Shimai and Chan Dressing

To prevent taking our grocery shopping to yet another store, my sister and I made up this recipe for dressing on the fly, and it actually turned out really great - even worth a repeat in the future.

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf wheat bread, sliced
• 8 slices pumpernickel bread, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 6 sticks celery, chopped
• 4 carrots, chopped
• 1 leek, chopped
• 1 lb bacon
• 8 oz mushrooms, chopped
• 1 apple, cored and chopped
• 1 pear, cored and chopped
• 1/2 c parsley, chopped
• 4-5 tbsp dried sage
• 1 large spring fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2 tbsp dried thyme
• 5-6 cups chicken broth, seperated 
• salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Toast all the slices of wheat bread in toaster or oven until crispy. Break up the toast and the pumpernickel into bite size crumbles and put in a large mixing bowl.
3. Heat the olive oil and butter in a large pot until the butter stops making bubbles, and sauté the onion, celery, carrots and leeks until the onions are transparent. During the sauté flavor with some salt and pepper and add some of the parsley. Set aside to cool.
4. While the vegetables are sautéing, cook the bacon to be crispy and set aside to cool. 
5. Discard most of the bacon grease but leave a coating in the skillet. Sauté the mushrooms in the remaining grease.
6. To the bowl of bread add the sautéed vegetables, crumbled the bacon, mushrooms, apple, pear, remaining parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and about 1 cup of broth. Mix well. Add more broth if the mixture is dry.
7. Cover a large casserole dish or roasting pan in aluminum foil (for easy clean up), and pour the dressing mixture in. The dish should be large so that the dressing is only about 1/2 deep. 
8. Cover lightly with another sheet of foil and bake in oven for about 30-40 minutes, adding additional cups of broth during the cooking time to keep the entire thing moist. Remove the top foil and brown for another 10 minutes. Note: if your dressing is a thicker layer, then you may need to cook it longer to heat well all the way through, but continue to add more broth to keep it moist.

Note on labels: I think this would be a perfectly good recipe by leaving out the bacon and using vegetable broth.