Glazed Carrots and Homemade Stuffing

A few of you requested the recipes for Ryan’s grandma’s glazed carrots and my mom’s homemade stuffing after seeing them shine in all their glory in my morning post highlighting our Friendsgiving party.

Before sharing these recipes with you, please know that they are:

1. Not exactly healthy
2. Incredibly delicious

They are two recipes I look forward to without fail every year and if you decide to make one (or both!) of them, I hope they are a hit with you and your loved ones!

My mom’s stuffing is hands-down my absolute favorite dish of Thanksgiving. Yes, I like it even more than any Thanksgiving dessert! Just a bite of her stuffing fills me with a sense of comfort unlike any other dish out there and simply cannot be duplicated. It’s home in a casserole dish!

Please enjoy… from my family to yours!

Bubbee’s Glazed Carrots

Makes six side-dish servings

Ingredients:

• 3 cups carrots, peeled and sliced into long strips (julienne), lightly steamed
• 5 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 tablespoon onion, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions:

1. Combine carrots, bacon, onions, cinnamon, salt and pepper in a one-quart casserole dish
2. Sprinkle with brown sugar and butter
3. Cover and bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes

Mama’s Homemade Thanksgiving Stuffing

Ingredients:

• 2 loaves stale bread (any kind of bread, white, wheat, French, rolls, etc.) – We use one loaf of white bread and one loaf of oatmeal wheat
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• ½ stick butter
• 1 bunch parsley
• 1 large (32-ounce) container fat free chicken or vegetable broth
• 2 eggs (equivalent amount of egg whites or egg beaters will also work)
• A few shakes or garlic salt
• A few shakes of pepper
• 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning

Instructions:

1. Rip 2 loaves of stale bread into pieces. (It is great if you can do this step the day before making the stuffing, allowing the bread to sit out on a couple of cooking sheets overnight to become extra stale.)
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Melt ½ stick of butter in large skillet. Watch closely so your butter does not brown and add onion and celery to the butter over low to medium heat.
4. When onion and celery are lightly browned and tender, remove skillet from burner.
5. Remove long stems from a handful of parsley. (You want mostly the fluffy part. I use regular parsley, but curly is okay.) Chop the parsley – making sure to keep it from being ground too much. You still want to have some identifiable leaves.
6. Beat two eggs (You can use a comparable amount of egg whites or egg beaters, if you prefer.)
7. Place half of the bread crumbs in a large mixing bowl and add the melted butter, onion, celery mixture, chopped parsley, beaten eggs, a few shakes of garlic salt, a shake of pepper, and poultry seasoning.
8. Gently mix the above mixture with your hands to distribute as evenly as you can among all the bread crumbs. As you discover how dry your mixture is, slowly supplement with chicken broth, being sure to keep the mixture on the dry side. If you make it too moist, it will still be fine, but the texture of your stuffing will be more dense. The good news is, you are in control and can make it more moist by adding more broth or less moist by adding more bread crumbs. Experiment as you add the remaining bread crumbs, using chicken broth to make it stick together. Do not mix longer than it takes to make the mixture moist and consistent.
9. Butter the inside of a baking dish. Place stuffing into dish and cover with foil. Bake 45 min. with foil on and then 15 minutes without the foil to allow the top to brown.