Cranberries popping, Field Roast, Thanksgiving.

I am Thanksgiving. I made cheer. I seized power. I created cranberry sauce, and it tastes and looks and feels exactly like cranberry sauce.

It was very easy to make. I had, let's see, probably about a half-pound of cranberries (fresh cranberries from the co-op). A little bit of orange juice. An apple (Golden Delicious, from the co-op). Sugar. Nutmeg. Cloves.

You heat the cranberries in a pan (cast-iron skillet in my case).


When they start to pop (literally, you will hear them pop and see them splitting - watch....),

add sugar (you will need a lot, so just add some and then as it's cooking, keep tasting and adding more if needed), nutmeg (a little), a few cloves, the apple - diced very small (I used 3/4 of the apple), and splash on some orange juice (I used a very small amount of orange juice; just remember what consistency you want to end up with, kind of gelatinous; you will also probably add more orange juice little by little as it cooks).




Once the cranberries have started to pop, you don't want to cook them any longer than 15 minutes, or the pectin will break down in a bad way and it won't set properly. So add these ingredients, stir it up, start tasting the juices and adding sugar as needed, add a little more orange juice now and then if it's dry and it hasn't cooked for about 15 minutes yet.



When it's sweet and the apples and cranberries are soft and it's getting a little gelatinous, turn off the heat, put foil over the pan and let it sit in the steam and the fruit will continue to soften and the gel will firm up a little. Then you can put it in a bowl and put it in the fridge if you want to serve it cold. Make sure you taste it as it is cooking, so you get it the right sweetness. After you set the cranberry sauce aside, heat up some leftover vegan Field Roast, potatoes, sweet potatoes and asparagus, and throw it on a plate with your homemade cranberry sauce and some apple sauce. Mashed potatoes and gravy would also be a great option. Sweet corn. Green bean casserole. Pumpkin pie. I had a brownie for dessert. :)


Does it look perfect?! And it tastes perfect, refreshing, sweet but not too sweet, gelatinous, the whole nine yards. Wish I had more sweet potatoes, is all. Mmm, can't get over this cranberry sauce.

A great use for rhubarb

Rhubarb Roasted Vegetables

1 small sweet potato
1 small white potato (or red, or yellow)
4 stalks of asparagus
2 carrots
a whole shallot
about an inch and a half of a rhubarb stalk, chopped
olive oil, salt, and pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Cut and combine potatoes, carrots, shallot, and asparagus in a cast iron pan. Coat with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Scatter finely chopped rhubarb over top of the vegetables. Roast for about 30 - 35 minutes or until everything is soft and the carrots and asparagus tops are a teensy bit blackened. The rhubarb is mild but gives the vegetables a sweet, fresh, tangy flavor. It goes well with the pepper.

Saturday Market

2 lbs. asparagus
12 fat orange carrots
1 baby green leaf (curly) lettuce
1 baby purple leaf lettuce
1 large green leaf lettuce
8 red potatoes
1 big white potato
5 small yellow sweet onions
1 pint white mushrooms
1 portobello mushroom cap
2 bulbs garlic
23 oz. jar of homemade apple sauce
1 oz. black pepper
1 loaf multi-grain bread
one plain bagel

Total: $36.72

Sauteed 5 of the white mushrooms with fennel seeds, onions, and pepper, piled onto a bagel with the green curly and purple lettuces and vegenaise.

Then steamed some asparagus and carrots with olive oil, Old Bay seasoning, salt and pepper. They are perfect, steamed for 6 minutes. (pictured above)

I've been baking sweet and white potatoes in the oven in the cast iron skillet, at 400 degrees, for about 35 minutes. Cut the potatoes and coat with olive oil, then toss with salt, pepper, and Old Bay seasoning, and include some crushed cloves of garlic. Makes a great side for a sandwich.


Asparagus is plentiful at the market all of a sudden, and so far we're not tired of just steaming it. But there is also this great, quick, lazy meal. Steam the asparagus for six minutes, and during the last three minutes, cook some Thai Kitchen Garlic & Vegetable rice noodles. Sprinkle some garlic powder either on the asparagus, the noodles, or both, throw the two components together in a bowl and be amazed. It's really unusually good.

Birthday Saturday Market

2 lbs of asparagus
a dozen small yellow potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
1 head green leaf lettuce
2 heads baby purple lettuce
~1 lb. of small little fat orange and purple carrots
23-oz. jar of apple sauce
1 pint white mushrooms
1 portobello cap

$27 at Clark Park

1 loaf rye bread
4 tomatoes
1 whole wheat bagel
1 lb. rice-buckwheat hot cereal

~$12 at Milk & Honey Market

Total: ~$39

I didn't post last weekend, but we got chives and fresh herbs and pretty much everything we got this weekend. The groceries pictured above are actually last week's. I'm trying the rice-buckwheat hot cereal for the first time. It sounds ridiculously good with berries. I don't have any berries, though. Might be good with apple sauce. I've been running out of oatmeal every few days and decided to try this for a change. Finally getting enough grains in my diet because I discovered how amazing a few grains of sea salt will make oatmeal taste. I can't wait to have the brown rice and buckwheat cereal with a little salt and a little sugar. I can't wait to have it with blackberries.

I'm thirty-one today. There's a flea market on at the park. The neighborhood is beautiful but full of pollen.