Spiced Cranberry Sauce

Homemade cranberry sauce is so easy - I had no idea. I made it for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and it was much better than canned. The recipe is a work in progress - I'm not sure I have the exact combination of spices down yet - but here's the general idea.

Ingredients:

• 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
  
• 1 cup water

Directions:

1. Rinse cranberries.
2. Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook 5 -10 minutes, or until the cranberries have burst and the mixture is thickened.
3. Chill in the refrigerator 8 hours, or overnight, before serving.

A note about spices -
Fresh, whole spices are supposed to be best. You can buy whole nutmeg and cloves and grind them in a coffee grinder, if you want to get fancy-pants.

Thanksgiving '08 Sweet Potatoes

Before I forget - here is this year's attempt at the elusive -perfect- mashed sweet potatoes. But I think I might be getting closer.
Happy Thanksgiving!

INGREDIENTS:

4 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

PREPARATION:

Put sweet potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook for 20-25 minutes until tender. Drain sweet potatoes; add heavy cream, ginger, maple syrup, sea salt, and nutmeg. Mash until smooth.

Spoon the sweet potato mixture into a baking dish, bake uncovered at 350-degrees until warm, roughly 30 - 40 minutes.

Serves 6.

Spring Minestrone

Isn't life amazing? I have these moments, every now and then, when I find something that fills up my heart and I am so grateful, overjoyed that this new discovery - be it a song, a poem, an artist, (a soup) - is going to be with me forever.

So it is with Spring Minestrone.

I checked out Heidi Swanson's book, Super Natural Cooking, from the library and this recipe is my first try. She also has a website (with beautifully photographed edibles) that I am just dying to explore - 1o1 Cookbooks.

Love. ♥

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup medium-grain brown basmati rice, rinsed
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• 1 cup sugar snap or snow peas, trimmed and cut in half diagonally
• 8 spears asparagus, trimmed and diagonally sliced into 1-inch pieces
• 1/2 cup green peas, fresh or frozen
• Fine-grain sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, then add the shallots and garlic and saute for a couple of minutes until soft. Add the rice and cook, stirring for 1 minute, then add the stock and bring to a boil. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer until the rice is just tender, 35 to 45 minutes.

Add the sugar snap peas, asparagus, and green peas, and season with a few healthy pinches of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Simmer for another 2 or 3 minutes and serve immediately; this way the vegetables stay crisp and bright.

Serves 4

Recipe notes:
I had no asparagus or peas in stock so I used about 2 c. of snow peas. There is a recipe for vegetable stock in the book but I used a bouillon cube instead (much less work) and no basmati either - Uncle Ben's long grain brown.

Pumpkin Smoothies

Mmm... smoothies. The Pumpkin Spice Bread will leave you with some extra canned pumpkin. This is a great way to use it.

1/2 cup canned pumpkin
3/4 cup milk or vanilla yogurt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. brown sugar
4 ice cubes

Combine ingredients in blender and puree until smooth.

Pumpkin Spice Bread

I realize that I'm severely out of season with this one - but I bought the canned pumpkin last fall and never got around to making it. So here it is. I made this sometime last week and have been bringing it to work for my morning snack - healthier than cereal bars and much more filling. Pumpkin is also a great source of Vitamin A and beta-carotene.

Use canned pumpkin, not pumpkin pie mix in this recipe; the latter contains added sugar and more than twice the calories.

Serves 8 to 10
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 55 minutes

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1⁄4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 pinch salt
1⁄4 cup molasses
1⁄2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1⁄2 cup nonfat yogurt
1⁄4 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons shelled pumpkin seeds

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly spritz a 9" x 5" loaf pan with vegetable-oil spray and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine both flours, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt. In another mixing bowl, whisk together the molasses, brown sugar, pumpkin, egg, yogurt, and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir with a wooden spoon just to combine. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the pumpkin seeds on top.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Place pan on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes before turning bread out of pan onto a rack to cool completely.

Nutrition score per serving

(one slice): 283 calories, 9 g fat (30% of calories), 1 g saturated fat, 44 g carbs, 6 g protein, 3 g fiber, 93 mg calcium, 3 mg iron, 176 mg sodium

Recipe notes: I used all whole-wheat flour so it would be healthier and it was a little grainy.

Beef Stew

Winter isn't over yet. Eat stew. It will make everything better.

This is a mostly simple recipe but it takes a while. I cut the time in about half or so, I'd say, and it still turned out wonderfully.

Pauline Werner's Beef Stew

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 2 Hours

Ready In: 2 Hours 15 Minutes Yields: 6 servings

"A classic, simple beef stew recipe made with potatoes and carrots that my grandmother developed and that is now being enjoyed by a fourth generation in my family. Delicious with salad and a crusty bread."

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 pounds lean beef, cut into 1- 1/2 inch cubes 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 pinch salt 1 pinch ground black pepper 1 onion, diced

1 bay leaf 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks 4 carrots, cut into large chunks 3 stalks celery, thickly sliced

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Place the meat in a bowl, sprinkle with flour, and toss to coat. Transfer meat to pot, season with salt and pepper, and brown meat on all sides.
2.	Fill the pot with enough water to cover the meat, and mix in onion, bay leaf, and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for an hour or until the meat is tender.
3.	Stir in the potatoes, carrots, and celery. Continue cooking over low heat for 45 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Remove bay leaf before serving.

Recipes notes: I doubled the recipe but then didn't have any room left in the pot for potatoes so I skipped those. Cub sells "stew meat" - brilliant! Next time I'll cut it into smaller pieces before cooking. Also, truly lean meat might be a better option.

Sugar Cookies

These are super easy and so good. So take a stand and say 'no' to Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough this holiday season.

Unlike other sugar cookie recipes I found, this one doesn't require the dough to be refrigerated before using - which is good, because I generally want cookies now. I used cookie cutters to make little Christmas trees, stars and candy canes. Then I put red and green sugar sprinkles on. And then I ate a whole spoonful of cookie dough (because I'm a grown up now and no one can tell me not to!).

One note: I rolled out the dough to about 1/4" (with a soda can) and I think that was too thick. The dough spread when it baked and my trees and candy canes looked fat and bloated - just like I felt after eating 500 of them... (really, they're that good).

Merry Christmas!


Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Ready In: 25 Minutes
Yields: 48 servings

INGREDIENTS:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
2.	In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

source: allrecipes.com