Hi all! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I sure did! I feasted with my family on some wonderful dishes. My Aunt made Ina Garten’s twice baked potatoes with rosemary sprigs on top (I think its from Ina’s newest cookbook), green beans made in one of three ways my husband will eat them, a delicious pinot grigio gravy, stuffing with pine nuts and persimmon bread with ripe and ready persimmons from her garden. Yummers!
We also had my Stuffed Jalapeño Skins that I made back in August, per request. For me, they were a little too spicy this time, but my husband likes them this way. If you like your jalapeños with the heat dialed to 11, cook the jalapeños for 10 minutes instead of 15 so they aren’t totally cooked through. Fire party in your mouth!
We ended the night with an advanced screening of Into the Woods, which comes out in December. Much fun was had by all! Most importantly, we all ate a lot of food and caught up with each other’s lives. I am so grateful to spend this holiday with my family.
Now that Thanksgiving is over, we all have lots of leftovers. Am I right? For me, that’s my favorite part of the Thanksgiving feast. I love to share recipes and find new and creative ways to use them. For example, stuffing…how would it taste roasted in a bell pepper? Or maybe stuffed in sole or turned into a frittata?
My favorite seasonal foods revolve around cranberries (meet Cookie Monster’s twin, Cranberry Monster). I love combining tart with sweet and savory, a common theme throughout my recipes since I enjoy contrasts. Needless to say, I like to have a fresh batch of cranberries readily available. I also tend to buy out stores of their cranberries and freeze as many bags as I can until they’re back in season. Call me crazy, but I love my Cranberry-Orange smoothies and I love finding new ways to use leftover cranberry relish.
I’ve made cranberry relish in the past with coconut sugar, which is pretty awesome and very sweet. However, this year, I really wanted to cut back and try to use natural sugars as much as possible. Here is the super easy recipe I created for this year:
Ingredients
- 8 oz bag of fresh cranberries
- 1 orange, sliced, with the peels on, into quarters. Remove a peel from 1 quarter of the orange
- 8-10 fresh and pitted dates (depending on how sweet you like it)
Instructions
- Puree in a food processor or high speed blender to desired consistency.
If you aren’t a cranberry-aholic like me, here are some ideas to reuse that awesome cranberry relish, sauce or jelly.
Alright…off to decorate our humble abode with lots of Christmas spirit (and cookies)! Hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving. Share your favorite recipes below! I’d love to know what to try for Christmas.
Finally got my cranberry orange relish made, but alas with the last of the dreaded open bottle of Agave. After reading your article on how it is as bad for the liver as high fructose, you can bet it will not be in my shopping cart ever again. I hope my liver can stand the one more bottle I have left from Costco.
You don’t say how to top the sweet potato burger with the relish. Is it just a dollop on top?
I love cranberry-orange relish. This time I used seedless Clementines. Yummy.
Thanks again for all your very welcome recipes and instructions. Keep it coming!
Marjorie Stradinger recently posted…A cup of coffee on the deck
Yes, smear some relish in your burger and smash it in there till you have a nice layer. So good! Thanks for posting!
Foodscape recently posted…6 Ways To Use Leftover Cranberry Relish
I love the idea of using leftover cranberry in pancakes or a yogurt topping. Duh, why didn’t I think of that =) What a great idea. I really like the cute little infographic pic, really helpful! And when you read about just how good cranberry is for you, you just got to eat up.
Laura recently posted…How to make a fresh Christmas wreath