Red Cabbage, Fennel & Cranberries Recipe

Red cabbage frequently ends up in my CSA box this time of year Of course it features prominently in  slaws and soups, and makes a good bed for nestling roasts or sausages, but what else? Lately I'm trying sautés. Red cabbage has a really earthy flavor that can go sweet or sour and cooks up easily in a sauté pan, if shredded.  Red cabbage is healthy, a member of the brassica family, it's cholesterol lowering and perhaps surprisingly the health benefits are greater in cooked cabbage than in raw.  If you've ever wondered what makes red cabbage red, it's anthocyanins, a type of polyphenol which is a pigment and is also responsible for the red in cranberries. The amount of Vitamin C is 6 times greater in red cabbage than green cabbage. It's extremely high in Vitamin K too.  This recipe came about because I had about a half of a head of cabbage, a bit of fennel and some cranberries I wanted to use.  The bright and bitter flavors o......

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Cran Raspberry Crumb Bars Recipe & $100 Giveaway!

November means the arrival of cooler weather, and the beginning of the holiday season. Cranberries play a starring role in holiday fare, in part because their season is so fleeting. But raspberries, which grow practically year round here in California make for attractive co-stars (check out their availability on the Driscoll's calendar ). With this in mind, I set out to make a jam bar that would highlight both fresh berries. Tangy and buttery my Cran Raspberry Crumb Bars are the result of a happy accident because I let the food processor run a little too long. Instead of chopping the nuts, I pulsed the almonds along with the sugar until they were completely pulverized. Oops! But all is well that ends well. Perhaps jam bars are popular because they are hard to mess up?  Cran Raspberry Crumb Bars would be perfect for a holiday cookie party or to give as a gift. The bottom of the bars is basically almond shortbread and the filling is a very lightly sweetened combination o......

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Cranberry Nut Blondies Recipe

The holiday season. Socializing with friends. Visiting family. Eating. Drinking. And the warmth of the oven heating up the house and filling it with delicious smells. It's a nice time of year. But I have to admit, I kind of freaked out when Is My Blog Burning - Sugar High Friday Virtual Cookie Swap was announced for the weekend of November 25th. Should I participate or not? Could I possibly handle more baking on Thanksgiving weekend? After all I was already baking several desserts for Thanksgiving dinner. Cookies too? Jennifer the hostess of this event very kindly offered more time to work on the effort but I'm not so good at planning that far in advance. But then it occurred to me, there is a kind of cookie that only takes minutes to make and bake. No cookie sheets, no muss, no fuss. Bar cookies. Brownies are the most famous bar cookies, but blondies are good ones too. The dough for blondies is similar to chocolate chip cookie dough and mixes up just as quickly. The fla......

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Cranberry Coffee Cake Recipe

You know it's Fall when fresh cranberries appear in the supermarket. I always buy a few extra packages and throw them in the freezer. One more culinary confession? I still have a package left from last year! Ok, I'm not sure exactly when I bought them, but it wasn't in the past couple of months so I can only assume... Cranberries are grown in bogs in the Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Washington State and Oregon. Native Americans were using cranberries when the pilgrims arrived here--they cooked with them, used them to dye fabric and even used them as medicine. Cranberries are most commonly used in sauce served with turkey at Thanksgiving but the introduction of dried cranberries has made them more popular year round. They are tangy and filled with vitamin C. Fresh cranberries freeze very well, though I suggest not waiting a whole year to use them! With the weather cooling down, it's a perfect time of year to bake a coffee cake. This one is not too sweet and has a lovel......

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Cranberry Zinger Muffins Recipe

Today is the 13th edition of Is My Blog Burning hosted by Maki of I Was Just Really Very Hungry . Check out her site for a complete listing of participants. Baking muffins is a great way to start the day. The smell and warmth fills the house and the muffins themselves lure any sleepyheads out of bed. Leftover muffins make for a good breakfast-on-the-run during the week. Somehow a muffin just seems more special than a slice of coffee cake. I'm always looking to develop that perfect recipe that uses things I happen to have on hand. So in general I avoid recipes with buttermilk and heavy cream. In the interest of health, I also prefer not to use too much butter or too many eggs, if I can. Experimenting with baking is tricky. I made this recipe several times before I got it right. But now it's a keeper! It's Spring and I am craving mouth-watering tangy flavors. I find most muffins are too sweet for breakfast. This muffin recipe combines lots of tangy flavors that I lov......

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Turkey Drumsticks Braised in Cranberry Sauce Recipe

When you love Thanksgiving as much as I do, you want it to prolong it. One year instead of the traditional Thanksgiving feast at my parents house, we ended up at someone else's house. All was well and good until the following day--no leftovers! One of the best ways to relive the joy of the holiday is by eating a nibble of what you had the night before. So I suggested a second night of Thanksgiving, much like many Jewish holidays that are celebrated two nights in a row. "Who would come?" asked my mother. "We have a turkey" said my father and with that I made a few calls and the first second night of Thanksgiving was born. Now that I am married, Lee and I spend at least part of the holiday weekend with my parents and part of the weekend with Lee's family. So two nights of Thanksgiving has become the norm for us. But I don't know whether I will ever host Thanksgiving at my house. Our apartment is too small, we only have four chairs and in any case it woul......

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