Nature's Pride: Honeycrisp apple and sausage stuffing

Confession: I am obsessed with Thanksgiving foods. OBSESSED! My absolute favorite dish at Thanksgiving time however, is my dad's sausage stuffing. My sisters and I gobble it up. (LOL gobble)

So when Nature's Pride hosted a contest on Foodbuzz, I knew what I had to do. Recreate Dad's stuffing with a healthy twist and with fresh bread instead of breadcrumbs.

Through Foodbuzz's tastemaker program, I received a free coupon for a loaf of Nature's Pride bread.



I chose 12 grain because it's hearty, whole-wheat and full of flavor. Perfect for my stuffing!



I used 4 cups of bread cubes which equals 5 slices of bread.



Leaving the bread cubes out overnight so they harden up would work best but I didn't have a lot of time. I laid the cubes out on a cookie sheet, sprayed them with EVOO and toasted them in the oven. (400 degrees for 5-6 minutes but keep an eye on it.)



For the sausage, I used some sage pork sausage which I cooked with celery and red onion. I'm normally not a celery person but it gives this stuffing some delicious crunch.



Then I slowly add in the bread cubes, butter, broth and 1 diced honeycrisp apple. Put it in a baking dish and bake for 45 minutes.



The onions and the apple caramelize while cooking, leaving a fantastic sweetness throughout the stuffing.



And yes, I know stuffing isn't photogenic but MAN is it good! I ate this for dinner last night and for lunch today. YUM! Totally gets me in the mood for fall.

Want the recipe?

Ingredients

1 pound Sage Sausage (feel free to use pork, turkey, non-meat whatever!)
1 large red onion, diced
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 large Honeycrisp apple, diced
5 slices Nature's Pride bread, cubed and toasted
1 cup veggie broth (chicken is fine)
1/2 cup melted butter (I highly suggest Kerrygold butter, unsalted)
Salt to taste* (I didn't salt mine)

Cook sausage, onion and celery together in a large skillet. Make sure to crumble sausage while it cooks.

As soon as the sausage is cooked through, add in bread cubes, broth and butter. Stir to combine.

Add in honeycrisp apple pieces last, then transfer to a 9X13 inch baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Enjoy!

This post & recipe are part of a contest entry to win a trip to the Foodbuzz Festival in November.

Project Food Blog- Yep, us too.

I'll be honest here. We weren't sure if we wanted to participate in Project Food Blog or not. Then we went on a run and talked it over. We decided..."WHY NOT?" Food blogging is fun and we like a good challenge. Check out the website Project Food Blog if you are interested.



Hi! We're Andy and Amanda as some of you already know. Together we have created Two Boos Who Eat. A blog about our journey with food, healthy living and fun.



This is the thing, we both love food. We love to cook, we love to eat, we love to travel and experience new cultures. One of our mutual dreams is to travel full-time and hang out in different countries chatting up locals and finding out what they love to eat.



We've travelled together to Italy, Chicago, Hawaii, Wisconsin, ALL of California, Las Vegas and Arizona. Soon we will be visiting Spain, Italy, France and Switzerland with a group of students. We're pretty stoked, mostly about the food.





Blogging isn't a job for us. We aren't making a living off it. We do it simply because we love it. When Andy came up with the idea to write a food blog, we wanted to share with our friends and family. Neither of us ever imagined that we'd be actually making friends all over the country.



Events like the Foodbuzz Festival got us talking to other foodies. You can't even imagine how much fun it was! Last year we were newbies. This makes me ten times more excited for this year's fest.



Networking with bloggers, chefs and foodies is fantastic. I finally feel like other people "get" me.



Mostly we decided to enter because we're two ordinary people living our life exactly how we want to. We're learning more and more everyday and hope to learn through this challenge. I don't know if we expect to win, we just want to have fun. And I need an excuse to get pumped up about cooking!



What's the point if it's not fun?







If you want to check out our contestant profile, you can find it here.

Two Boos Who Eat Profile.

Did you enter Project Food blog?

Yakisoba at Pick Up Stix

Hey remember this post? I was lucky enough to receive a $50 gift card to Pick Up Stix via the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program. After subbing today, I was totally in the mood for some noodles.

Luckily for me, the new Dragon Deals Menu has a yakisoba noodle bowl for $4.99. It comes with Chicken, Beef, Shrimp, yakisoba noodles and veggies in a light sauce.



I added on an eggroll for a dollar.



The noodles are great. They remind me of ramen noodles from the days when I would eat top ramen all of the time. Except this noodles are even better. The shrimp was excellent.



And the eggrolls are light and crunchy. I love crunchy eggrolls. There is nothing worse than soggy chinese food in my opinion.



Also isn't my fortune sweet? I hope that's true!

Foodbuzz Day 2

So, you saw breakfast at the Ferry Building. After an hour or so of relaxing, Amanda and I made our way to the Metreon for the giant tasting event.

As you can see, the masses are hungry. Ravenous foodies can't let velvet ropes standing in the way of their food.



The first booth we stopped by was the Nature's Pride booth, where some lucky bloggers got to demo recipes. Brandi was showing off her Pumpkin French Toast. Yumtastic!



YUMTASTIC!!! Is pumpkin the new bacon? Everything is better with pumpkin.



Next up was delicious mini cupcakes. Cuppiecakes are my second best friend, next to cookies. Red Velvet was in order.





What is a great chaser for cupcakes? CEVICHE? Scallops, shrimp, and octopus. Amanda did not indulge. I did. It was pretty tasty. No wonder my stomach is in knots today. Too much food mixing.



Next up was a tasty pork and beef meatball.



Hooray Beer! There were three different breweries present, all with delicious adult beveragers. The first up was a Pilsner. You can't tell, but this is me happy.



Rogue Brewery from Oregon was there as well. Amanda and I always sampled from delights from 21st Amendment Brewery. I went with the IPA. Amanda had the Watermelon Wheat. The IPA was fantastic. My favorite of the day. Not too hoppy. Wonderful. I'm not a big wheat beer fan, but the Watermelon Wheat was good. Amanda enjoyed it and it seemed to be a big hit. I couldn't handle wine tasting on top of beer, so I didn't. Too bad, considering half the venders were wineries.





Beer in a wine glass? FOODBUZZ FAUX PAS AMANDA! I am surprised you weren't removed from the venue immediately. Get out the tar and feathers.



And what goes best with beer? Pretzels! Some amazing pretzels from Vibrant Flavors. Best thing about these was they had big flavor without being coated in salty flavoring. You don't get cheeto fingers. And yes, it says maple bacon. OMGOMGOMG!



Fantastic hot sauce from the All Spice Cafe. Amanda and I both loved the logo, which is the owners face with various chili peppers for eye brows and facial hair. Brilliant. I love hot sauce. I don't leave home without Tapatio. Is tapatio popular elsewhere?



The always amazing Amanda



Pretty sure I was drunk at this point. Food coma.



Those are the highlights. There were so much more and perhaps Amanda will post some of her favorites. A couple people mentioned that not enough food blogs have a male perspective. So I hope to give one. Furthermore, I have to say the whole weekend was inspiring. It is really pretty sweet being a part(even a super small part) of a community full of really sweet, awesome, and interesting people. The food was inspiring, the city was inspiring, and everyone we met(and even some we didn't!) are inspiring. So now I am taking a less behind the scenes role in this and a more up front role. So I hope you don't mind. More to come(I KNOW RIGHT?)!

More on the Foodbuzz Cocktail hour and Street Food

Andy and I are up early blogging in bed.



I just need to talk about this mac and cheese for a minute. It was spicy and delicious and kind of reminded me of the jalapeno mac and cheese we had at our wedding. Servers passed this around during cocktail hour.



Andy tried some of Big Daddy's beer. He enjoyed it.



Once we got to the street food, we headed straight for the beer.



How adorable is the logo?



I asked for half a glass of the wheat. I'm not a huge beer drinker and I really just wanted a taste. This was great! I love that it's organic.



Beers together. Two Boos with beer.





Next stop: Pumpkin Cupcakes! These were like heaven. I had a bite of Andy's and fell in love.



The lemonade cupcake was recommended to me, so I went with that. And it was a solid decision. I love lemon flavored anything really.



I wish I would have tried a red velvet.



half coffee ice cream and half vanilla ice cream. It's been way too long since I've had real ice cream.



Swag bags



Tacolicious provided us with delicious tacos. Andy tried a beef taco.



And I had chorizo and potato. Holy deliciousness from heaven!



And then came the savory pies from The Pie Truck.





Andy patiently waited for a pork sandwich while I grabbed some savory pies.





Raw cheesecake with lavendar and pomegranate. This was awesome. I've never had a raw cheesecake in my life and didn't know what to expect. It was the best thing I've put in my mouth in a long time! TWSS?



The elusive pork sandwich. It was huge!



Pie.



Beet salad.



Andy's first oyster.



And my final cupcake!

Time to go, we have tons more to do today!