Baked Cranberry Sauce
Marnie posted a link on twitter to this recipe on the Food Network this morning and even though we're not celebrating Thanksgiving until Friday this year, I went ahead and immediately made some changes and tossed my berries in the oven. Just over an hour from start to finish, this sauce can be made quite a bit in advance (the recipe says it keeps a few weeks in the fridge) and takes almost no active time. The result is a rich sauce, tangy and sweet, with just a hint of spice. Perfect for any dinner, and you can easily adapt the flavors to suit your meal. You could try changing out the juice and almond extract for tequila and cayenne pepper, with lime zest in place of the orange for a spicy kick on your turkey.
Baked Cranberry Sauce (adapted from the Food Network)
1 12 ounce bag of cranberries, fresh or frozen and thawed
between 1 and 1 1/8 cups sugar, depending on how sweet you like it.
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon orange zest
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 teaspoon almond extract.
Mushroom Soup
Now that we're at least partly settled in the new place, I am getting used to an electric stove/oven after almost five years of cooking with gas. I grew up with a gas stove, it's natural to me. Electric--especially the stovetop--is highly frustrating but I'm getting used to it again.
My husband loves soups. I'm not nearly as much a fan, I've been known to state my serious hatred of all thing soup-like. That's changing due to a nagging desire to eat different things. And so here is a delicious soup I made last week. It's a simple thing, less than a half hour from start to finish, and it is even better reheated a few days later.
Mushroom Soup
1 pound mushrooms, any variety, roughly chopped
2-3 slices thick cut bacon (about 1/4 pound), chopped
1/2 onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups beef stock
2 tblsp dry sherry
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
small amount of yogurt, sour cream or similar
In a 2 quart sauce pot fry bacon over medium heat until cooked, but not crispy. Add onions and garlic and cook until translucent. Add mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste and sautee until mushrooms have given up the majority of their liquid. Add in the beef stock, sherry, oregano and red pepper and heat until hot, but not boiling. Using a food processor or blender, puree the mixture leaving some texture (don't puree it until it's smooth.) Ladle into bowls and top with 1 tablespoon or so of your yogurt/sour cream. Serves 4.
The herbs are entirely interchangable. Rosemary and thyme would be good as well I think. If you have fresh herbs, feel free to substitute those. You want to aim for about 1.5-2 teaspoons of dried herbs or 1.5-2 tablespoons of fresh. I recommend pairing it with a salad and some crusty bread, you won't want to leave any of the soup behind in the bowl!
Baker Baker
There's a voice inside my head that says, well, if three kinds of cookies are good, eight or nine kinds of cookies are better. And that is how I have spent the past few days, dusted with flour, washing my stand mixer bowl over and over and over again in a baking frenzy to prepare for Christmas. Why so early? Well, some of my husband's family lives in Las Vegas and since we've been together I always bake up a Christmas package for them. Additionally, I'm prepared enough to ship out baked goods to other loved ones as well. This here is cranberry orange bread, and it is delicious and tangy.
Blueberry Jam
I'm busy with Christmas preparation pretty much every day now. One of yesterday's tasks was to make blueberry jam from the blueberries I froze back in July when they were in season. I prefer my jam made without white sugar, the more fruit the better. This jam consists of blueberries, concentrated grape juice (no sugar added) and a couple of tart apples (for pectin). It is delicious and while some of the jars will be sent off as jam, at least one jar is going to be the filling for some delicious rolled-up cookies.
Flakey Pie Crust
I took some tips from Smitten Kitchen this year, but with the notable exception of using my food processor.
I pulsed 2 1/2 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt in my food processor. Then I cut 2 sticks of butter into big cubes, then tossed those in the processor and pulsed twice. I dumped in a half cup of ice water [no cubes] and pulsed three times more. I do live in a very humid climate, so someone in a more dry climate might need more water. Everything should be pretty well mixed at this point, but there should still be large chunks of butter visible. I split the dough in half, tossed it in ziploc bags and put it in the fridge for 12 hours.
When it came time to make the pie, I mixed 3.5 pounds of peeled, cored and sliced apples with some sugar, some cinnamon, some lemon juice and a quarter cup of flour. I set the oven to preheat to 500 degrees and then assembled the pie. I handled the crusts one at a time and put the pieces back in the fridge when I wasn't using them. (I rolled the bottom crust and put it in the pie plate, then put it in the fridge while I rolled and cut the top crust. Then I put the top crust in the freezer while I filled the pie plate with the filling). Once I had sealed the pie up, I brushed some milk on top and sprinkled on some large crystal sugar.
I made sure I lined my oven rack with tin foil, in case of bubbling over and turned the oven down to 450 degrees and slid the pie in [I aim for the top of the pie to be around the middle of the oven, vertically]. Bake for twenty minutes until nice and golden, then turn the oven down to 375 degrees and baked it for another 30 minutes. [If I was using a metal or glass plate I might have baked it another 5-10 minutes on top of that, but this heavy ceramic plate continues to cook for awhile after it was taken out.] Remove from oven and cool, then enjoy! I think the heat stages in the cooking really helped the butter chunks to melt quickly and make flaky, crispy layers without burning the edges to a crisp.