Seasonal Sundays (Week 50) A Toast to Cranberries

Seven wintry cranberry recipes, from simple to suberb, from long-standing favorites to present-day wonderments. I hope you'll find one or two destined as cranberry-hued "keepers" in your own holiday festivities ...

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

~ PIN This ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

THANK YOU for stopping in today ... and last week and next week too. "I appreciate you." I do ... and always love hearing from many of you throughout the week. Don't be a stranger!

We seasonal cooks, we focus on certain colors, flavors, tastes, textures and ingredients throughout the year. Name any Kitchen Parade recipe and I'd bet a bag of cranberries that I know the month in which it was published.

It goes against my seasonal sensibility but in 2023, I've tried hard to leaned into year-round recipes like the surprisingly tasty Simple Roasted Mushrooms, the oh-so-easy No-Big-Deal Vegetable Stock and supper-saving Twenty-Minute Taco Bar. Still, it's no surprise that spring (like Strawberry Vinaigrette with Chipotle) and summer (Fresh Blueberry Cookies) and fall (Savory Bread Pudding with Butternut Squash, Chard & Cheddar) and winter (this week's brand-new Gingerbread Snickerdoodle Bars) grab my attention, demanding to be shared with all of you.

Anyway.

I follow hundreds of wonderful food blogs and each December am fascinated with the progression from cranberry to peppermint to eggnog ... and when somebody pops up in July, say, with cranberries? I remember, oh yeah, they live in the southern hemisphere where it's winter.

But me, I am C-R-A-Z-Y for Cranberries so usually skip the whole peppermint and eggnog taste sensations and instead pitch up with tart cranberries well toward spring, as long as my freezer supply lasts, that is.

For me, it's not just the cranberry color, it's that sour-fruit tartness. If I could easily put my hands on sour cherries or fresh lingonberries, there'd be more fruity variety throughout the winter – but alas, no such luck, even if once I couldn't resist a ten-pound fifty-buck bucket of lightly sweetened lingonberries and would do it again in a heartbeat.

So during a season when the flavors of "butter" and "sugar" shaped into cookies rule the day, today I'd like to inspire you to grab a few extra bags of fresh cranberries. They'll keep in the fridge for a good couple of weeks, then can move to the freezer.

How many bags of cranberries currently in your fridge and freezer? Me, I think it's six and that's probably not enough, given the number of my recipes that start with the words "fresh cranberry" – think cake and cookies and bars, all made with fresh cranberries. Which to make first?! (Cookies, I think ...)

I hope you like today's collection of recipes and ideas. It's such a busy time for many of us ... let's get to it, shall we?

We all know that Santa shouts Ho! Ho! Ho! But what about Oh! Oh! Oh!??? That's Santa sleighing backwards!

In Praise Of ...

• ... Sandra Day O'Connor, who died on December 1. She was my mom's generation, in fact, born only five days before my mother. I am moved by the many quiet tributes to her, recognizing how she blazed trails those younger can barely any longer see. One huge surprise? While raising three sons, she cooked her way all the way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking! (More? See The O'Connor Institute: In Memoriam.)


• ... For Gen Z, developing culinary skills is more than an act of adulthood from The Atlantic. Take Away: "Today, cooking has become a major generational avocation and source of pride."


• ... a new Cuisinart 7 Cup Food Processor (affiliate link), my first one dated back, ummm, forty years? and replacement bowls, lids and chutes have become increasingly hard to find. Here's a strange fact, though. I remember very well that that first food processor cost $199, just $11 short of a month's apartment rent and a lot of money for a new college graduate with a low-paying job. This new one? Half the price at $100. I thought it might be more flimsy, it doesn't seem to be. My sister has owned the same one for a few years, so fingers crossed ... UPDATE! Whoah. I so should have replaced my old food processor a couple of bowls ago. It's so much easier to fit together. I think I'll try to keep it this way by washing by hand instead of years of washing on the top rack of the dishwasher. Oh! And that knife blade is soooo sharp, be careful!


• ... all those sappy Christmas movies that show up for the next few weeks, I'm all in!

Democracy Matters

The country needs calm, thoughtful and assertive voices amid the chaos inflicted by a minority hellbent on taking/retaining generational power by strangling democratic principles and equal rights. None of us have to personally change the world. We just have to do our part. Pick one thing for the top of your To Do List this week.

In the Garden of the Beasts (David Pepper, free to read on Substack). I read the book In the Garden of the Beasts in 2011 when it was first published. But Pepper somehow waited until now to broach the book's topic, pre-WWII Germany and found it frighteningly relevant to today's America. TAKEAWAY: "Its content is a clear warning about the ominous storm clouds gathered all around us right now when it comes to hate, violence, lawlessness and the looming threat of fascism and autocracy. It’s a reminder to take the unmistakeable signals deadly seriously. To take nothing for granted, and to not dismiss the warning signs everywhere, hoping they just go away on their own. Or that someone else will save us."

The Words of Wise Women

Republican stalwart Liz Cheney is making the media rounds this week, sounding the alarm of the frightening prospect of the fall of democracy should Trump and his enablers and exploiters return to power, expressing the fear that our country is sleep-walking into dictatorship.

Cheney isn't built for hand-wringing. She may well found a new party to replace the failed GOP that places cult leadership above the constitution. But in this election, she is putting aside her life-long policy objectives in order to save the country: and is asking all Americans to put aside their own party affiliations and personal concerns to do the same by voting for Democrats and against all election deniers.

The 2024 election isn't between two old white guys. It's not a policy battle between two parties.

The 2024 election is between democracy (Biden) and autocracy (Trump).

We can't afford to sit this one out, to stand by waiting for history to be written. Let's all be the Liz Cheneys in our own circles.

"Most of all," Cheney says, "we have to come across party lines to stop Donald Trump."

• Listen to Rachel Maddow interview Cheney. This was especially interesting because until now, these two influential women have been opposites. Rachel opened the show saying, "I disagree with Liz Cheney about ... everything." And yet today the two are united in defense of democracy.


• Listen to Nicolle Wallace interview Cheney. Nicolle interrupted her maternity leave to interview Cheney and I found the conversation especially compelling because both women originated in Republican camps, both became more than a little disenchanted by the direction of the Republican party, both have found welcome in Democrat circles.


• PS I find it much easier to "listen" to some of these shows on my podcast app vs in real time, on my own time, sans commercials, etc. Much recommended! If you already listen to podcasts, just search for the show name and subscribe.

Let There Be Light, Finnish Style

During December and January, a candle sits on my desk while I work, flickering in the quiet of my keytaps.

It's an old habit, one learned the year I lived in Finland, where as the winter solstice approaches, sunrise is at 9:30, sunset at 3:15 and the sun hangs so low that even daylight is more a foggy cast than illumination.

The antidote? Candles everywhere, even on the desks of students studying after school and evenings.

With so many of us working from home and extra-aware of the shortening days, perhaps your desk, your day, could use a candle too ...

---

---

SEASONAL INSPIRATION: A Toast to Cranberries

• THE RECIPE Cranberry Champagne Cocktail Festive and flexible, just three ingredients. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Finnish Glögi (Hot Red Mulled Wine) Scandinavian-style hot red wine mulled with spices, fruit and for good luck, an almond. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Cranberry Macadamia-Butter Cookies Sweet and chewy, an annual obsession.
• ANOTHER TAKE Fresh Cranberry Drop Cookies Cookie bites bright with fresh cranberry, sweet orange and toasty pecans.

• THE RECIPE Fresh Cranberry Bars A chewy almost-blondie molasses and spice bar with bursts of juicy cranberry, topped with a scattering of sugar "snow".
• ANOTHER TAKE Fresh Cranberry Cake Best made a day ahead.

• THE RECIPE Christmas Banana Bread My favorite banana bread, all dressed up for Christmas. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Cranberry Walnut Bread Special for the holidays, a barely sweet yeast bread studded with dried cranberries and toasted walnuts. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Cranberry Apple Crisp A wintry take on fall's favorite, my signature dessert during cold weather. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Cranberry Pudding English-style pudding cake with butter sauce. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Holiday Fruit & Yogurt Parfait with Cranberries, Applesauce, Pineapple & Kiwi A showstopper for holiday brunches and parties.
• ANOTHER TAKE Cranberry Applesauce The family favorite, beautiful color for the holidays, especially pretty in yogurt parfaits.

• THE RECIPE Cranberry Linzer Tart An impressive European fruit tart, made easy with an almond press-in crust. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Cranberry-Apple Pie A fine winter pie with a mincemeat vibe, just simpler, easier, fruitier.

• THE COLLECTION Cranberry Recipes from Kitchen Parade, sweet to savory, simple to sublime.

What's New?!

Wondering about a recipe from the last while? Check Recent Recipes from Kitchen Parade and Recent Vegetable Recipes from A Veggie Venture.

• THE HOLIDAY RIFF Gingerbread Snickerdoodle Bars All dressed up for Christmas with spices, fresh ginger, molasses. (PIN This)

Compliments!

My friend Laurie laughs that she's opened a Kitchen Parade test kitchen in her new house in northwest Arkansas. This week, she tried my go-to recipe for cranberry sauce (and I tried her cranberry recipe, too!) Here's how it went. Who else is down for cranberry-sweetened cocktails?

• FIRST TEXT "I will be a test kitchen! Frozen cranberries from the spring. Frozen ginger. 1/2 c maple syrup and 1/2 c sugar in doubled recipe. 😝 May regret if too runny, but it can become a syrup for yogurt if so!"
• SECOND TEXT "Well, Test Kitchen NWA checking in. Cranberry sauce was more of a cranberry syrup! But it was an extremely tasty syrup, Jeff said he would rather eat it as is rather than add more sugar… We made the best of it, and with or without vodka, it is an extremely refreshing drink poured with Topo Chico fizzy water. Love the ginger! Will try with another 1/2 c sugar next time or a total of 1 C of maple syrup."
• THE RECIPE Homemade Whole Cranberry Sauce for the Slow Cooker Sweet aroma of cranberries, fresh ginger and orange zest! (PIN This)

The Kitchen Parade Almanac: Looking Ahead ...

• December 1st - 23rd - PikkuJoulu (Finnish "Little Christmas")
• December 7th - 15th - Hanukkah
• December 21st (Thursday) - Winter Solstice (Official First Day of Winter)
• December 23rd (Saturday) - Christmas Adam (Adam & ... get it?!)
• December 24th (Sunday) - Christmas Eve
• December 25th (Monday) - Christmas Day
• December 26th (Tuesday) - Boxing Day
• December 26th - 31st - Kwanzaa
• December 31st (Sunday) - New Year's Eve
• January 1st (Monday) - New Year's Day
• Jan 7th (first Sunday) - Alanna's Take Down Christmas (or Else) Day

• A COLLECTION OF MANY YEARS My Christmas Recipes
• ALL THINGS SWEET Holiday Baking

• THE COLLECTION New Year's Recipes Bringing the year to a close in style.

Looking Back ...

My 2020 Time Capsule

Perhaps it's a return to journaling? Perhaps it's Advent? Perhaps it's the end of a soul-searching year? ♥ But is anyone else feeling especially contemplative just now?

December 2020, of course, is notably quieter than Decembers in the Before Times: none of the annual traditional, musical, social, professional, gotta-do-this, gotta-see-that, gotta-decorate-this, gotta-buy-more business of busy-ness.

WHAT A GIFT. A joy, even.

The quiet affords the chance to think (and re-think and yes, very possibly over-think) what one might do with December and in turn what to do with 2021.

It's not a bucket list. It's not a to-do list with satisfying little check boxes alongside. It's definitely not soon-to-be-shelved resolutions.

It's more a contemplation of where to spend time, where to pour energy, where to seek fulfillment, and all without the strictures of "how we've always done it" or some imagined Pinterest perfection.

Is it possible that 2020's limitations actually tear down old patterns and expectations in a good way?

• Taking It Sloooow (Week 49) (PIN This)
• December Bucket List (Week 48) (PIN This)
• Holiday Salads (Week 47) (PIN This)
• Sweet Potato Season (Week 45) (PIN This)
• Chickpeas (Week 43) (PIN This)
• Soups to Sustain the Spirit (Week 42) (PIN This)

Just Updated!

• THE RECIPE Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix How to make hot chocolate mix from scratch, for a crowd, for gifts, for home. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Sugar-Free Chai Tea Just good ginger, good spices, good tea and good milk.

Don't Be a Stranger ...

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail (my current address is in the FAQs), dot-dash in Morse code, build a fire for smoke signals, launch a message in a bottle, send a Christmas letter, get the dog to yip, toss me a note wrapped in a rubberband, write a message in the sky, scratch a note in the sand, listen to a seashell, tuck a question into a plastic Easter egg, whatever.

• Any ideas for Seasonal Sundays? Share away!
• December is ON. Still breathing? Good.
• How many bags of cranberries in your fridge and freezer?
• Who's stocked up on butter?! (Dang. Still not on sale at Target, as in prior years.)
• Who's baking cookies?!
• Anything else? Chime in, chat away.

---

Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. When you make my recipes, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below or better still, on the specific recipe's page.

---

© Copyright Kitchen Parade
2023