Making stuffing with Soul Cafe

All right, we're getting a little taste of Thanksgiving already. It's less than three weeks away now, so you're spending time with friends and family. Cooking can be a bit of a chore, so we're going to make it easy for you. Our Kelly Ambrose is here with some ideas to help us spend less time in the kitchen. So Kelly from Soul Cafe, part of Friendship Circle, welcome. Thank you. We're excited you're here. So you're making, are we, do we call it dressing or stuffing? I like to call it stuffing because dressing can get confusing that you're talking about a salad, right? That's what I think. Oh, okay. Okay. So it's called stuffing, even though we're not literally stuffing it into the bird at this point. No, we're not going to do that. We're going to bake it in the oven separately. So you're going to show us how we can do this nice and easy without using a box, by the way. Because for a lot of people, stuffing is their favorite part of the meal and we're only making this once a year. We're not doing this in December or May. That would be weird. That's true. So if it's important, let's get this right. Stuffing is my favorite part of the meal for what it's worth. It is? Good to know. Good to know. I've never heard anybody say that. Really? So we're going to start with Dakota bread here, and this is challah bread. And since this is an egg-based bread, it's going to not get so mushy when we add all the liquid to it. And this is already dried out, and there's two ways of doing this. You can either cube it up and let it sit out for a few days, or you can put it in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 to 40 minutes. We want it nice and dry. Okay. Okay. Now, do you guys sell these bread cubes at Soul Cafe? We do. Okay. We do have it already made up for you, one step done. And then we have chopped onion and celery that we're going to cook up in a pan. We're going to saute that up. Nice. Yep, I'm going to turn this heat up. And then we'll have a little bit of garlic for more flavor. And we'll add some chopped herbs. I'm just going to add this to the bread. What are you guys eating over there? Just going to town? I'm done, babe. And I have four different kinds of herbs here. Can you tell me what this one is? Sage. Yes. And? Rosemary? That's not rosemary. This one's rosemary. This one is rosemary. That's gonna be thyme. Yes. Nope. This one is... Oh, yeah. This is thyme. And then the last one is... Parsley. Parsley. Nice, guys. Yes. You know your herbs. So that's all chopped up. That's in with the bread. How do we... When we're doing it with fresh herbs, are you just using scissors and cutting them right off the stem there? How are you doing that? I will pull backwards off the stem and then with a knife, I'll chop. You want to chop them to get all the aroma. Yep, and we do a nice saute. I'm not going to have enough time to fully cook all that, so I already have some pre-cooked onion, celery, garlic. Put that in the bowl. Now, here is a big... Thing that a lot of people can mess up, and that's the amount of liquid. These chicken wings, by the way. Wait, Ryan, this is the important part. Oh, sorry. Hold that thought. This is the important part. Okay. Forgive me. So I'm using chicken stock, but if you want to go vegetarian, do vegetarian stock, veggie stock. Turkey stock would be great, too. Thank you. But whatever recipe you follow, don't just go dumping all the liquid in. Okay. We want to go a little at a time. Got it. Okay. So I'm going to do like a third of this or so. So are we eyeballing it to know how much to put in? Yeah. So this is how much the recipe might say, and we're going to use some of it. Okay. And we're going to mix it in, because up until now, we could have measured all these ingredients by heart, by how it looks. But this is important. It smells real good already. Yeah. We want to make sure it's wet, but not too wet. Okay. So now I know we need a little more. And this is how you're gonna get that good texture after you bake it, when it's not too mushy. And then we're gonna make sure we put it in a greased pan. I have a greased pan here. Okay. And after we put it in the pan, we're gonna let it sit for five minutes, just to make sure that we like the amount of moisture the bread has. Okay. Can I chat with you in the meantime? Yes. Okay. So, Soul Cafe, you guys are doing catering for Thanksgiving. Yes, we have a separate meat kitchen that we're doing our Thanksgiving carry-out menu with. And you can get this stuffing and turkey and game day foods. I guess why we have our chicken wings here. I'm telling you. Because the game's on on Thanksgiving as well. Quite delicious. Oh, my God. We have cauliflower bites. And do you know what potato burekas are? We have them right here next to the cauliflower. That is like mashed potatoes stuffed in puff pastry. Go get us one. Carb on carb. Go get us the potato bureka. Bureka. Bureka. Kelly, just real quick, remind everybody. Oh, buddy. Yeah, sure, take the whole thing. We had the perfect shot. Yeah. The Friendship Circle, what you guys are doing over there, including Soul Cafe and everything else, just tell everybody about the mission statement and how important it is. I work with young adults with special needs and they help with everything in the restaurant. They do so many skills. Yes. And they also work at Dakota Bakery. Well, I'm going to grab, this is the finished stuffing. You would bake this at 350 for 40 minutes and then uncovered for another 15 minutes. Ta-da! Oh, that looks good. That looks fantastic. Perfect. Yeah. That looks fantastic. I want to have a potato burek. Did you have one? I did. That cauliflower is lights out, too. I know. Kelly, thank you so much. Wow. FriendshipCircle.org. You can order catering from Soul Cafe. You can go and visit for breakfast or lunch. Yeah, we're open six days a week. Thank you. It's really good. Love it. Great job. Yep.