Category Archives: Sides

Orange Cranberry Sauce

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There are many holidays I love to host.  Thanksgiving? Not so much. The entire menu is set. Try having a Thanksgiving without Turkey. Stuffing. Mashed Potatoes. No go. Not happening. Entire episodes of comedy shows have been dedicated to the very idea of messing with the classic dishes. What makes the episodes funny is the absurdity. Serve salmon at Thanksgiving? Certainly not. Venison? Egads, no! Fail to provide a pumpkin pie? A blog post detailing that faux paus alone could go viral.  Despite the fact that game, seafood and different poultry were very likely part of the cuisine in early New England, and no one had likely made a pumpkin pie at that point, the menu is written in stone. Do not deviate or you will be mocked.

So, what can I add to your repetoire? How about actual cranberry sauce. Sure, cranberry sauce doesn’t make an appearance until much later in the American cooking repetoire. Sugar was expensive and scare in the early colonial times. But it is arguably a staple in the American Thanksgiving experience.

I know what you are thinking, you have no time. People love to glop out that stuff that comes in a can. You are already overcommitted making items. Well, this can be made days in advance and takes less than 15 minutes. Honestly, I had no idea it was as easy as it was to make this dish. And truthfully, it’s never been my favorite, until it was forced on me in a sandwich. I didn’t know it was on the sandwich until I bit into it.  I had to admit, it worked with the turkey and gravy and tasted good.

Is this a fussy dish? Nope, one pot. And how many ingredients?  4. Ok, 5 if you count orange zest and orange juice separately.  6 if you add a splash of port. Fine 7, if you count water. Although, you could make this recipe with just water, cranberries and sugar.

If you try this and think it’s too tart, feel free to add more sugar. This is not a recipe you can’t alter. Also, for the liquid, use whatever proportion of liquid you have, as long as the total liquid is 1 cup, you should be fine. I took a liquid measuring cup and juiced my orange, added a splash of port and enough water to equal one cup. The port is strictly optional. I happened to have a bottle open. I would not buy a bottle for this recipe.

Other recipes I’ll be using for Thanksgiving:

Pumpkin Pie
Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing

Have a great Thanksgiving!!!

Orange Cranberry Sauce

1 cup sugar (may need more if too tart)
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon port (optional)
3/4 cup water
cinnamon stick
3 cups fresh cranberries (about a quart)
1 tablespoon orange zest

In a heavy bottomed 4 quart sauce pan, bring sugar and liquids to a boil over medium heat. Add cinnamon stick. Simmer until sugar is dissolved. Add cranberries and orange zest and cook until berries pop and sauce thickens, about 10-15 minutes.

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Cauliflower “Mac and Cheese”

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I miss pasta. I really, really, really do.   Really, really good mac and cheese that is homemade is so luscious, rich, thick and, well, sinful.

Does this recipe replicate it? Eh. It’s rich and it’s creamy. But is cauliflower ever going to be confused with quality pasta? No. On the other hand, there’s no bloat from carb overloading and no out of control blood sugar responses. All things considered, this is an amazing vegetable side dish!! You’ve got a ton of cauliflower in a form that people will eat. Two pounds of frozen cauliflower barely escapes a dinner with four diners. Crazy for cauliflower. Honestly, we love this dish. I make this all the time. It’s quick, the ingredients are available year ’round, and even the kids eat it!

Also, it uses up some random items that I always have laying around: shredded cheese and sour cream. Taco night never seems to use all these items up.

Some caveats about this recipe. I make real mac and cheese and feel that this recipe should be no different. Take your low fat cheese, your Greek yogurt, your low fat yogurt, chicken stock and whatever other “lighteners” you have and don’t put them in here. You have already subbed out the pasta. Live a little and splurge.  Seriously.

Also, keep in mind that the sauce is covering two pounds of cauliflower. Cauliflower is very, very wet. Especially when baked. It’s the opposite of pasta, instead of absorbing sauce, the cauliflower will be adding water to the sauce.  So, this sauce will be very thick and rather over spiced. If you were to try a bit of the sauce, you would immediately think: too much salt, the woman is crazy. Oh, wait, the cayenne just hit!! Now it’s too spicy. And too thick. Don’t think those things until you’ve baked the whole concoction. If you cut back on the spices, your dish will be incredibly bland. If you waiver on the sauce and think it needs to be a touch thinner, it will won’t be thick and creamy at finish. It’s a delicate balance that will only reveal its perfection at the very end.

Cauliflower “Mac” and Cheese
Serves 6

2 pounds frozen cauliflower florets
1/3 cup water
6 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup flour
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 mustard powder
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar Cheese, plus additional for topping

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a 2 to 2 1/2 quart baking dish and set aside.

Place the cauliflower and water in a saucepan and cook the cauliflower until it’s not frozen anymore. You don’t want the cauliflower to be too soft because it is being cooked again in the oven. Thoroughly drain the water out of the pan.

In a small sauce pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and stir for about 1-2 minutes. Add the milk and stir until really thick. Add the salt, cayenne, and mustard powder. Stir until well incorporated, and remove from heat. Add the sour cream and stir well. Add the cheese and stir until melted through.

I suppose at this point, I should tell you to pour the sauce over the cauliflower and stir well. It’s bad enough to clean the sauce out of the small pan, why make more work and have to clean it out of the cauliflower pan too? So, I put the cauliflower in the greased baking dish and pour the sauce over the cauliflower there. I then stir the mixture together until well blended and add cheese for the topping.

Cook until bubbling and the cheese is melted and just starting to brown.

Cauliflower Mac and Cheese

Cauliflower Mac and Cheese

Cauliflower Mac and Cheese

Cheesy Cauliflower Patties

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The low carb craze has made superstars out of some vegetables that at best were used to torture children in a previous life.  Kale.  Seriously.  Kale.  The only way kale is good is when it is cooked for a very long time in a ham hock gravy or in Kale and Andouille Soup.  There, I said it.  Kale becomes tolerable when cooked within an inch of its life and paired with a smoked pork product.

The next vegetable up for abuse is the poor man’s broccoli, cauliflower.  Cauliflower is tolerable when you add a signficant amount of dairy products to the mix.  I’ve made cauliflower puree, which can double as a quasi mashed potato substitute.   Cheesy cauliflower patties are now starting to trend, which would be the logical progression.  When I was a kid, my mom would make potato pancakes out of left over mashed potatoes.  After fending off dinosaur attacks, of course.  So, why not try to make fried patties out of cauliflower?  Well, cauliflower has no starch.  It also contains a lot of water.  You need a lot of help to make these suckers stick together.  This “help” likely defeats the purpose of choosing cauliflower, because it either adds carbs or gluten.  On the plus side, it’s probably far more healthy than what you were going to eat, even with the add-ins.

I saw purple cauliflower in the store and thought that maybe such a cool color would inspire the kids to give the dish a try.  My daughter did try it and didn’t really like it. Son and husband really liked it, as long as I didn’t try to say it was something that it wasn’t.  In other words, these were very good cheesy cauliflower patties.

As you can see above, I subbed the patties out for English muffins in Eggs Benedict.  These were really good.  A savory, cheesy bottom that you didn’t have to fight with, complimented the poached egg and Canadian bacon really well.  As a bonus, no need for asparagus, there was already plenty of veg on the plate!

The other time I used it, it was a vegetable for dinner.

 

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The patty served as a very nice compliment for my steak dish! I liked it and would make it again.  Definitely a different take and something to shake up the veggie routine in our house.  As a bonus, very easy to make!

Cheesy Cauliflower Patties
Makes about 6-8 Patties

6 cups roasted cauliflower florets (approximately)
1/2 cup easily meltable cheese (I used Monterrey Jack)
1/4 cup panko or bread crumbs
1 egg
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/4 cup butter or coconut oil (or vegetable oil)

Place all ingredients, except the butter, into food processor. Pulse until the cauliflower is coarsely ground. Remove mixture from processor and form into patties. The smaller and thinner the patties, the more likely they are to maintain their shape.

In a heavy bottomed skillet, over medium heat, melt the butter. When the butter just starts to foam, add the patties, careful not to crowd. When the patties are browned, carefully flip and cook until the other side is browned as well. About 3 minutes each side. Serve as desired.

Note:  I roasted the florets at 375 degrees fahrenheit in olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper for about 25 minutes, turning once.

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New Year’s Day Black Eyed Peas

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New Year's Day Blackeyed Peas

Blackeyed peas, or cowpeas, or black-eyed peas are a Southern Tradition for New Year’s Day.   I learned this from my wonderful grandmother.   Every New Year’s Day my parents would take us to my grandparent’s house where we would have black eyed peas and ham for the holiday dinner.    Whether we wanted to or not, we had to eat the beans for good luck.  Mostly, being a kid, I didn’t want to eat the beans.  In hindsight, I wish I would have been a tad more excited about the prospect.

There are a variety of reasons for the inclusion of the black eyed peas on the New Year’s Day menu.   Various sources link the practice to the influence of Jewish immigrants to Georgia in the late 1700s.  Black eyed peas are traditionally served as part of the Rosh Hashanah celebration, which is the celebration of the Jewish New Year.  As the black eyed pea was a plant that was among the few not looted by Union soldiers, it was available.  As the South was left little else to eat, these peas were precious and appreciated.

I wasn’t excited to make this recipe, initially.  Not surprisingly, my northern cookbooks didn’t have any recipes for this dish.  My southern ones did, but the older ones said to soak the beans all day, change the water, boil for an hour.  Nothing else.  Beans boiled in water.  Um….  Not sounding great.

So, I “smothered” them, in the Southern food vernacular.  Onions, celery, garlic and a ham hock joined the party.  My son is dying for me to make them again and my husband took the leftovers to work. So, it was a bit of a hit! As usual, my daughter politely tried them and left them on her plate.  I’m going to say not picky eater friendly.

I had a blast reliving our New Year’s family tradition.

New Year’s Black Eyed Peas
Serves 6-8
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 60 minutes

¼ cup bacon drippings, vegetable oil or lard
1 medium onion, small dice
3 stalks of celery, small dice
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound dried black eyed peas (usually 1 bag, rinsed and picked over)
1 ham hock (or other smoked meat part)
water to cover beans (not considered “lucky” to use chicken stock)

In a large 8 quart stock pot, heat fat over medium heat. Sauté onions and celery until the onions are translucent. Add the salt, cayenne and garlic, sauté for another minute. Add beans, ham hock and enough water to cover the beans. Bring to a boil, then cover and lower the heat to a slight simmer for 45-60 minutes, until the beans are tender and most of the water is absorbed. Remove ham hock and shred the meat. Return meat to the beans. Check seasonings, adjust if necessary, and serve.

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