C is for Canned Pancake Batter

Oh yes I did.

I was watching Unwrapped on the Food Network, an episode loosely themed around "unusual containers". The push up sushi triggered a light gag reflex, but Batter Blaster (organic!) excited me a whole lot. (Beware the theme song if you follow the link.)

It took me a few tries to locate Batter Blaster at my local supergrocery, mostly because I couldn't for the life of me figure out where in the store it was likely to be (cheesy dairy case, as it happened). Once found, however, it was everything I hoped it would be: Fast, easy to use and the pancakes taste normal, ie delicious. They were slightly less fluffy than scratch pancakes, but not by a lot.

The can informs me that I can also use this wonderful product for waffles (heart!). I'll try that next weekend and report back.

C is for Lamb Shanks with Cranberries

I wanted to come up with a savory cranberry recipe, errr, just because, so I started by thinking about what kinds of meat would be able to stand up to that. I decided lamb or duck might be good bets, since they have intense flavour, so I bopped over to the store.

Duck = Fail, so lamb won by default, which was not a bummer of any sort for me, since I love lamb. But I'd never cooked it before, so the adventurous-ness level of this undertaking cranked way up. Add on the experience of My First Reduction Sauce and I had a lot of fun with this one.

I consulted the recipe on the lamb package plus this one from AllRecipes.com before jumping in.

What I Did:

2 lamb shanks
salt
white pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
5 cloves of garlic
2 shallots, chopped
2 cups fresh cranberries
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped zucchini
approx. 1 cup each of
- beef broth
- chicken broth
- red wine
- white wine
1 Tblspn dry rosemary
1 Tblspn dry thyme
1 Tblspn dry mint
dash of cranberry juice

1) Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat and sprinkle shanks with salt and pepper.

2) Cook lamb shanks until brown on all sides and remove to plate.

3) Add garlic, shallots, cranberries, carrots and zucchini to skillet and saute for 5-10 minutes.

4) Stir broth, wine, rosemary, thyme and mint into skillet.

5) Place lamb shanks in a crockpot and pour the skillet contents over them. The liquid should cover the shanks, so if it doesn't, add more both and/or wine until they are covered.


6) Leave everything in the crockpot on high for 3 hours.

7) Pour 2-4 ladles worth of the cooking liquid back into the sautéing skillet over low heat. It's ok if you catch some of the cranberries here as well.

7.5) Leave the lid off the crockpot, but the heat on.

8) Add cranberry juice to the skillet to taste.

9) Simmer until the liquid has reduced by half.

10) Split the veggies and shanks onto two plates and drizzle with the reduction sauce. Serve with starch of your choice if so inclined.

How Did it Go?
Great! Holy cow, lamb is as easy to cook as pot roast. Now, if it were only similar price-wise, I could all but give up beef. Well, not steak. Yum.

What would I do differently?
Um, for once, nothing. Made more shanks so I could've had leftovers?

C is for Cranberry-Blueberry Muffins

I've made muffins from a mix before but never from scratch. My bag of dried cranberries (plus a bag of dried blueberries that I'm looking to use up because I find them too sweet) inspired me to give it a go.

The muffin base recipe is mostly from Joy of Cooking. I went my own way with the mix-ins treatment.

What I Did:

1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup dried blueberries
white wine (enough to cover fruit)

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs
2 Tablespoons melted butter
3/4 cup milk

0) Preheat oven to 400

0.5) Soak the dried fruit in the wine for an hour or so. (This is also called macerating, if you want the five dollar word).

1) Sift together flour, salt, sugar and baking powder.

2) Drain the dried fruit.

3) Beat the eggs until mixed.

4) Mix melted butter and milk into the beaten eggs.

5) Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in as few strokes as possible. The batter will be lumpy.

6) When the dry ingredients are almost completely moist, add the fruit and finish mixing.

7) Either grease your muffin pans or line them with cupcake cups and fill them up approximately 2/3 full with batter. (I just use a big spoon for this.)

8) Bake for 20-25 minutes. Yields 20ish muffins.

How'd it Go?
Not bad. The texture was really good. And the flavor was good, except…they just weren't as sweet as I'm looking for in a breakfast muffin. If these had been muffins intended to go along with stew, they would've been perfect.

What Would I Change?
~ More sugar! (Inside and on the top.)

Cranberries Achieved!

Found fresh cranberries at the Ballard Market. Hurray!

Tried one in its natural form. Unbelievably tart!

C is for Cranberries?

I'm a little stalled out in C by being unable to find fresh cranberries in my usual grocery stores. Apparently those are only a Christmas food. I'll keep working on it, but in the meantime need to adjust plans to use Craisins and/or cranberry juice.

Stay tuned.....

C is for Cranberry Bread Pudding

We host an Orphan's Thanksgiving every year, potluck-style, so each Black Friday finds me with some ingredients in my kitchen that wouldn't normally be there. I enjoy this, because it gives me a chance to play, but I was initially perplexed by this year's leftover Can of Gelled Cranberry Loaf. Fortunately the delicious loaf of day-old home baked bread inspired me:


(As usual, I researched a couple of recipes online before starting.)

Here's What I Did:

- Pudding -
1/2 can of cranberry gel stuff
1 box of non-instant Flan (4 servings)
2 cups of cold milk
1 loaf of dry bread

- Sauce -
1/2 can of cranberry gel stuff
vodka
confectioner's sugar

- Whipped Cream -
whipping cream
confectioner's sugar
(optional, because I will not judge you if you prefer Cool Whip or spray whip cream. I only made this because I had the cream handy)

0) Preheat over to 350 degrees

1) Put 1/2 of cranberry gel in a small saucepan and add the milk.

2) Over low heat, whisk together until mostly combined.

3) Whisk in flan powder until combined.

4) Turn the heat up to low medium and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

5) While waiting for the pudding to boil, butter the sides of a small loaf pan.

6) Break down the loaf of bread into bite-size chunks and place in the loaf pan.

7) Once the pudding has reached a boil, pour it over the bread chunks.

8) Bake for 45-60 minutes.

9) Place the other half of the gel in another small saucepan.

10) Over low heat, add confectioners sugar and vodka to taste (I wound up using about a 1/4 cup of each), stirring constantly.

11) Bring it to a boil and boil for about a minute, stirring frantically.

Optional 12) Beat 1 cup of cream in a cold bowl.

Optional 12.5) As cream starts to stiffen, add confectioner's sugar to taste

13) Serve pudding in slices, liberally covered in sauce and cream.


How'd It Go?
Surprisingly well, considering I've never, ever made bread pudding before. I felt like the pudding absorption was kind of inconsistent, so the texture varied throughout the slice in a way I didn't love, but it was definitely tasty. And the sauce was deemed awesome by Mr. Husband.

What Would I Change?
- I think a vanilla pudding might have gone a little better with the cranberries than the flan.
- More of the pudding probably would've solved my texture issue, so next time I'll kick it up to the 6 serving sized box.

C is for Chairman

Having quit my job almost a month ago (due to a lying, dishonorable boss plus an abusive co-worker), naturally I'm looking around for new employment.

A friend told me that one of the first questions she always asks an interviewee is "What is your dream job?"

"Easy," I replied. "I want to be The Chairman on Iron Chef."

You get to wear nice clothes, hang out with Alton Brown and eat really good interesting food. Your every move is foleyed (swoosh! whoop!) and you don't even have to judge.

All this plus a paycheck? Sign me up!

C is for Cranberry Champagne Cocktail

One of the nicer duties of my former job involved specialing up Opening Night of each show with cocktails. This is the one I used for the Christmas show in 2008 (I _almost_ said last year there, yes):

What I Did:
1 part white champagne
1 part pink champagne
1 part cranberry juice
some fresh cranberries (2 or 3 per glass)

- combine and serve in a champagne glass (if you have them)

Simple yet tasty, festive, and popular with the people. Happy New Year, folks!

C is for Cranberry (that's good enough for me)

Requested by loyal reader Patti, I'm embracing the (now-over) holiday season with cranberries, a fruit about which I know very little:

- Cranberry juice is apparently especially good for maintaining healthy lady-bits
- and is also quite tasty in a Cosmopolitan. Coincidence?
- The Cranberries (band) were a big part of the soundtrack for my late high school/early college years.
- Helping harvest cranberries seems to be a popular way to torment TV hosts.
- Many people have encountered the Canned Cranberry Gel Loaf as a part of holiday feasts. Some respond to this by hating it, others crave it. I'm one of the haters.

Now for some research:
- it's an evergreen
- native to North America
- called a "superfruit" (a marketing term that basically indicates a fruit with lots of antioxidants)
- seldom sold or eaten in its unprocessed form
- though it is harvested from flooded fields, it doesn't grow in water
- the research that indicates drinking cranberry juice can help prevent UTIs in women was in the British Medical Journal, vol 322, pp 1571-1573, (June 29) 2001, in case you're curious.