My sweet, sweet gluten-free baker buddy, Antonella Zangheri, recently asked me to visit her kitchen at Krumville Bake Shop (www.krumvillebakeshop.com) to help her come up with a great gluten-free stuffing to puff up the coming holiday birds.  When I got there, she had made a big tray of croutons from her gluten-free focaccia which were to be the base of the stuffing.
(For those of you who don’t know it, focaccia, usually made with a high-gluten flour, is similar to pizza dough in texture and flavor.  Like pizza dough, it is quite simple – a combination of nothing more than flour, yeast, salt, olive oil, and water.  A thick slab of dough is generally fitted into a baking pan with a rim and then, using fingertips, poked in random spots all over the top to “dimple” it.  This keeps the dough from rising up and bubbling on the surface when it is baked.  The focaccia is often flavored by brushing with olive oil and then sprinkling the top with fresh herbs (often rosemary), aromatics such as garlic or olive, or shredded or grated cheeses prior to baking.  Antonella frequently makes her dough with add-ins, such as pitted olives or bits of soft cheese like feta – a slab of which fed us while we made the stuffing.)
Anto had made a large pot of rich broth the night before so my job was really quite simple.   She helped me chop a large onion, 3 stalks of celery, some fresh sage, marjoram, and thyme and we sautéed this mix in a bit of olive oil.  I took about 6 breakfast sausage from their casing and pulled the meat into chunks.  We added the sausage to the pot and continued to cook until the meat was beginning to color and the aromatics were soft.  I added a few sliced, dried apricots to the mix along with about 2 cups of the broth.
We put the focaccia croutons in a large mixing bowl and then added the hot sausage mixture, stirring to combine.  Some of the focaccia turned into mush and some stayed quite firm, a perfect combination for all-round great stuffing.  We oiled a baking dish and spooned the stuffing into it.  Into a 350ºF oven it went for about 25 minutes.  Crisp and golden brown – out it came.  We each had a plate of it and unanimously gave it 4 stars.  Antonella is now trying to figure out how to create a version to package to make a gluten-free stuffed turkey possible for her many devoted customers.  My suggestion – everybody should buy a few loaves of Krumville Bake Shop focaccia and turn it into croutons or crumbs and then follow our steps to make a terrifically satisfying holiday side dish.

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