RECIPE: Tart Cranberry-Orange Sauce, from Debbie Graff

By popular demand... I'm posting my favorite cranberry sauce. My bestest girlfriend Debbie made me sample this (despite my insistance that I DID NOT like cranberry sauce).

And I was blown away... who knew I liked cranberry sauce?!

Tart Cranberry-Orange Sauce

Ingredients
4 cups fresh cranberries (about 1 pound)
1 cup orange juice, divided
3/4 cup sugar
3 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
4 teaspoons finely grated orange peel
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice


Instructions
Combine cranberries, 3/4 cup orange juice, sugar, cinnamon sticks, orange peel, lemon juice, lemon peel and allspice in heavy large saucepan. Bring to boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until berries burst and liquids start to thicken, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Mix in remaining 1/4 cup orange juice. (Can be made 4 days ahead. Cover and chill.) Discard cinnamon sticks, transfer to bowl, and serve.

For more of a relish, reduce amount of orange/lemon juice by half... and watch while mixture boils so that it doesn't boil dry.





enjoy your time in the kitchen...

a Christmas tradition in our house...

It's only two ingredients... and that's all it needs to be...



Tonight my hero-of-a-hubby came home to baked goodies on every flat surface in the kitchen... as he scanned the room his eyes didn't even sparkle. UNTIL he saw these in the works! And he said - "I know you're baking for Christmas goodies (meaning, to be boxed up and put into packages being shipped out of state) but those aren't leaving the house!"

I promised to make him a batch all his own...

And this is how it's done... open a bag of pretzels. This brand is my favorite!



Melt the vanilla flavored candy coating (this brand is also my fav - and I've tried MANY Others... none stand up to "Log House"... they should be paying me for these endorsements...) ... melt it according to the instructions on the back. It's THAT simple...



Find something in your kitchen to pick up the pretzels - you can use a chop stick, or a butter knife... tonight I used a skewer.



Keep dropping in the pretzels and flipping them over to coat them on both sides... pick up and transfer to parchment paper. It's a good idea to let them dry... BUT, if you happen to find some broken pretzels, enjoy them before they dry! It's Heaven... simply Heaven!

Each bag of pretzels this size goes through approximately 2 trays of candy coating. And each tray of candy coating will coat about 60-70 of these "tiny twists"... and to think, my hubby gets a batch all his own!



enjoy your time in the kitchen...

RECIPE: Minty-Chocolate-Goodness

So, how could you go wrong with any of the above?! I mean it... tell me, how could one go wrong with mint and chocolate?!

Today I'm doing some Christmas baking... I'm putting together boxes of goodies to go along with presents to the family in Oregon and Texas. In the boxes will be a trio of chocolate goodies... THESE cookies, dipped pretzels and Buckeyes. Oh yum...

First - chop up a mound of Andes mints. And when I say a mound, I'm being literal. Try not to eat any of them while you're unwrapping them...

Second - mix the 4 ingredients (super easy)... and throw in the mound of mint-chocolate goodness.



Third - line up some heaping tablespoons of dough and slide it into the oven.



Fourth - cool on rack. Again, try to repress the urge to pick up a warm cookie... oh, who am I kidding?!

Minty-Chocolate Goodness Cookies
Recipe by Lori Tisdale

Ingredients
1 box Devil’s food cake mix
½ cup butter (one cube)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
6-8 ounce bag of Andes mints, chopped

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix all ingredients well: butter, eggs, vanilla and cake mix. Stir in chocolate chips. By the tablespoon, scoop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes. Cool and serve.

Variations:
- Instead of mint candy, use chocolate chips (or any other kind of chip).
- Add 1 tablespoon of coffee granules to dough mix... the coffee flavor really pulls out the chocolate flavor.

enjoy time in your kitchen...

RECIPE: Krumkake, a Norwegian treat

The Haraldsen family shared in a Norwegian tradition this week. We made Krumkake. And I was fortunate enough to have inherited this beautiful iron, forged in Norway. My Grampa, Erling Haraldsen, passed this along to me. It had originally been his mother's.



And the recipe was written in her hand-writing. Once you bake the krumkake over the heat, it is rolled into a conical shape on the wooden piece below. They are smaller and flakier than waffle cones, but can be enjoyed in the same way. Yummy...







Grampa instead used an electric iron so we could get through the batter mix faster... here you will see his process.


Thank you, Grampa for sharing this tradition with me. I will treasure this gem for a long time.

Krumkake Cookies
Recipe from Great Grandma (Jenny) Haraldsen

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
½ cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
3 eggs
½ cup whipping cream
1 ½ cup flour

Instructions
Beat eggs and sugar until light. Add vanilla, melted butter, cream and flour. Set iron over medium heat and test with small drop of dough. Drop 1 teaspoon in the iron at a time. Cook until light brown and roll on a pin or make them like a cone.

(Given to Helen Haraldsen May 1965 during a visit.)



enjoy your time in the kitchen...

Cary's English Toffee

I lead with the pictures because they speak louder than words for this post... my friend Dina (Eugene, OR) had two of these boxes delivered to me today. This continues to be one of my favorite sugar fixes... Cary's.

And they are literally melt-in-your-mouth goodness... thank you, Dina!!! You made my day! In fact, you made all of the days in between now and when they are all gone...


enjoy your time in the kitchen...

RECIPE: Red Lobster's Cheddar Biscuits

Several weeks ago I tried out a new recipe... cheese muffins. And while we liked them (who WOULDN'T like them with 3 cups of cheese in the mix?!) my hubby said "Eating these makes me want the cheesy biscuits from Reb Lobster."

(Silence... )

I ask "Red Lobster has good cheese biscuits?"

(More silence...)

Hubby says "YEAH!" (enter sarcastic tone here)

I say "I'll have to try those. I've never been there."

(LONG, LONG silence...)

Hubby stops what he's doing, turns on his heels and yells in disbelief "You've NEVER eaten at Red Lobster?!" (And because of the high-pitch in his voice I think a glass in the cupboard shattered... )

Long story short... a few days later he took me to dinner. We ate good, including a few baskets of cheesy biscuits. And our wonderful waitress even brought me a bag of biscuits to take home for "dessert"! (Wait a minute - did someone tell her I eat bread for dessert?!)

So a few days later I found the recipe and tried it out for myself. And wow... I mean, WOW! These will become a normal part of our recipe book, with fingerprints smudging the corners of the paper, and, and... I don't care... it's all worth it!

Recipe I found online: cheesy biscuits





Cheddar Biscuits
Recipe from Red Lobster

Ingredients
2 ½ cups Bisquick baking mix
¾ cup cold whole milk
4 tbsp. cold butter (1/2 stick)
¼ tsp. garlic powder
¼ tsp. kosher salt
1 heaping cup of grated cheddar cheese

Brush on top:
2 tbsp. butter, melted
¼ tsp dried parsley flakes
¼ tsp. garlic powder
Pinch salt

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine Bisquick with cold butter in a medium bowl using a pastry cutter or a large fork. Don’t mix too thoroughly, the butter should be about the size of peas. Add cheddar cheese, milk, salt and garlic powder. Mix by hand until combined, but don’t over mix.

Drop approximately ¼ cup portions of the dough onto ungreased cookie sheet using ice cream scoop.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes or until lightly golden brown on top.

When you take the biscuits out of the oven brush on 2 tbsp melted butter in which you've stirred in 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon dried parsley flakes and pinch of salt.



enjoy your time in the kitchen...

Jewels from my neighbor's garden...

Aren't these jewels gorgeous?! My neighbor, Bob, left these on our doorstep tonight while we were out having dinner. And when I reached my hand in the bag I could feel the tomatoes were still warm from hanging in the sun on the vine. Too bad I wasn't so full from dinner... I wanted to cut one open and enjoy it!

Yes, they will be gone within a few days... how I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE bold tomatoes.

THANKS BOB!!! You're a great neighbor!