ONGOING QUEST: Corn Sausage Stuffing

This Thanksgiving, I'm on a quest for a delicious stuffing recipe. When I announced this in the office, Lauren mentioned her family's trusty recipe, and we exchanged a swap--her stuffing instructions for my galette (well, really it's Smitten Kitchen's galette, of course, and I'll be putting it up in a little bit).

Here's what I got from the rather surreptitious swap that ensued:

Corn Sausage Stuffing

12 oz. package Jimmy Dean "regular" sausage

3 medium onions, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups, although Lauren says that this might be stretching it)

8 cups bread cubes (1" cubes, about 16 bread slices)

1 tbsp dried parsley flakes

1 1/2 tsp Poultry Seasoning

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 can cream-style corn

Cook sausage in large skillet, stirring to break up, until browned. Remove sausage onto plate, leaving grease in skillet. Pour grease into measuring cup, and add vegetable oil or subtract grease as necessary to get 1/4 cup. Put 1/4 cup grease back in the skillet and cook onions in fat, stirring over medium-low heat until soft but not browned. Remove from heat. Stir sausage and creamed corn into onions.

In a BIG bowl, combine bread cubes with parsley, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper. Add the onion/sausage/corn mixture and toss until mixed. Stuff turkey or put into baking dish. If baking alone, cover with foil and bake at about 325 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Hmm. Sounds delicious, although I'll probably use some silly combination of spices instead of poultry seasoning. I'm quite tempted to toss in some cubed butternut squash as well, and of course a heaping dash of brown sugar.

ONGOING QUEST: The Perfect Banana Bread

I've been searching for amazing banana bread for a while. Banana desserts are an obsession of mine (although I've come to find that I'm not really interested in eating bananas as a standalone food...), and I frequently have a bowl of too-ripe, speckly bananas in my kitchen, just begging to be smashed into bread.

A while ago, though, I got in a banana bread rut. I was making loaves of bread, over and over again, each one becoming less interesting than the last.

I'm hoping that this recipe, lifted from Smitten Kitchen (my food blog Mecca), will spice it up a bit (pun only slightly intended). Also, it will continue in my recent habit of baking only recipes that call for alcohol--a habit which has caused my colleagues some concern, but not enough concern to keep them from eating the fruits of my booze-infused labors.

"Jacked-Up" Banana Bread

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted salted butter
3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar (depending on the level of sweetness you prefer, I always use the smaller amount)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon bourbon (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1 1/2 cup of flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon, then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

It's in the oven now!

Edit: TOO spicy. It's a bit more like a spice cake and a bit less like banana bread than I'd like it to be. Next loaf, definitely halving the amount of nutmeg and cinnamon.