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When I saw a friend of mine post pictures of her own "stuffin' muffins" (stuffing in muffin form), I decided I absolutely had to try to make some. I'm a huge, huge stuffing lover. I found a recipe by Rachel Ray that seemed simple enough. But for a recipe marked "easy," I actually had a lot of problems with this one.
Let's start with the very first sentence, "large skillet." Now, I already had my misgivings, looking up at the ingredients and seeing 8 cups of stuffing mix. I definitely don't have a skillet that can hold eight cups! I really wish I could have seen the video associated with this recipe, especially since (according to the comments) she makes it differently in the recipe compared to the video. Unfortunately, it seems that it's blocked in Canada. Darn it! I just had to soldier on myself. (Darn it!)
In the end, I started the vegetables and the apples off in a skillet, with a whole stick of butter (unhealthy, tasty, and apparently what Rachel does in the video). I was chopping as I went, which was actually quite stressful for me. Usually I like to have everything ready before I start. I kept getting frustrated at my apples (which I never learned to core properly with a knife and for which I have no corer) and other stuff as they fell onto the floor and needed to be rinsed off.
When it came time to add the stuffing mix (the overpriced stuffing mix, but I didn't know how to make stuffing mix this morning and had no time to experiment, being out of the house all day), I realized I'd need to transfer everything to a pot. It pretty much entirely filled my big saucepan -- about 12 cups! Large skillet... ha! I used about 3 cups of chicken broth, since lots of reviews complained that it wasn't moist enough.
When it came time to put the stuffing in the muffin tins (sprayed with cooking spray instead of buttered because I was starting to lose patience), I ran into another problem of not having an ice cream scoop. I started off with wooden-spoon-and-fingers, which lasted about two scoops. (Hot!) Then I switched to wooden-spoon-and-regular-spoon, which quickly morphed into two-regular-spoons. I got it all in eventually, but I *really* don't want to look at all the stuck-on burn stuff at the bottom of the pot. Soak, little pot, soak! Man, do I wish I had a dishwasher.
It wasn't quite crispy enough at 12 minutes in the oven, so I decided to put it in for the full fifteen. Taking the muffins out of the pan also proved challenging, because they were only barely sticking together and I didn't want to pull the tops off. I would up doing it with two spoons.
In the end, the stuffin' muffins were quite tasty. I found the tops (slightly crispy) much better than the bottoms (still somewhat soggy), but other people seemed to like them too, and there were none left at the end of the evening. I actually found they got better as they cooled off a bit, which is counter-intuitive but useful to know for next time.
So... that was this weekend's adventure. Tonight we dine at Marc's parents' place, where I will thankfully not need to do the cooking.
Let's start with the very first sentence, "large skillet." Now, I already had my misgivings, looking up at the ingredients and seeing 8 cups of stuffing mix. I definitely don't have a skillet that can hold eight cups! I really wish I could have seen the video associated with this recipe, especially since (according to the comments) she makes it differently in the recipe compared to the video. Unfortunately, it seems that it's blocked in Canada. Darn it! I just had to soldier on myself. (Darn it!)
In the end, I started the vegetables and the apples off in a skillet, with a whole stick of butter (unhealthy, tasty, and apparently what Rachel does in the video). I was chopping as I went, which was actually quite stressful for me. Usually I like to have everything ready before I start. I kept getting frustrated at my apples (which I never learned to core properly with a knife and for which I have no corer) and other stuff as they fell onto the floor and needed to be rinsed off.
When it came time to add the stuffing mix (the overpriced stuffing mix, but I didn't know how to make stuffing mix this morning and had no time to experiment, being out of the house all day), I realized I'd need to transfer everything to a pot. It pretty much entirely filled my big saucepan -- about 12 cups! Large skillet... ha! I used about 3 cups of chicken broth, since lots of reviews complained that it wasn't moist enough.
When it came time to put the stuffing in the muffin tins (sprayed with cooking spray instead of buttered because I was starting to lose patience), I ran into another problem of not having an ice cream scoop. I started off with wooden-spoon-and-fingers, which lasted about two scoops. (Hot!) Then I switched to wooden-spoon-and-regular-spoon, which quickly morphed into two-regular-spoons. I got it all in eventually, but I *really* don't want to look at all the stuck-on burn stuff at the bottom of the pot. Soak, little pot, soak! Man, do I wish I had a dishwasher.
It wasn't quite crispy enough at 12 minutes in the oven, so I decided to put it in for the full fifteen. Taking the muffins out of the pan also proved challenging, because they were only barely sticking together and I didn't want to pull the tops off. I would up doing it with two spoons.
In the end, the stuffin' muffins were quite tasty. I found the tops (slightly crispy) much better than the bottoms (still somewhat soggy), but other people seemed to like them too, and there were none left at the end of the evening. I actually found they got better as they cooled off a bit, which is counter-intuitive but useful to know for next time.
So... that was this weekend's adventure. Tonight we dine at Marc's parents' place, where I will thankfully not need to do the cooking.
