Hey everyone – Caroline here, filling in for Sallie while she’s off enjoying a much-deserved girls’ weekend! When Sallie asked me to blog in her stead, I met her request with a certain degree of trepidation. I knew from her recent blogs that it’s pumpkin week, and on Monday I had a rather disastrous pumpkin encounter.
It all began with the best of intentions – a friend and I were desperate for some homemade food and decided to make pumpkin muffins. We researched and found a great-sounding recipe online. (Why, oh why, did I not just email Sallie for advice?!) The trouble started at the grocery store. They didn’t have any canned pumpkin! Well, I decided, no reason we can’t use the pumpkin pie filling instead.
Wrong!
After an unfortunate series of events, partly due to cooking in an under-stocked dorm kitchen, the end product was … well, let’s just say one bite was more than enough! The muffins were strangely moist, springy, and overly sweet. I considered myself completely done with pumpkins for the season, if not forever…. Happily, Sallie persuaded me to get back on the pumpkin bandwagon with just one taste of her pumpkin chili. A world of deliciousness was open to me once again.
This Sausage Cranberry Pumpkin Dressing is absolutely amazing – I just finished baking it a few minutes ago, and I’ve already polished off about three servings! It smells incredible, too; my dog is wandering through the kitchen hoping for a taste, or at least for a dropped crumb. (He will not be getting either!)
As Sallie found with her chili, pumpkin seems to be the perfect ingredient for making food rich and creamy without overpowering the taste buds. This dressing has completely restored my confidence in pumpkins, as well as my own cooking, and it’s absolutely perfect for the weather this time of year. So here I am with a delicious and seriously easy recipe for anyone who is as impatient as I am for Thanksgiving to arrive!
Sausage-Cranberry-Pumpkin Dressing
Ingredients
¾ pound pork sausage
1 14-ounce bag cornbread stuffing mix
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
1½ c vegetable broth
¾ c dried cranberries
1 heaping tsp dried sage, or 1/8 c chopped fresh sage
1 c onion, chopped
5 tbsp butter
Directions
Cook the sausage in a large pan on medium high heat, breaking it up until it’s small and crispy.
When it’s finished, remove the sausage and set aside. Drain the fat.
On medium high heat melt the butter and add the cup of onion, sautéing until soft, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Add the whole bag of cornbread stuffing mix and the vegetable broth into the onions. Stir. Fold in the can of pumpkin, then add the cranberries, sage, and sausage.
Transfer dressing into a casserole dish and bake in the oven for around 20 minutes to get the top nice and crisp.
Enjoy!
