The Chef's Dilemma
The holidays always bring back lots of great memories. It’s hard to believe that we are at the beginning of our forth year here at Offutt. I recall the first Thanksgiving we celebrated here at Offutt, we were just getting to know our counterparts at the Housing office and it was decided that we would have a joint Thanksgiving get together at the Housing office.
Somehow my former status as a chef netted me the duty of chief food preparer for the turkey and several sides. Now what many people don’t understand is that just because a chef can put together a six course wine dinner at the drop of a hat doesn’t necessarily mean they have a clue about good old fashioned home cooking. I happen to be one of those chefs that doesn’t have a clue. Combine my lack of home cookery experience with a less than optimally equipped kitchen and limited time and you have a recipe for an interesting cooking experience. Luckily, I had the help of one of the Housing office staff, who was a veteran in deep frying turkeys, this helped immensely with the time factor. I started to think that even without the commercial kitchen or staff, this was going to be very doable timeline. Then came the dilemma, a last minute request for stuffing “what’s Thanksgiving dinner without stuffing”? Of course everything being made so far was all from scratch, no shortcuts or cheating for me. I just did not have time for baking the cornbread and prepping everything else for a good old fashioned cornbread stuffing. Now, I’m not one of those chefs that get all Martha Stewarty and have to know the name and direct lineage of the chicken that laid the eggs I’m using, but I do have standards! I knew there were shortcuts available, but how could I serve something that came out of a box? I looked at the timeline once more, swallowed my pride and decided that I would indeed go with plan Z “Stovetop Stuffing”. Now of course I couldn’t serve it as is straight from the box, but maybe with a few additions here and there and with a little extra tweaking, I could” kick it up a few notches” Turkey day at the housing office arrived and to my great chagrin and out right embarrassment all I kept hearing about was how incredibly delicious that stuffing out of a box was. In fact one co-worker while introducing me to a new person would invariably tell the story of how I made the best stuffing he had ever eaten. As future Thanksgivings at the office would roll around I would always get several requests for the “special” stuffing, so last year I finally wrote out a recipe for my “Kicked Up Stovetop” stuffing so that people could make it at home for their families over the holidays. If you’d like to give it a try, click here.
