Italian Sausage and Pecan Stuffing

• 1 quart chicken or turkey stock
• 1 ½ lb Italian sausage
• 6 cloves garlic
• 2 c chopped onion
• 2 c chopped celery
• 2 c chopped green pepper
• 2 T, kosher salt and corn oil as hardware
• 6 c Challah bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (from approximately 8 to 10 slices)
• 2 c chopped pecans
• 4 whole eggs, beaten
• 4 t dried rubbed sage
• 4 t dried parsley
• 2 t freshly ground black pepper
• Salt to taste. This could be a lot

Brown the sausage, and at the end of the sauté, add the garlic. Put this into a gigantic bowl. Dice the trinity, toss with salt and oil, and roast at 400 degrees, stirring every ten minutes or so for 45 minutes, or until they start to take color, and add to the gigantic bowl, as well as the herbs and pepper. In the last 10 minutes of roasting, add the bread and pecans to the same oven and remove when they’ve turned GBD. Add the stock until it reaches the correct consistency.

Spread the stuffing out in a heavy roasting pan under the turkey (skin side down) with a rack between the stuffing and the bird. Roast at 500 degrees for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven, scrape all the stuffing out of the roasting pan and put into a pyrex baking dish, and put the bird back in the roasting pan, skin side up, with a foil breastplate. Continue cooking the bird until it reaches 160 or until the skin takes enough color and turn the oven down to 350. Stir the stuffing often to keep it from burning, and when it is no longer soggy from the turkey drippings remove and plate it around the carved turkey.

Serving Size: Yields 15 Thanksgiving-sized portions.

Number of Servings: 15

Recipe submitted by SparkPeople user BOSS413.