apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Wild Rice and Cranberry Soup

* 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
* 1 carrot, finely chopped
* 1 celery stalk, finely chopped
* 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
* 3 tablespoons flour
* 3 cups vegetable stock
* 1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice
* 1/2 cup dried cranberries
* 1 cup milk or half-and-half
* 2 tablespoons dry sherry
* salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, and onion, stirring occasionally, until the carrot is tender, about 8 minutes.

Add the flour and stir until smooth. Gradually add the vegetable stock, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Increase the heat to medium-high and stir until the soup is thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the pre-cooked rice and cranberries. Reduce the heat; cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries are softened and plumed, about 15 minutes.

Stir in all the remaining ingredients. Stir occasionally until warmed through. Season to taste. (From A Beautiful Bowl of Soup cookbook)

This cranberry upside down cake from Everyday Food is so delicious (and easy). It's a staple whenever I can get fresh cranberries (fresh that have been frozen and thawed don't work).

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/perfect-cranberry-upside-down-cake?autonomy_kw=cranberry%20upside%20down%20cake&rsc=header_2

The only change I make is to put the spices into the cake, rather than into the sugar in the bottom of the pan - they get lost there and add so much more to the cake itself.

I made a cranberry salsa recipe from VegWeb for Thanksgiving last year; it was unfathomably delicious. (Okay, to be fair, I completely winged it when it came to amounts, didn't use any serrano peppers, made my own skins-on cranberry sauce instead of using canned, and didn't serve it with cream cheese. So it was more inspired by the recipe, but whatever.)

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=7136.0

I have a HOST of Cranberry recipes. My parents are suppliers for Ocean Spray, and they send me a few gallon-size freezer bags each year,

Ain't NOBODY getting my grandma's cranberry bread recipe, but I can also point folks to a couple good other recipes I've tried from a couple different Moosewood cookbooks: a cranberry tea cake, from their "Sundays At Moosewood" book, which had a fairly moist sour-cream cake base layered into a springform pan with a cranberry, almond, and brown-sugar mixture; and a cranberry chocolate tart from their "Moosewood Celebrates" book -- this used a crumbly sort of crust pressed into a tart pan, you made a sort of relish out of the berries, and when the tart shell cooled, you melded down some chocolate, drizzled half into the shell, spread the relish into the shell, and then drizzled the other half the chocolate on top. That definitely worked.

I adore lemon cranberry muffins; orange cranberry are lovely, too! I usually pop a few in smoothies when I make 'em, too. My mom and dad just went out picking cranberries a couple of weeks ago; they grow wild at the beach near our house in Atlantic Canada.

Mom always makes her own cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving and Xmas, and it's very simple and much nicer than the canned stuff. Simply put about a cup or more of cranberries in a pot, add sugar to taste, let it sit for a bit, then slowly bring to a boil over a medium heat until the cranberries are nice and softened up. She also puts some orange zest in hers, and sometimes a bit of orange juice as well.

Cranberry Gin Sodas! http://www.aliciakachmar.com/blog/food/cranberry-gin-soda/

Good cranberries will bounce when you drop them! If they don't bounce, they've gone rotten.

Good cranberries will bounce when you drop them! If they don't bounce, they've gone rotten.

Oh, Cara_Mia, you've reminded me of something -- when I was a little girl I would "help" my mother make cranberry bread, and I appointed myself the official cranberry freshness tester. I just remember very solemnly dropping each single individual cranberry onto the table to see if it bounced while my mother did all the rest of the work. In retrospect I wonder why she didn't go nuts.