I also call it stuffing, but I have no problem with people calling it dressing - it's just a name, and I have good associations with "dressings" that I've had, although it does make me think more of salad dressing than of stuffing.

I would not use sliced sandwich loaf, unless I made the loaf myself, and I normally make sandwich bread with 50% whole wheat and slice it only as needed. I normally use leftover sourdough bread in stuffing or a day-old baguette. I do dry the bread out in a 200° oven, but I do not toast it. I use 50% cornbread as well, as that is my favorite type of stuffing. I also like wild rice stuffing, but that is a different recipe. I never put anything sweet (such as fruit or dried fruit) in stuffing, but that's my personal preference. I think pumpernickel is fine in stuffing, even though it is a tiny bit sweet. We might be going to a German restaurant for Thanksgiving this year.

Stuffing made with supermarked sandwich bread will be gluey....and in my opinion inedible! I prefer stuffing made with either my own bread or with a bought French bread.

Good point...i do not 'toast' it. Low oven to dry it a bit with a light toasting. I like a bit of toasted flavor and a heartier loaf will stand up to the moisture.

(i don't toast to 'crouton' dry). Most is still a semi-soft bread texture.

Lars, I'm preparing pretty much what you mentioned i.e. half day old bakery bread and half cornbread.

QUESTION: I am soaking wild rice for this but you mentioned you use wild rice for another recipe; should I NOT use black rice with the 1/2 cornbread, 1/2 baguette?

Are you using "real" wild rice? Or that black wild rice? The cultivated black rice is quite strong flavored...in a good way....but it will over power your corn bread.

I would make a wild rice and mushroom "dressing" side dish....you could even add some dried fruit like cherries or blue berries....or perhaps currents.

Thanks Linda. That makes sense--over powering; that's why I asked. The rice I am soaking is wild rice versus black rice.

After I posted this, I decided not to cheap out on the bread after all. I do dry the bread in the oven before using. One method I remember reading is to preheat the oven to 200, turn it off, and leave it in the oven overnight. Are there any problems with this approach?

That would be fine...if you are up late. Otherwise, if you turn off the oven around 8pm, go ahead and take it out by 10 or 11 and bag it. Fine overnight.

I don't find adding wild rice and a bit of wild mushroom at all over-powering. Kept in check with amounts just add flavor.

This is the first year in i think 20 i do not have special diets or vegetarians...some kinda miracle!. In the past i would make my stuffing/dressing up until adding the stock, veg stock for one and duck stock/lamb sausage...two separate casserole dishes and not difficult at all. So i started adding other ingredients and found they added much to both varieties.

Why i traditionally make a mixed roasted root veggie dish. My Thanksgiving has alway been 80% veggie.

I use sourdough mixed with a rustic french or italian ciabatta, dried with a light golden toast on the edges. I like a good assertive sourdough but cut it with a less flavorful bread to keep it from being overpowering. I like the holey, substantial breads for this.

Someone here in the cooking group shared the recipe from King Arthur Flour for "Turkey Stuffing Bread", and it truly was a winner, and it was easy to make in a bread machine. It was even good made into a grilled turkey sandwich ;-).

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/turkey-stuffing-bread-recipe

I go way off the norm and use hot dog buns, toasted/dried out some in the oven. Why are there 12 buns for packages of 8 hot dogs? Stuffing is all year for me as I eat it like y'all would eat mashed potatoes, as a side. Lots of celery, onions, a carrot and tons of dried sage, all moistened with homemade chicken broth, an egg and some milk, S&P.

If I think of it, and I didn't this Thanksgiving, I make the bread grainlady linked to. Other than that I use my homemade French or store bought French.I don't dry it in the oven I just cube it and let it dry out for a day or so, Tossing it now and then

Moons ago I used the white sliced sandwich loaf but found it to gloopy as my palate matured LOL

I haven't made wild rice stuffing in a while, but when I did, I useda recipe similar to this, and I served it with pheasant. I have also used this recipe from Joy of Cooking:

Bring to the boiling point:
4 cups stock with 1 tsp salt

Add
1 cup wild rice
and simmer until nearly tender,about 30 minutes.

Melt in a skillet:
1/4 cup butter

Sauté in it about 3 minutes:
2 tbsp chopped shallots
1 tbsp chopped green pepper
1/4 cup chopped celery

Add the hot drained rice and
1 cup sautéed mushrooms
(1/2 cup chopped ripe or green olives)

Yeah, Lars, similar to what I have used, but I skip the olives....wondered why Cathy was "soaking" the rice...?

For stuffing I put a basic white bread recipe in my bread machine. Let it sit a couple of days and then cut slices and dry them out. It takes so little time and really gives a good result.

Here's a simple recipe for a savory (as opposed to sweet) cornbread which I find works very well as a base for dressing. It's from Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads. I usually leave out the salt if I'm using it for dressing, though. Yellow cornmeal makes a dressing that is slightly more visually appealing than white, IMHO, but either tastes fine. Freshness of the corn meal is more important than color, so buy your corn meal at a store that seems to have a good turnover of it; that's probably not at a gourmet store, but rather at a store serving a less snooty clientele. You can add whatever you like to your dressing, and as a general guide I find one batch of the cornbread below works well with about a pound of bulk sausage (hot, mild or whatever), one large onion, some celery and mushrooms, then moistened with chicken stock. You can, of course, expand this as needed; a quadruple recipe just fits in a 5 qt mixer bowl.

2 eggs, room temperature (if the eggs are
straight from the fridge, put them in a bowl of hot tap water for a few
minutes)
2 cups buttermilk, room
temperature (you can nuke it a
little to take the chill off if need be)
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups yellow cornmeal (but white is okay, too)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Preheat oven and greased baking
utensil (skillet or 9 x 9 pan) to 450° while mixing batter.

In a small bowl beat the eggs
and mix in the buttermilk. In a mixer bowl, mix the baking soda, cornmeal and
salt. Pour in the egg-buttermilk mixture and mix well until smooth.

Pour batter into the preheated
pan, and return the pan to the oven for 20 to 25 minutes. It's done when a
knife inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean & dry.

Note: if you’re making this as a basis for
cornbread dressing, leave
out the salt. The sausage and other ingredients you add will
have plenty of salt for the dressing.

I went with savory store bought bread, wild rice, eggs, chicken feet stock, and the usual seasonings. It was well received, but then this wasn't a group of gourmands.

I'll ramp it up a bit for the second Thanksgiving Thursday.

Linda, to cut down on the cooking time.