Cornbread Stuffing

Stuffing is probably the hardest thing for me to give up at Thanksgiving.  I love bread stuffing!  Ah, well... I love the people I spend Thanksgiving with more than bread stuffing, so I'll survive without it.

Make the Southern cornbread the day before, so that it's cool and easy to chop for this recipe.

Cornbread Stuffing

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Chop into cubes
1 recipe southern cornbread

Put on a rimmed cookie sheet (I grew up calling these jelly-roll pans, but I'm not sure what the rest of the world calls them).  Toast them in the oven for 5 minutes to dry them out a little.

Turn oven down to 350

Heat in a large skillet over medium heat:
4-8 T. butter

Add and cook, stirring, until tender (5 minutes)
2 c. chopped onion
1 c. chopped celery
1 seeded and chopped green bell pepper
1 seeded and chopped red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced (or pressed in a garlic press)

Remove from heat and stir in:
1/4-1/2 c. minced fresh parsley
1 t. dried or 1 T. fresh chopped sage
1 t. dried or 1 T. fresh thyme
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper

Stir into bread cubes.  You can add up to1 cup of chicken stock at this point.  It depends how you like your stuffing.  If you like it more firm, you can also add 1-2 beaten eggs.  I usually add some stock and no eggs.
 
 Pour into a shallow baking dish and bake at 350 (or really, whatever temp you have the oven at for everything else) for 25-40 minutes, or until a crust is formed on top and it is heated through.

-Jennifer