Apple Cranberry Stuffing

My favorite ingredients strike again; I just love the combination of apples and cranberries. And this fall I’m definitely satiating my craving for them. For Thanksgiving I like to make two different kinds of stuffing, regular (onions, celery, bread and spices) and this apple cranberry version. Last year, Mr. Surly was a bit skeptical of the apple version but this year he was all about it. I have made a couple batches since Thanksgiving of this deliciousness.

When I make stuffing I don’t follow a recipe. I just throw everything together in ratios I like and bake it. I love stuffing. I also love how easy it is to make. Below is the general recipe I use.

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

I was thrilled when Claire asked me to be a part of her and Taylor's Merry Mondays. I was very excited to see cranberries were the first featured ingredient. I love cranberries and have made lots of delicious dishes including them recently.

I have been trying to plan out my holiday treats, and the options are endless. She didn’t specify whether we were suppose to make sweets or savories with the week’s ingredient. I’m assuming a dessert/treat since it’s holiday baking time. I had half a bag of cranberries left over from Thanksgiving that I hadn’t decided what to do with. While flipping through this year’s Cook’s Illustrated holiday baking magazine I saw this recipe for cranberry upside down cake. I’ve never made, nor eaten an upside down cake. I’m not sure why, I guess they never appealed to me very much. I thought it would be fun to try something new. I didn’t want a big 9” cake, since I knew the two of us wouldn’t be able to eat it, so I halved the recipe.

I tried a piece as soon as it was slightly cooled, and it was okay. However, when I went to have a piece a day later, it was so much better. (I had it sitting, covered, at room temp). I also added a (generous) dollop of whipped cream. Yum, this was a tasty, different kind of dessert, more tart than sweet. Which is perfect for the holiday season when I'm usually overloaded on sweet treats. I wish I had thought to put a splash of bourbon in the cranberry topping, that would also have taken it up a notch. Why is it that bourbon makes everything taste better? Also, I split this up between two pans, and that made the cake a bit too thin in my opinion. So next time I’ll just keep in all in one 4½ inch pan.

Baked Cranberry Sauce

I love cranberry sauce. Mr. Surly, however, does not. I did not want to have a Thanksgiving dinner without cranberry sauce, but I didn’t want to make it just for me since I would only eat a tiny portion. I found this Bobby Flay recipe that claimed to have non-cranberry sauce lovers gobbling it up. With bourbon as an ingredient how could this not be fantastic.

I have a generous bar hand and added 1/3 c bourbon. It had a strong, distinct taste of bourbon, a little too strong for me. No problem, though, I just popped it back in the oven for a few minutes to cook off some of the alcohol.

I’m happy to say this is getting eaten up rather quickly. I really like Bobby Flay’s recipes, I might need to look into buying one of his cookbooks.

Cranberry Nut Quinoa Salad

I have a bunch of quinoa I need to eat. I would, for some reason, buy quinoa each trip to the grocery store, forgetting I already had some. This happened for about 3 consecutive trips. I don’t have any excuse for this, other than quinoa sounded good when I saw it on the grocery store shelf, then I’d go home and discover I already had some in the pantry—oops. Desperate to use some of it, I tried to make looking for interesting quinoa recipes. I came across this recipe someone gave me last year during my gluten free/vegan elimination diet phase.

For a recipe with few ingredients this was so good. I served it in roasted acorn squash “bowls.” The quinoa was just as delicious for lunch the next day minus the squash. I love just about anything that includes balsamic vinegar.

This would be a nice, different side dish for Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I can't believe it's this week! I thought I had another week to prepare and plan. This is going to be a busy week in the kitchen. Is anyone else freaking out about Thanksgiving dinner?

Stuffed Acorn Squash

This was my dinner the other night. For most people this would probably be a great side dish, but I could only eat one of these before I was full. I just threw together a bunch of stuff I had in my fridge. I didn't measure anything out exactly, I just added things until I had what looked good and I seasoned to taste. Oh my, for being thrown together this was so good. I plan on making this for Thanksgiving, maybe adding an apple and some walnuts (which I didn't have when I made it this time). This reheats really well, so it can be made in advance and reheated, which for me is a bonus. The brown sugar crusted squash is well complimented by the slightly tart cranberry stuffing. Yum.

Cranberry Apple Walnut Crunch

I know I have talked about how my doctor has requested me to eat lots of sugary, fatty dessert and how I have done my best to follow this. But eating cakes, tartlettes, ice cream, etc gets old pretty fast when you’re eating them every day. Plus, I have to prepare and bake all these treats. Thank goodness it’s now Halloween season. I loaded up on candy and have been snacking on that all throughout the day. I bought one of those fun, plastic jack-o-lantern trick or treat holders, and I keep it on the table beside the couch so it’s near me and I can reach over and eat some candy whenever I want. But this post isn’t about candy, nor my snacking on it; it’s about me finally getting in the kitchen and baking something.

Our weather temperatures are starting to drop to a comfortable mid-70 degrees, so it’s actually starting to feel like fall (at least in the mornings and evenings). Trying to get into the spirit of the season, I thought I’d make some kind of fall-ish dessert. I love cranberries and decided to make some kind of dessert using them. I didn’t really follow a recipe, I just looked at some recipes I had for fruit crisps, cobblers, and crumbles and kind of combined some of them to make this. It turned out so tasty. I wish I would’ve have made some whipped cream or bought some ice cream for topping, that would have made it even better.