Ever since Thanksgiving I’ve been working at this stuffing recipe. On Thanksgiving I made it with white rice (because we had a lot of leftover white rice from ordering Chinese food), but I prefer other bases for the stuffing. I have been making stuffing in chickens ever since. I highly recommend fresh sage if you can get it (see above photo – I grow it in my backyard, but it’s currently covered with snow); dried sage and other dried herbs are OK substitutes.
Ingredients
1 whole chicken (you are going to have to make more if you are using a turkey)
filler: 1/2 cup cooked couscous or 1/2 cup cooked rice or 1/2 cup cubed homemade bread
1 egg
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
1 apple, cubed
salt and pepper to taste
dried or fresh sage and other herbs to taste
optional: 1 cubed zucchini (add after the onion is translucent and cook for a bit)
How to prepare the stuffing
Start baking your chicken. You can sprinkle with pepper and fresh squeezed orange juice if you like, but don’t put in the stuffing yet. Meanwhile, prepare the stuffing. Saute the chopped onion and celery. When the onion is translucent, add the chopped apple and optional zucchini. Cook until apple starts to soften. Mix in herbs, seasoning, egg and grain filler. Now that the chicken has baked for at least half an hour, you can add the stuffing with a big spoon. Continue baking the chicken until the chicken is done (probably over an hour total). If you have extra stuffing, you can bake it on the side of the chicken. You can also add other ingredients on the side, like mushrooms or carrots.
If you have vegan friends joining you for the meal, you can prepare twice as much and cook the vegan “stuffing” separately, without the egg and far away from the chicken.
I liked the home-baked bread version the best, but one doesn’t always have extra rye-whole-wheat-sourdough bread available. In general, you should try playing with amounts to get the right proportion of wet ingredients like egg and apple to the grains.
Lighting colored candles on Chanukah
Chanukah was last week. This week’s Thursday Challenge is “LIGHT” (Candle, Reflected, Shiny, Colourful, City Lights,…).
Welcome to JPIX, the blog carnival of Jewish photo bloggers. Click on any of the thumbnails to visit the posts.
Mottel:
Mother in Israel showed hikes; Ilana-Davita featured a synagogue window:
Leah Lipszyc:
Batya:
Pesky Settler (two on the left) and Dina in Jerusalem (chanukiah on the right):
G6:
Mrs. S.:
Seraphic Secret, Imabima, Lady-Light and Real Shaliach:
Robin (who has just opened an Etsy shop – visit her blog for details):
Leora:
And some more (by Leora, Mottel and Robin):
To participate in a future JPIX blog carnival please send in your links to favorite photos by February 24. You may also send them to jpixcarnival at gmail dot com. Pesky Settler will be hosting a JPIX on February 25. Thanks for volunteering.
Snow by the Pond in Donaldson Park, Middlesex County, New Jersey
We went sledding in Donaldson Park on Sunday, and in the distance I could see both the icy pond and the Raritan River beyond the pond.
I took the photos from a sledding hill far from the river. My original photos had a blue cast; if you have Photoshop, you can use this video to learn how to remove a colored cast from a photo using Levels.
All that is left of colorful Chanukah candles - the wax and some ash
Chanukah has come to an end, and all that was left of colorful candles yesterday was bits of red, yellow, blue and white wax. Frume Sarah hosted Haveil Havalim yesterday; reading her blog carnival post can bring a little cheer.
As a reminder, JPIX, the blog carnival of Jewish Photo Bloggers, will appear on this blog on Wednesday. Entries may be submitted using this blog carnival form. Feel free to come back and visit to see the show.
Attention Jewish Photo Bloggers: JPIX, the blog carnival of Jewish Photo Bloggers, is next Wednesday, December 23. So please send in your links to favorite photos by December 22. You may also send them to jpixcarnival at gmail dot com. And if you are not a Jewish Photo Blogger, you are invited to come back to this blog on December 23 to see the “show.”
Pesky Settler will be hosting a JPIX on February 25. Thanks for volunteering.
By the time I had a chance to photograph the hawthorn berries this year, they were a bit past their prime. You can see some of my photos of the hawthorn tree from last year.
My main goal for this year was to get a shot of the thorns. Do you see the sharp thorns?
For more nature notes or signs of the season, visit Rambling Woods:
