Stuffin’ muffins are on the way out, but I’m going to make them anyway

Published 9:57 am Thursday, November 10, 2011

When you do something as radical as making classic Thanksgiving dinner dishes fight it out to the finish in a bracket competition, ala NCAA March Madness, you’re already treading on sacred ground.

I mean, when you take a look at the fruit and veggies region of our fantastic Food Fight, you have to ask: Can we, as a civilized society, really pit a green bean casserole against an ambrosia salad in any sort of meaningful way if you and I aren’t talking about the identical versions of both dishes?

If you don’t know what ambrosia salad even is or if you’ve only had it made badly, what’s to become of all of us?

Not everyone makes green bean casserole the same way either.

Recipes vary widely.

Check out this green beans with spicy cranberry glaze recipe from Mill Creek foodie extraordinaire, Liz Bennett, who year ago provided Herald readers with an entire contemporary Thanksgiving dinner menu (also included in the link). Note: Bacon is involved in the green beans.

In the starches region, it’s pretty clear now that stuffin’ muffins will be eliminated in Round 1 of voting, which ends today at 3 p.m.

But do you even know what they are? Are you SURE you’d rather eat a crescent roll?

Wait!

Don’t answer that.

Now, I’ve never had a stuffin’ muffin, but they are — just in case you’re curious — basically your favorite stuffing, cooked in a muffin-tin pan so that each person at the table, instead of getting a sloppy scoop of stuffing, gets their own individual, crispy-on-the-outside, moist-on-the-inside muffin of stuffin!

Amazing, right? I have to try that this year. Food Network star Rachael Ray apparently popularized the concept: You can find her highly rated recipe, which includes apples, onions and a stick of butter, right here.

Now that sounds like a winner to me.

Alas.

Vote today by 3 p.m if you want to get in on Round 1.