Back to Cranberry's Roots

When I was home for Thanksgiving I realized something..I had never had home made cranberry sauce. At our table had always been the wiggly can-shaped stuff. I voice this concern to my dad, who came home from grocery shopping the next day with two bags of fresh cranberries and told me to "go for it". When I realized I didn't have a recipe I set to work, and a quick google search yielded this result.

The infamous turkey plates

I modified my version slightly. Upon tasting, the sauce was way too tart from the cranberries and orange juice so I added a bit of extra sugar, but I suppose this could be remedied by using all water or putting in extra sugar or honey in the first place. It's all up to personal preference though!

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I forgot to snag some picture of the actual sauce but I almost didn't have a chance..there wasn't any left after dinner! My parents told me that I "won" Thanksgiving because my dish did the best. Let's hope I can continue this win streak at Christmas!

Here's my modified recipe!

Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients: 1/2 cup fresh orange juice 1/2 cup water 1 tsp minced fresh ginger 1 tsp minced orange zest 1/4 tsp cinnamon 12 oz bag of fresh or frozen cranberries 1/2 cup honey Sugar to taste

Directions:

1. Bring orange juice, ginger, zest and cinnamon to a boil on high heat in a medium saucepan.
2. Rinse cranberries and add once liquid is boiling. Reduce heat to medium and cook uncovered for about 10 minutes.
3. Add crushed pineapple and honey. Remove from heat and cool.

Taking on Luna

Energy bars seem to be the latest craze. The supermarket shelves are stocked with millions of different kinds. Clif? Luna? Which to choose? These are great for a quick on-the-go snack and as someone with a crazy schedule I can appreciate that.

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But as someone with a soy allergy I can't appreciate their crazy list of ingredients..most energy bars contain some sort of soy, and while my allergy is mild, I prefer to stay away..I don't want to have to bust out the EpiPen.

When I decided that I wanted to try making my own energy bars at home I found tons of recipes for LaraBars (which I love and will probably post about at a later date) and for Clif Bars (which were ok but I wasn't super interested in making). I wanted to try Luna Bars - the ones I've tried tasted great and the just seemed fun to make. I found ONE recipe! In all of the interwebs..only one. Of course it was from the fabulous Chocolate Covered Katie! I eliminated the protein powder and chocolate and used honey as my sweetner. I think I'm going to try again with some maple syrup - yum! The original recipe can be found here.

I stored mine in the fridge after taking them from the freezer and cutting them. They were good! They tasted like healthy peanut butter rice krispy treats..and I was perfectly ok with that!

Food Day Cooking

As Kelli mentioned here this past Monday was Food Day! So of course I spent my whole day in the kitchen!
I made both soup and quiche for the first time. Very exciting! I used this recipe for the quiche because I'm not a huge crust person. It was delish! I need to improve my crust-shaping skills but other than that it was eggy and cheesy goodness..with some veggies of course ;)

And as far as the soup goes..I didn't really use a recipe. Oops. I had some kale left over so I put that into a pot with some veggie broth, let it simmer for a bit and then added roasted butternut squash, white beans, broccoli and carrots - yum!

Milk and Cookies Updated

Ok..Milk and cookies..doesn't that just bring you back to being a kid and after-school snacks? Yum. Well cookies are fantastic as they are but why not give them a healthy boost? Whole grain cookies..yes please. Kelli and I work for Sargent Choice which is the healthy dining program at BU and they have a ridiculously good whole grain peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe. This past weekend I spent probably half of my time in my kitchen and I decided that it would be a perfect time to bake some. There was one small catch..I've been recently diagnosed with acid reflux so I'm not supposed to be eating chocolate right now. Sad as that may be, it turned out pretty well because it lead me to making whole grain peanut butter butterscotch cookies. Yup. These might be better than the original. So delicious!
I've provided some lovely photos below plus my updated version of the recipe. Enjoy! What are your favorite cookies to make?

Whole Grain Peanut Butter Butterscotch Cookies

Adapted from Sargent Choice Whole Grain Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 ¼ cups quick cooking oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chunky natural peanut butter
1/2 cup olive or canola oil
3/8 cup granulated sugar
3/8 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2/3 cup butterscotch

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt in small bowl.  Beat oil, peanut butter, sugars and vanilla extract in large mixing bowl until creamy.

2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheet.

3. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks.

- Alli