Leftover Cranberry Sauce? Finally a Dessert Recipe

I love Cranberry Sauce.  Unfortunately, I am the only one who eats it.  So when Thanksgiving comes I buy one can of cranberry sauce eat one slice of the  jellied variety or a spoonful of the whole berry sauce and the rest is leftover. It made me kind of sad.  I even thought of giving up the sauce this year but held my ground.  It is so hard to break the habit. 

This year I bought the whole berry and was so happy when I found this recipe on allrecipes.com.  Because it is disguised as a dessert they actually ate it.  Lucky me I can have my cake and eat it too with cranberry sauce thank you very much!  Give it a try.  See what you think.

Cranberry Squares

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter or margarine
1 egg
2 cups cranberry sauce

PREPARATION

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter or margarine until the lumps are no larger than peas. Stir in the egg just a little bit at a time but allow the mixture to stay crumbly.

Sprinkle half of the mixture in an even layer in the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan. Pack down into a solid crust.  Spread the cranberry sauce over the crust. Crumble the remaining mixture over the cranberry sauce.

Bake for 40 minutes in a 350 degree preheated oven until the top is golden brown.  Cool before slicing bars.

Picking Wine. Always my Dilema

I found this article in The Washington Post. This is my kind of article and Thanksgiving is my holiday.  I love it.  Why?  It is all about being around people and by people I mean your family or your good friends that substitute as your family. No gifts involved.

For the most part, I've got the menu planned.  Of course it all starts with the turkey and then their are the sides. The sides are the most fun because their are so many possibilities.  If your family has been gathering for a very long time there are sides that always appear on the menu.  Two sides  show up on our table EVERY year. One is the good old green bean casserole. The green bean casserole has a history.  It has been around since the 1950's.  In case you don't know the history I am including the link. History of the Green Bean Casserole.

I imagine some of my Foodie friends have eliminated this dish from their side dish selection but I just can't. I usually kick it up a notch by using fresh green beans instead of canned or frozen but it is still green bean casserole.  Then there is the ever present mashed potatoes, so simple but so good!  When my Mom was making Thanksgiving a dish that would pop up was pineapple slices in red jello.  You drain the pineapple juice leaving the slices in the can. Make the red jello one cup hot water and the rest the pineapple juice from the can.  Add more water if needed to make another cup. Then pour jello into can with the pineapple slices.  Refrigerate until firm and then right before you are ready to sit down you turn the can upside down on a plate, cut between the slices and yum yum your side. How many of you remember this recipe?

I am still working on my list of sides for this year and as I decide I will share them with you.  Food aside, the wine is always a hard choice for me.  I am getting better at picking wines but I am not there yet. Some like white, some like red.  The author of the article says open them all.  Each of them are bound to go with something right.  It is such a simple concept.  He also has other good suggestions so you may want to take a look at the article.  Click on the link What Wine Should I pick ?

Cooking Without a Recipe, What a Gas!

I recently enrolled in a local cooking class which was a bold move for me. Cooking was never one of my favorite pastimes since food is not my friend.  But a lot of my friends are serious foodies and excellent cooks. While they simply whip something wonderful up, I angst every time I entertain.

The class was entitled Everyday Cooking Without a Recipe. The Chef, Jeff Olson.  It was exactly what I was looking for, a chance to escape the confines of a recipe a metaphor for the boring confines of everyday life. This appealed to me since I like to cook but I don't always want to cook with a recipe.  I want to explore what I hope is my more creative side.  When you work with computers you are always trying to logically work things out. For once I don't want to trouble shoot I just want to create.

One of the things he discussed in the beginning of the class was how to use a chef's knife.  I asked him to go over that because I wanted to learn how to cut up things like onion and garlic without taking my knife off the cutting board. If you have watched the cooking shows you know what I mean.  They just chop chop chop with the front of the knife on the cutting board, just lifting the handle up and down.  There is a certain fluidity when a cook knows how to properly use their knife. I can now say I have a better understanding of the chef's knife. 

He shared a couple of tips about a cutting knife.  He preferred a high carbon stainless steel knife with a full tang.  By tang I do not mean the drink the astronauts bring to the moon or your Mom use to make for you for breakfast.  Full tang means one continuous piece of steel or stainless steel.  Also a riveted handle is good.  But most important, the knife has to feel good in your hand.  The knife I used in the class was lovely.  When I came home I threw out my chef's knife and I am now searching for a new and improved one. 

Even though I learned good knife skills, cutting is still not my favorite part of cooking especially if we are talking onions. My love for kitchen gadgets led me to the Kuhn Rikon.  You can click on the picture in the upper left hand corner on the top to get more information on the device.  It is a Swiss pull cutting device meaning no electric just your arm to pull the cord attached to blades.  I have included some pictures for you to see what it can do.  But I must warn you.  The blades are incredibly sharp as I found out when I was cleaning them and sliced my finger.

These are the veggies I wanted to cut

In this picture I have quartered the onion so it would fit.

This is what the veggies look like after one pull.

This picture shows me starting to pull the cord.  You pull it like you would a lawn mower pull.  It adds a little exercise to my kitchen routine.

I highly recommend it.  It saves me so much time in the kitchen.  For more information click on this link Kuhn Rikon Swiss Pull Chop

Brownies for a Cold Wet Sunday

My daughter and I decided to make brownies this evening but I did not have all the ingredients to make them from scratch.  Luckily there was a brownie mix in our pantry.  But who said the brownies had to be boring.  My daughter decided to add additional ingredients once they were baked to make them more cheerful.  So five minutes before they were finished baking she took them out of the oven and sprinkled the top with miniature marshmallows.  Then she put them back into the oven until the marshmallows were soft and then took them out of the oven again.  She sprinkled the top with mini M & M's and added some Hershey's syrup.  I think they look fun to eat.

Everything Pumpkin including beer

For all of you who like pumpkin and like beer check out the link below for 11 pumpkin beers.

I am pumpkin obsessed but I hesitate at pumpkin flavored beer.  Tell me what you think


http://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/the-ultimate-guide-to-pumpkin-beer-11-brews-ranked-from-worst-to-best/ss-BBaZFuY?ocid=ASUDHP#image=