Apricot, cranberry, and walnut stuffing for poultry

I'm still busy most days digitizing our collection of music CDs. I'm using iTunes for Windows, and it's going well. It has taken me some time to figure out how it all works, and the task is complicated because I want to have copies of the whole collection on two different computers — mostly as backups of each other, in case I mess up and delete something, or have a hard disk failure. I don't want to have to start over.

So far I have nearly 5,000 songs in the database, which takes up nearly 25 GB of disk space on each computer. I'm about two-thirds of the way through, I think.

Meanwhile, here's the recipe for that bread stuffing with dried fruit and walnuts that I made on Sunday. It's good, and Christmas is coming.

Apricot, Cranberry, and Walnut Stuffing

1 lb. (450 g) cubed white bread
1 cup dried apricots, chopped
½ cup dried cranberries
1½ cups walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
1 tsp. dried thyme
2 tsp. orange zest
1½ sticks melted butter (6 oz. or 180 g)
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 onions, chopped
6 oz. (180 g) cubed smoked pork or ham
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups (500 ml) chicken or vegetable broth
Salt and pepper

Spread the bread cubes on a baking sheet and cook them in a 350ºF (180ºC) oven until lightly browned. Transfer bread cubes to a large bowl, combined with the dried fruit, orange zest, toasted walnuts, and thyme.

Heat 4 Tbsp. butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the celery, onions, and pork or ham. Cook, stirring, until lightly browned. Stir in the rest of the butter and let it melt.

Mix the celery, onion, and ham mixture and melted butter with into the bowl with the bread and fruit. Mix well. Stir in the beaten eggs and moisten the mixture with the broth. Season with salt and pepper and stir it all up well.

Transfer the stuffing to a baking dish. Cover with foil and bake at 350ºF (180ºC) for 40 minutes. Uncover, increase heat to 400°F (200ºC) and bake until browned, 8–10 minutes longer.

You could use other kinds of dried fruit (raisins, apples, prunes) or nuts. A U.S. cup, for those who aren't American, is 8 fluid ounces or 250 ml, by the way. This stuffing would be good with roast pork as well, but you might want to leave out the ham. The picture above shows the stuffing before it's baked. Yesterday I posted a picture of it all cooked and being served at the table.