Pete's Sausage Dressing

According to an old redneck I used to hang out with (bless him) it is properly called 'stuffing' only when it is served out of the cavity of an animal. Turkey or whatever. If it is cooked and served as a side dish, it is 'dressing'.

2 mild italian sausage links
1 large onion, diced
3 or 4 celery ribs, diced
fresh sage, parsley, rosemary, minced
salt & pepper
a bit of olive oil

about 1/2 recipe of leftover cornbead

Smash up the sausage links and fry them in a large heavy pan. Discard the casings if you like, they're sorta rubbery. When the sausage is mostly done, add the onions. Depending on how fatty the sausage is, you may need to add a drop or two of olive oil. Stir a bit, and when the onions are starting to go transparent, add the herbs and celery, stir, cover.

At this point, I cut the cornbread into rather thick slices and toasted them in a mostly dry skillet. You could skip this step, but I like the toasty bits from re-frying the bread. Turn the bread slices to brown both sides if you do this.

Once the celery is tender, add the cornbread to the pot and smash it up with a spoon or something.

Serve with squash. Pete usually does his mashed, like potatoes, but I like mine like this:

1 butternut squash
salt, pepper, olive oil

I use butternuts because they are very easy to peel with a potato peeler, and they have a very small amount of guts as compared to other kinds of squash. So, peel one, scoop out the guts, and cube the squash. Toss with a good amount of olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper. Bake on a sheet for as much as an hour at 375. The time varies from 1/2 hour up, depends on how big your cubes are and how large your squash was.

I think goat cheese would be very nice with this.