand.
In addition to the grocery store and the Bellingham Farmers Market, we also added the recently revived Scandinavian Fair and the Bellingham Dockside Market to our food-focused itinerary. First was a stop at Trader Joe’s to stock up on butter, a couple bottles of $4 chardonnay, chicken stock, cornbread stuffing mix and pine nuts.
Then it was on to the Scandinavian Market at Fox Hall, where we joined approximately one million other people to storm the event space to secure Nordic baked goods. Twenty minutes later, my fella was the proud owner of two packs of lefse — a Norwegian flatbread often made with potatoes, which has been a staple of many of his Scandinavian-centered holidays.
Squalicum Harbor was our next stop, where I purchased 2 pounds of manila clams from Ficus Chan of Crab Bellingham and a dozen small bivalves from Blaine’s Drayton Harbor Oyster Company. I pondered stocking up on frozen salmon in advance of the holidays, but figured I could come back to the Bellingham Dockside Market on Saturday, Nov. 19 to do so.
Finally, the Bellingham Farmers Market beckoned. It was a sunny Saturday and the Depot Market Square was abuzz with activity. I picked up giant purple orbs of hard-necked garlic from Rabbit Fields Farm for planting in the garden, and also onions and celery for the stuffing. I threw in a head of lettuce and called it a day.
The rest of the weekend was a blur of edible excitement. When the stuffing was fresh off the stovetop that afternoon, my fella asked if it was OK if he had some before I gave it a short bake when I cooked the chicken. I gave him the go-ahead, as I’d already “sampled” it excessively.
Evening appetizers came in the form of oysters from Drayton Harbor. Shucked and slurped with the addition of lemon and a dollop of cocktail sauce, they were briny and sweet and made me feel at one with the universe. A while later, the roasted chicken was served. Home-grown potatoes, stuffing, sauteed green beans and gravy accompanied the meal, which we sampled throughout the weekend.
I don’t have room to rhapsodize about the lefse that accompanied our Sunday breakfast or the manila clams we steamed with wine and garlic that night, but suffice it to say the flavors of the locally procured goods made us feel like we were already celebrating the season.
Amy’s Stellar Stuffing
Ingredients
1 package cornbread stuffing mix
1 medium onion
3 large leeks
8 pieces celery
3 Italian sausage links, uncooked
6 cloves garlic, finely diced
fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, etc.)
1 bottle cheap white wine
1 box chicken stock
1 container crimini mushrooms
1/2-cup pine nuts
1 cup butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Make it: Chop onion and leeks and saute with a generous slab of butter on medium heat in a large pan. Stir often. Wait until the onions start to sweat, then add chopped-up celery, garlic, some herbs and approximately two cups of chicken stock. Cook 10 minutes, then add two cups of white wine. When the mixture starts to bubble, add chopped mushrooms, pine nuts, another slab of butter and more herbs (according to taste).
In a separate pan, heat up the sausage, which can be chopped up in advance or separated in the pan. Add a cup of stock and a cup of wine for flavor, and keep in pan until the meat is cooked through.
When the sausage finishes cooking, add it to the mix in the other pan, then turn off stove. Meanwhile, put your stuffing mix in a large bowl. If it comes with a flavor packet, add it to the sauce — especially if you didn’t have fresh herbs on hand. Add your cooked items to the bowl, then stir liberally. If it’s not quite moist enough, heat up a little butter and the remaining wine and mix it in.
Although I typically bake the stuffing in a covered pan for 20 minutes at whatever temperature the chicken or turkey requires, it can be sampled without baking. Serves eight (or two people who can’t get through a weekend without devouring their entire stash).
