Oyster Stuffing

Two more days until the best excuse to stuff your face and nap with your whole family in front of a huge television with a muted football game. Yea, that happens!

And traditions can be wonderful, but this year, we are starting a few new ones around the Thanksgiving table. I combined culinary minds with both my Moms and came up with an amazing menu for Thursday:

• Deep fried turkey
• Roasted turkey (brined)
• Gravy (regular and gluten free)
• Stuffing
• Oyster stuffing (recipe below)
• Roasted garlic smashed potatoes
• Bourbon bacon Brussels sprouts
• Sweet potato salad with maple dressing
• Green bean casserole
• Rolls (regular and gluten free)
• Cranberry sauce
• Pumpkin pie
• Chocolate chess pie
• Apple pie (gluten free)
• Pumpkin trifle
• Cherry torte

Even though we have several new dishes around the table this year, we always stick to our traditional stuffing recipe - oyster stuffing. I often find myself having to explain this phenomenon to people around me.

My Dad grew up at the beach, so seafood was always a part of his life. Naturally, I grew up eating a lot of it during family get-togethers, so adding oysters into the stuffing was only normal. The Hubby was a little thrown by this (remember, he comes from the Midwest). So this year, we will have two types of stuffing - one with oysters, and one without.

Onto the goodness...Fall is oyster season, so they shouldn't be too hard to find. You can be chef extraordinaire and get fresh oysters and shuck yourself, or be lazy like me and buy them in a jar at Whole Foods. Hey, no judgement here, I have lots of cooking to do on Thursday!

Oysters in their natural juice are the best, since a little of the juice makes the stuffing even better. Unfortunately for this test run, the ones we bought were cleaned and stripped of all their saltiness.

I asked my Mom to go through the recipe with me since she has made it MANY times and watched my Grandma make it year after year. We decided to try a gluten free one as well. I am happy to say that Mom and I successfully created a gluten free one that we plan on making Thursday!

For the sake of tradition and this amazing Thanksgiving side dish, the recipe below is for the regular version. Grandma always used Pepperidge Farm Herbed Stuffing mix, so that is what we use year after year. Why mess with an amazing thing!

Also, we usually buy our oysters the day before (or day of if possible) so they are fresh, fresh! Depending on the size of the oysters, most of them should be cut in half (easily done with scissors). Careful because they are slippery little suckers!

Oyster Stuffing

Makes: 8x8 pan
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 35-45 minutes

1 package seasoned stuffing cubes (Pepridge Farm is the best) - about 6 cups
3/4 cup celery, chopped
3/4 cup onion, chopped
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon dried sage (can reduce if you don't like this flavor)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 to 2 1/2 cups turkey or chicken broth, warmed
1/2 pint oysters in juice
Bastings from roasted turkey (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350F. If you don't have turkey bastings, grease an 8x8 baking dish. Start by adding the stuffing cubes to a very large bowl. Stir in the onion, celery, poultry seasoning, sage, salt and pepper. Pour in half of the broth and mix with your hands until the cubes start to soften. Mix in the oysters and about 1 Tablespoon of the oyster juice if salted. If roasting a turkey, add in about 1 Tablespoon of the bastings here. Mix in the remaining broth 1/2 cup at a time, until the desired consistency is met.

It should be moist, with no standing liquid in the bowl. I always purchase an extra bag of stuffing in case I go overboard on the liquids (been known to happen). In this case, you can just add a few more stuffing cubes to soak up the extra liquid.

Once the stuffing is a mushy consistency and well combined, add this to the pan and press in. Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the top is browned and the center is cooked through.

How I made this gluten free:
Whole foods has a 10-minute gluten free stuffing mix. We started with that, added hot broth to the cubes, veggies and spices and let this sit for about 10-15 minutes. Then mixed it up with our hands and added in the oysters. IT WAS AMAZING!! Nice work Whole Foods