Leftover Cranberry Sauce?

                                                 

Every year since my grandma died, I've let my mom contribute the homemade cranberry sauce, to carry on grandma's traditional recipe.  And every year my mother goes way overboard on how much she makes and always brings at least TWO batches of the stuff, very likely in an effort to one up my sweet grandma in heaven. Hahaha!  

Since no one takes more than a tablespoon at Thanksgiving, I always get really upset about the waste....until now.I had a second Thanksgiving, a Friendsgiving on Sunday and really wanted to make another apple pie, particularly since we had a visitor from Australia.  He's a vegetarian so we had all the traditional foods minus the turkey.  I used this Smitten Kitchen Apple Pie Recipe, although I used all Granny Smiths.  Also, I added about 1/2 cup of sour cream and about 1/4 cup of brown sugar when I made it on Thanksgiving.  But for Friendsgiving, I added an extra apple, 1/2 cup sour cream and about 3/4 cup of the leftover cranberry sauce.  Oh. My. God. Yum.

This is what it looked like before i added the cranberry sauce (actually pictured is sauce above and cranberry covered apples):

Then I added the sour cream and poured into the shell:

The finished product is, of course, at the top of this post.  My mouth is watering for it as I type this!

Another thing I did with the leftover sauce was add it to my Australian house guest's oatmeal.  It looked so good I had to have some too!  Now I'm considering making a batch to always have in the fridge!  It's quite possible cranberry sauce is good in everything!  It is now my favorite accent for oatmeal.  With a few toasted pecans thrown on top - perfection!

I didn't grab a pic of it with nuts on top but it was lovely and colorful!

Grateful now for the leftovers that used to feel so wasteful.  I will now forever covet the leftover cranberry sauce.

Lazy Thanksgiving Anyone?

The key to a Lazy Thanksgiving is eating the elephant one bite at a time.  In other words, if you are hosting Thanksgiving, you don't want to get overwhelmed by the three tasks at hand:

1.  Cooking
2.  Table Setting
3.  Cleaning/Last Minute Getting the House Ready to Receive Guests

I heard someone talking about doing a 200 mile bike ride.  He said "If every mile you ride you are thinking of the next hundred plus, you'll have a terrible ride."    Good advice for Thanksgiving prep: take it one mile at a time, one task at a time.

I just took a few bites off today because I want to be spending a good deal of the next few days writing.  So, I decided to do a few things every day.  Yesterday I got flowers.  Today I set the Thanksgiving table.  I will probably tweak it a little the day of, but setting the Thanksgiving table is one of my greatest joys.  One of the things I also did today (one of my vacation projects) was clean out and rearrange my garage.  While in there, I found a super cool piece of upholstery material that I hadn't used for a project that I realized would make a perfect tablecloth.  That inspiration lead to other inspirations...and before I knew it, the table was done.  

 

Then I realized I could definitely make cranberry sauce today as well as a nice squash soup that I may or may not serve on Thanksgiving but that will make the few visitors I'm expecting over the next few days happy.  The recipes were perfect to cook at the same time because they both have some common ingredients, and because both require chopping and cooking on the stove.  They were fun to cook at the same time.

Cranberry sauce is not one of my favorite things....or should I say wasn't until this recipe. I found it in the People Magazine I was reading while getting a pedicure yesterday. Nice synchronicity.  It is super easy and wildly delicious!

Ginger Cranberry Sauce
1/2 cu pecans roughly chopped (Lazy Solution -- Trader Joe's has pre-roasted chopped pecans)
12 oz cranberries
3/4 cu sugar 
3/4 cu fresh orange juice
1 t fresh ginger -- grated
1.5 t orange zest

Toast pecans in pan four to five minutes to golden brown -- OR do it the Lazy Way and buy them 

pre-roasted and chopped. 

Cook berries, sugar and orange juice for 4 to 6 minutes, or until berries start popping.

Add ginger and zest and cook 2-3 minutes minutes more. Remove from heat.Add pecans,

cover and cool. Chill. 

The soup, if you are interested is AMAZING and super easy too: 

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/curried-butternut-squash-and-pear-soup/ 

I had a bit of a boundless energy day so I did the garden clean-up and refreshening AND because of the muddy paw prints after a few rainy days, I ended up starting a cleaning spree.  Now, I will just have to do the last minute touch-ups on Wednesday, post-cooking clean-up. 

Schedule for the rest of the week:

Monday        -- Pie Crusts
Tuesday       --  Shop for final ingredients
                   --  Prep ingredients for Stuffing
Wednesday   -- Mashed Potatoes -- Yes, they are even fluffier and more amazing when you do them the day ahead and put them in the oven. 
                    -- Make Pies
Thursday       -- Prep turkey and veggies, etc.

One bite a time.  One mile at a time.  One task at a time.  

I have to say I had the most fun today in getting all the house and food ducks in a row.   

... which leads me to my final Lazy Woman tip.  If there are things that you hate to do, DELEGATE.  Ask nicely and play nice, but ask for help with the things that drive you nuts or that you simply don't like to do.  The name of the game is LESS STRESS and MORE JOY.  And, around the holidays, that will probably mean asking for help.

And, then in the spirit of the holiday, don't forget to say "thank you" for the help!

Buon Grateful Appetito to All! 

   

 

Lazy = Making Choices that Work for YOU!

Often when I tell people I co-wrote "The Lazy Woman's Guide..." they say "you are NOT lazy you DO so much!" In our book we address this - LAZY is not about being a sloth and stopping life, it's about making priorities that create less stress and more joy. So, what does that mean at the holidays? It depends...

For me what that meant at Thanksgiving was to first give up expectations of what it should look like. When the Haiti disaster occurred I decided I wanted to do relief work the week of Thanksgiving. But a few months ago it became clear that might not be good timing. So then I signed up to go back to New Orleans and work with Habitat for Humanity. They still need so much help and have been all but forgotten. But because of Thanksgiving I found out their holiday schedule only had people working two days that week, so I realized fairly late that I should stay home and create a wonderful Thanksgiving for friends and family. Once that was decided I got very excited about doing the best Thanksgiving ever!

So, we got our guest list together and worried about people getting along. I decided to drop every expectation about how people would behave, react, interract. And, I kept dropping the expectations -- it doesn't happen just once, it's an active exercise. And I have to say it was one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever because the "chemistry" was perfect. It was joyful and stress-free.

How else was I lazy this season? I decided I felt like cooking for days! Seriously I was in the mood to cook and I wanted to make it the most amazing meal, decorate the most amazing table, and just cook up a storm. So, here's how it all got done -- the LAZY way ... step by step, a little bit each day so each day was relaxing and fun:

Saturday before ThanksgivingDesign the menu...

Cocktail Hour

· Pomegranate Champagne Punch

· Blue Cheese & Fig Crostini

· Pesto & Radish Crostini

· Artichoke & Olive Crostini

Dinner

· Pomegranate Turkey (this was Aaron's Baby)

· Sourdough Wild Mushroom Sage Stuffing

· Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Fried Sage

· Apricot Pecan Sweet Potatoes

· Green Beans with Lemon, Butter & Herbs

· Lemon Smashed Potatoes

· Cranberry Sauce (this was my Mom's Baby)

Desserts

· Pumpkin Cheesecake

· Pumpkin Pie (this was my Mom's Baby)

· Chocolate Apricot Tart

· Pumpkin Ice Cream (this ended up being the HIT of the dessert menu and it was easy!)

Sunday before Thanksgiving· Design the table and buffet table (you can see on photo above that I put post-its on the serving dishes to make sure everything is covered)
· Print out all the recipes
· Make shopping list for every single item on the menu - broken down into sections of the store -- Fruits/Veggies, Dairy, Dry Goods, etc.

Monday before Thanksgiving· Buy flowers
· Start setting the table (so that if what is in your mind's eye doesn't work in reality it can be tweaked)
· Buy new tablecloth (Because I was collaborating with Aaron, this meant adjusting the design in my head to accommodate his wishes, i.e., for a white tablecloth)

Tuesday before Thanksgiving

· All Grocery Shopping

· Buy flowers, candles and any other decorative items needed
· Make Pumpkin Cheesecake and ice cream custard
· Finish setting table to see if anything missing
· Prep sourdough bread for stuffing
· Prep bread for Crostini
· Tape recipes to kitchen cabinets -- as recipes are completed they get thrown away but a great way to keep them in eye’s view and not get them messed up with food drippings!

Wednesday before Thanksgiving· Make Chocolate Apricot Tart

· Final step of ice cream – put custard in ice cream maker so it can set overnight

· Make Mushroom/Herb sautee for Stuffing

· Clean potatoes and sweet potatoes

· Take brussel sprouts off stalk and clean

· Make pesto for crostini hors d’oeuvres

Thanksgiving Day

· Final prep on all the food – but with so much having been done over last few days it’s pretty stress-free in the kitchen. And, there’s even plenty of time for me to go to the gym and pre-work it all off!
· Make gravy impromptu with drippings right before serving – add stock mixed with cornstarch to thicken

It looked good. It tasted good. But, most important -- it was FUN to do and LAZY!!!! But it was LAZY for me because this was my CHOICE this year -- to cook up a storm and entertain. You need to make choices that fill your heart and soul. Some years that might mean make it a potluck, another year it might mean go to a restaurant, or yet another might mean go out of town....it's your CHOICE. Once you make the choice that gives you the most JOY make sure you do it so you have the least amount of stress by taking care of yourself and everyone around you....planning is my de-stressor and doing a little bit every day. Do what is LAZY for you!

Happy Lazy Holidays to YOU!