Three rice stuffing

This is one of the things I make as a holiday dinner dish. It has lots of good colors, those wonderful autumn and winter cooking aromas, and it tastes really good. You can use either sausage, soy sausage (the kind that comes in tubes, not patties nor link style), or leave that part out and just add an additional pinch of salt, pinch of slightly crushed or bruised fennel seed, and extra pinch of sage or a couple of fresh sage leaves. And this also makes for amazing leftovers.

A total of three cups of cooked rice. I usually use 1 cup cooked brown rice, 1 cup cooked wild rice and 1 cup cooked long grain white rice. You can use any combination you like.
1 large red or yellow bell pepper, medium dice (sometimes I add a jalapeño or other hot pepper for some heat. Yetis may live in the cold, but we like heat in our food!)
½ medium onion, small dice or about 4-5 shallots, small dice
1 clove garlic, minced or ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
2 ribs celery, small dice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
pinch dried sage
pinch thyme
pinch rosemary
2-3 fennel seeds
a few pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup vegetable or poultry stock
chopped toasted walnuts (optional)
1/4 pound of good soy sausage (see note above) or 1/4 pound of good, easily crumbled sausage (optional - I like Lightlife's Gimme Lean soy Sausage Style product or Bob Evans' original flavor or sage roll sausage for this)

Heat a large, heavy bottomed skillet, preferably cast iron, over high heat with the vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, carefully add the soy sausage or traditional sausage in small pieces and stir frequently. If you use soy sausage, you will probably need to add an additional tablespoon of vegetable oil. Cook the sausage product through and then remove the sausage from the pan. Pour out most of the oil from the skillet, keeping about 1 tablespoon in the pan.

Return the pan to the heat, and add the celery, peppers, and onion. Reduce the heat to medium high and sauté the celery, bell pepper and onion until soft and the onion is partially translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Turn heat back up to high, add all spices, herbs, and salt and pepper and any optional ingredients, but not the cooked rice. Stir through on high heat for about 30 seconds. Add the stock and deglaze the pan.

Turn heat down to low or medium. Add cooked rice. Warm through and serve.

Serves 1-2 Yeti or 4-6 people as a side dish.