Cranberry Sauce With Port

I searched through my journal to find a copy of my cranberry sauce recipe. Evidently, I've never tried to write it down. I do have several process-y entries about it, including these snippets from Thanksgiving 2004:

Used food processor, because, well, have food processor, and shredded my Brussels sprouts and grated my Gruyere. Will also use food processor, because, well, have food processor, to slice potatoes for gratin. Will not use food processor for onions, because, well, have pride. ...

Have also made cranberry sauce. Told Mom about it. "Is it good?" she asked. It's cranberries, an orange, port, and honey. What could be bad about it? Also zested the orange, for use in the parsnips. ...

It's 3:19 now, and there's a glass of port in the living room calling to me in a quiet and syrupy way. "Wendy!" it calls. "Wendy! Time to relax for five minutes."

3:20 PM, and still no bra. ...

My cranberry sauce is too tart on its own, but is lovely in company with everything else, and a gravy packet is heresy, but if you use 1 cup water and 1/4 cup port instead of 1 1/4 cup water? The heresy tastes like heaven.

It's cranberries, an orange, port, and honey. Let's write it up a bit more, then.

Cranberry Sauce With Port

1 bag fresh cranberries
1 orange (zested, with zest removed for other side dish use)
1 cup tawny port
several tablespoons honey, to taste

Open cranberries, and wash in a colander. Get rid of any unsavory berries. In all my years of doing this, I've never had a truly unsavory berry pop up, but better safe than sorry. Peel and chop the orange. You can supreme it if you want, or if you have a chefly husband about who needs something to do with his hands and knives and time. Put fruit into a heavy sauce pan, add port and two tablespoons honey, and bring to a simmer. Simmer, uncovered, until most of the berries have burst and the sauce is starting to thicken. Dip a tasting spoon in the sauce, take out, let cool, and then taste to see if the sauce needs more sugar. Seriously, let the sauce on the tasting spoon cool. You don't need a burnt tongue to make Thanksgiving happy. Add more honey if you want, or don't. Take off heat, pour into the dish you'll serve the sauce from, cover with cling film, and pop it in the fridge to cool and set up some.

Great on Thanksgiving. Great on sandwiches (turkey, or peanut butter, or ham, or cheese...). Tasty tasty stuff.

This year's berries may well have ginger in them, too, because the ginger looked nice at the grocery store last night.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

Easy As Pie

Got an extra set of refrigerated pie crusts lurking around? Why not throw together another pie for the Thanksgiving feast? It'll take 5 minutes of prep time, and it's as tasty as it is easy.

Easy As Pie

1 21 oz can cherry pie filling
1 16 oz can whole cranberry sauce
3 T cornstarch
honest dash or five of cinnamon
prepared crust for 2-crust pie

Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix together first 4 ingredients. Line pie plate with one of the crusts, fill with cranberry/cherry mixture, cover with second crust. Seal crust, vent, and place in hot oven. After 20 minutes, shield crust edge with aluminum foil. Total baking time: approx. 50 minutes. It'll be golden and bubbly when it's done. Let cool on a rack for an hour or so. Don't cut into it until it's cool, or you'll have messy slices that don't look like pie so much as goop with bits of crust. Still tasty, though.

If using refrigerated crust, total prep time on this pie is less than 5 minutes.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Shallots with Bacon

It's Thanksgiving today in the U.S., and I'm going to be off at a good friend's house all day, cooking, drinking, eating, and being merry. Before that, though, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Thanksgiving (and other feast) dishes.

This first one should be prefaced with the statement "I Hated Brussels Sprouts When I Was Younger And These Sprouts Can Convert You To Brussels Sprouts Love, Too."

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Shallots with Bacon

2 lbs Brussels sprouts
1 shallot
6 strips high-quality thick-cut bacon

Preheat oven to 400°F. Take a 9x13 pan and lay out the bacon; nothing should overlap (trim if you need to to make sure of this), and put it in the oven (center-ish rack) for 10-15 minutes. While the bacon renders its fat and starts to crisp up, prepare your sprouts. To do this, peel off the loose and dark outer leaves, cut off the stem, and cut each sprout into quarters. Then, chop up your shallot.

When the bacon has gotten crispy (or, as crispy as you want to let it...I go for "cooked but still pliable"), remove it to a paper towel-lined plate. Toss the sprouts and shallots in the rendered fat in the 9x13 pan, and choose which way you're going with your bacon. You have two options:

1. Reserve the bacon until right before serving, crumbling it on top of the dish at the last minute.
   
2. Cut the bacon into lardons, and toss it back into the dish with the sprouts and shallots before roasting.

I tend to go with option #2.

Put the pan back in the oven, and let roast for 40-60 minutes, stirring once or twice during the process. They should be getting caramelized and yummy-smelling near the end, and a fork should go through them with little resistance.

Easy-peasy, and dirties very few dishes. A great go-to side dish for holiday meals.