What I Made for Thanksgiving, Part 2

So rather than cram four different dishes onto one post, I thought I’d divide it up a bit and spare you from waiting for thirty pictures to load.

You think I’m kidding.

What I Made for Thanksgiving, Part 2…

Homemade Cranberry Sauce. ‘Cause I can’t let my husband eat anything out of a can. ;)

He jokes about loving those slices and the way the can shapes and molds the red jelly, but I know him better than that. As I was making this, he was eating it out of the pot by the spoonful.

This sauce is sooooo simple. For this batch I used two 8oz bags of berries (organic, thank you CSA!). In a medium pot I put in one cup of water and one and a half cups of raw sugar. I also added the juice and pulp of half a lemon as well as thin strips of the peel.

For the lemon peel, once the pulp has been cut out, I cut the tip off the lemon so it’ll lay in a strip. I tear out most of the pith (the thick white stuff), and with a paring knife carefully slice away layers of the white until all that’s left is the yellow (or mostly all is good enough). I learned this technique from my dad. Then I cut it into thin strips and put it in the sugar water to simmer and get candied. It’s delicious this way, and I used this technique both with the baklava syrup and with the cranberry sauce.

Over medium heat, stir the sugar into the water and let is dissolve, toss in your lemon juice and peel, then add the berries. Let them simmer until the berries are soft and sweet, I did it for about 45 minutes while I worked on the pies. I’m sure it could be done before then, but I just let it simmer away. Refrigerate and enjoy chilled!

Last but not least, I’m bringing jars of pickled green tomatoes to share. We had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, and tons of green ones that we finally just had to haul in. Perfect timing, our copy of Organic Gardening had a recipe for pickled green tomatoes in it at the same time! The recipe was Renee Erickson’s from Boat Street Pickles. It was so easy and it turned out wonderfully.

1 1/2 quarts white wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
2 pounds of tomatoes sliced into wedges (or left whole if cherry tomatoes)

In a stainless-steel saucepan, combine the vinegar, sugar, salt and garlic. Bring to a boil. When the sugar has dissolved, add the tomatoes. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes or until tomatoes are tender but not mushy.

Strain the tomatoes, reserving the liquid in one container and tomatoes in another. Add the tarragon to the liquid. Refrigerate both until cool, then combine. Spoon into lidded glass containers and refrigerate for up to 3 months.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tags:

This entry was posted on November 26th, 2009 and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.