Best Cranberry Sauce Recipe Ever

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is always a special time for us as a family because it was on Thanksgiving 7 years ago that my husband and I figured out that we liked liked each other in more than a best friends kind of way.

(Look at us that day...we look so young!)

This year we did Thanksgiving up north with my mom, stepdad, all my siblings (it's been a while since that happened) and my brother in law's parents. We had 14 people total, which I think is a record for Thanksgiving with this side of my family.

I was responsible for cranberry sauce and rolls. The rolls weren't anything fancy...just boxed sourdough bread machine mix which I let my bread machine handle and then I just turned it into rolls. The cranberry sauce on the other hand....awesome (if I do say so myself).

I know it's too late for you to make it for your families Thanksgiving dinner this year BUT you can pin it and come back later. Or use it for Christmas dinner. Or serve it warm over ice cream or waffles (yum!).

Best Cranberry Sauce Recipe Ever

Ingredients

• 1 cup Orange Juice
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 bag cranberries
• zest, juice and pulp of 1 orange
• 1 apple

Add your orange juice and sugar to a sauce pan. Heat over medium high heat and stir until sugar dissolves.

Pour your cranberries into a colander. Rinse and pick out any smooshed or ugly berries. Add berries to the pan and stir to coat in OJ.

While berries are cooking, zest the orange. Cut orange in half squeeze halves by stabbing center with a fork and pressing orange halves around it. Scrape out some of the pulp as well. Add zest, juice and pulp to pan.

While berries continue to simmer, peel, core and chop apple into small pieces. Once most of the berries have burst, add apple pieces to pan and stir.

Cook for 5 more minutes then remove from heat.

Serve warm over waffles or ice cream. If using for a turkey condiment, allow to stand for about 15 minutes, then pour mixture into a glass bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve.

I'm linking up with some of my favorite parties...

* Strut Your Stuff Saturday at Six Sisters Stuff * Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest * Made by You Monday at Skip to My Lou * Show Off Your Stuff Party at Fireflies and Jellybeans * I'm Loving It with Tidy Mom *  The Holiday Link Party at What Che Said *

 

Stenciled Holiday Place Settings

I love seasonal decorating. But I'm also lazy short on time, so I really like having holiday decor that I can use for more than one occasion. I am currently in need of some holiday table decor that I can use for Thanksgiving, Christmas and maybe even into late winter.  So when a big box of paints and stencils from Plaid's Martha Stewart line showed up on my porch, I knew exactly what I was going to use it for!

This post is brought to you Plaid's Martha Stewart line of paint and stencils. I received product and payment for this post. All opinions expressed are 100% mine.

Holiday Place Settings for Four

A tablecloth, placemats and napkins

Supplies Needed

• 1 twin flat sheet in red
• 1 twin flat sheet in taupe
• Matching thread
• Stencils
• Stencil Adhesive Spray
• Masking Tape
• Paint brushes and pouncing sponges
• Paint (all are from the Martha Stewart Craft line)
• Multi-Surface Metallic in Copper
• Multi-Surface Pearl in Mother of Pearl
• Multi-Surface Glitter in Sugar Cube
• Multi-Surface Satin in Habanero
• Multi-Surface Glitter in Garnet

A Few of My Favorite Things: Thanksgiving

Now that Halloween is over, there is only one thing standing in the way of me and Christmas: Thanksgiving.  That and about 36 days. Don't get me wrong: I love Thanksgiving. I love food and fall colors and family...what's not to love?

These are some of my favorite things from around the internet that may inspire you to make your Thanksgiving even more fabulous.

Fabulous Food

Cinnamon Roll Pie Crust by Taste for Adventure

This pie crust was originally designed to be used to make a sweet potato pie. I'll be honest: I don't like sweet potato pie. Or sweet potato anything, really. But you know what I do love? Cinnamon rolls. And this pie crust idea blows. my. mind. Use this great tutorial to make an amazing pie crust for what ever kind of pie you fancy.

Bacon Wrapped Green Beans by Just Cook Already

Nobody will want to eat Aunt Mildred's green bean casserole once you wow your family with this super tasty (and vegiphobic family member friendly) green bean dish. Sign up to bring the veggie dish and you may even steal the show from the turkey.

Turkey Cake Pops from Bakerella

A fun alternative to pie for the kids or the pie-adverse (or something to bring just because they are super fun!). I heard a rumor my brother's girlfriend is going to be making these for our family for Thanksgiving. Sounds like sister-in-law material to me! Don't worry, Chantal. I don't just love you for your cake pops.

Divine Decor

Stacked Pumpkins in Skinny Vases from FallWeddings.com

I love the look of fun things filling vases. Their different sizes and lopsidedness makes them more fun and whimsical just simply filling vases or bowls with nuts or cranberries.

5 Minute Autumn Centerpiece from SAS Interiors

Facebook fans will recognize this project from SAS Interiors that I linked to last month. It's so simple, beautiful and easy that I just had to spotlight it here, too!  Jenna's great tutorial walks you right through how to make this easy but impressive looking centerpiece.

THANKS Glasses from Naptime Decorator

If you have more than five minutes, check out this beautiful mantle decoration that Liz from Naptime Decorator made from Dollar Store materials. This would look great along the back of a buffet table, on a bar, the top of your china cabinet...or pretty much anywhere!  Liz walks you through how she made it with great pictures on her blog.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I hope you found a little bit of inspiration for how to make your Thanksgiving even more special this year. If I featured your project, thank you for sharing your creativity with the blog community. Please feel free to grab a button!

<a href="http://creativecarissa.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklZr_Hri2zrZPhH-zN8NNyq6pEdZTgy-Rcud5hiRQiD_geRrQiXRwXiydjUqfA42RYEjke7JoQA2_vGlVBh3g7GadFxK3q2nnFZ0yC5AEv86c3o5l36hOBeqz164TxXzugVmQDxje50I/s150/featured%252520button%252520150%252520px%252520copy.jpg" alt="Carissa's Creativity Space" width="125" height="125" /></a>

How to Make Apple Sauce in Your Slow Cooker

It's slow cooker week over at The CSI Project! I love to use my slow cooker for all kinds of things from dyeing yarn to making dinner.  So when I bought close to 50 pounds of Apples (and was then subsequently gifted about 10 more!), I recruited my slow cooker to help me make apple sauce.

It's not hard to do and if you like to can, it puts up really well using either a boiling water canner or a pressure canner.  Don't can? That's okay! It keeps in your fridge for up to a week and you can share the extra with a friend.

I make my applesauce without sugar because most of the time, the apples are plenty sweet without it. Plus my toddler inhales bowlfuls of this stuff and doesn't need extra fillers like sugar.  Adding cinnamon and nutmeg give the applesauce a great flavor but you can leave it out if it's just not for you!

Of all the times to invest in organic, any recipe using apples as the key ingredient is the time to do it. Conventional apple farmers use 56 or more different pesticides to keep those apples picture perfect and in 92 percent of apples tested this year, at least 2 of those pesticides remain on the apple even after they have been initially washed and brought to market (you can see more info about 2011 testing at Grist.com). What does that mean?  It means you use conventionally gown apples, you may be getting a side of poisonous chemicals with your fruit. If you're going to go through the effort of making homemade apple sauce - do it right and do it chemical-free.

Ingredients

• About 10 pounds (or however many you have) of organic apples
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice (optional) to help preserve color
• Water as needed
• 1.5 Tbsp ground cinnamon (more or less to taste)
• 1.5 tsp nutmeg (more or less to taste)

Instructions

1) Wash your apples - even if you bought organic - to get all the dirt and dust off.

2) Peel, core and slice your apples. I LOVE my apple peeler slicer corer. It clamps to your counter or a stand and peels, cores and slices your apples with the turn of a crank. If you spend any amount of time baking with apples, it's definitely worth the investment because of all the time you save!  Here's what it looks like...

So back to what we were doing...

Once you run the apples through this, you have a big long apple slinky (it's sliced in a spiral). Just cut the apple in half from top to bottom after running it through.

If you don't have one, just peel your apples and then core and cut into chunks or us one of those core and slice tools that you push straight down onto the apple.

3) Fill your slow cooker. As you peel and slice your apples, throw your slices into your crockpot. Just keep going until you run out of apples or space in your crock pot...whichever comes first.

4) Add Water. Add your lemon juice and some water to the crock pot. You don't need to cover the apples. For this full pot of apples, I probably added about 4-6 cups of water. If you add too much, you can always take the lid off and cook it down later, though that will add some time to the process.

5) Cover and Cook. Place the cover on your slow cooker and turn it on. If you set it on high, the apples will be ready in about 4 hours. If you're going to be away, set it on low and leave it to cook for 8-10 hours. You'll know your apples are ready when they are really soft and look about like this:

6) Blend or mash. Depending on what kind of texture you like for your apple sauce, you'll want to blend or mash your apples. I like to use an immersion blender and mostly blend it but leave it with some small chunks. Blend or run through a food processor until it's the texture you like.

7) Cook Down if Necessary. Evaluate how watery the applesauce is. If it's a bit too runny for your preferences, remove the lid and cook on high until it's the way you like it. Already like the texture? Move on to step 8.

8) Spice it up! If you're making spiced applesauce, now is the time to add your chosen seasonings. I usually add about 1.5 Tablespoons of cinnamon and 1.5 teaspoons of nutmeg for a full crockpot. Add what you like and keep tasting it until it's just right. If your applesauce isn't sweet enough for you, you can sugar at this point as well.  Allow it to cook for about 5-10 more minutes to allow the spices and sugar to fully permeate the sauce.

That's it!  You're done! 
At this point, you can can your applesauce OR just chill and serve.


If you're going to can....
(disclaimer: these canning instructions are targeted to those who already know canning basics and technique. If you are a canning newbie, check out FreshPreserving.com's Guide to Canning or pick up a copy of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving and then come back!)

If you're going to can your apple sauce, go ahead and prep your jars (quarts and/or pints), lid pieces and chosen canner type (you can use either a boiling water canner or pressure canner for this recipe).

My shortcut from prepping jars is to fill clean jars with about 1 inch of hot water from the tap and load them into my microwave. Then microwave on high until the water boils - and then for about 2 minutes beyond that. It helps sterilize the jars with steam and warms them up. Then you just leave them in your microwave until it's time to fill.

Once everything is ready...
Fill your hot jars with hot applesauce, leaving 1/2 inch head space.

Wipe the rim, add and adjust your lids and load into your canner.

Processing times for pint and quart jars of Applesauce
Boiling Water Canner: 20 minutes 
Steam Pressure Canner: 5 pounds of pressure for 8 minutes

Thanks for joining me! Now go fire up those slow cookers!

Want a printer-friendly version of this recipe without all the pictures? Check out the BakeSpace entry for this recipe here.

I'm joining these fabulous parties this week. Won't you join me?

* Mad Skills Party at Mad in Crafts * Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog * Lil' Luna Link Party at Lil' Luna *  These Chicks Cooked Party at This Chick Cooks * What's Cooking Wednesday at The King's Court 4 * Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design * Tutorial Tuesday at Newlyweds on a Budget * Creative Juice Thursday at Momnivore's Dilemma * Thrifty Thursday at Thrifty 101 * Strut Your Stuff Saturday from Six Sisters Stuff * Savvy Homemade Monday at Home Savvy A-Z * Inspire Me Fridays at The Joyful Stamper * Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest * Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating * Homemade Year at Blissful and Domestic *

 

Join me at the CSI Project!

I'm so excited to say that today I'm sharing my tutorial for how to dye yarn in your crock pot over at the CSI Project!

See this yarn?  Made it in my crock pot!

(okay....techincally, I bought the yarn. I did, however dye it in my crockpot)

I have always been inspired by The CSI Project so it's a real honor to help them kick off Slow Cooker Recipes and Crafts week with my tutorial. If you are unfamiliar, make sure you add them to your blog roll! They have a different themed challenge every week where they feature 3 different tutorials (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) and then on Thursday, they host a link party where you can link your blogged projects and enter to win great prizes!

If you would like to learn the ways of crockpot yarn dying ninjas, please join me over at the CSI Project today!

Divinely Inspired Comfort Food

One of the things I love about my church is that we do life together. One of the ways we do life together is the monthly cook-off challenge. Everyone loves food and our church is full of artistic people whose creative endeavors definitely cross over into the culinary realm.

The most recent food challenge we had was a "Comfort Food Cook Off." There were two categories: Savory and Sweet. You were also supposed to tell a story about your dish.  Judging criteron included: your story about why your dish was the ultimate comfort food, appearance, overall taste, level of comfort brought by the dish and creativity.

Up until the day before the event I was thinking I was going to make a super cheesy Spinach and Artichoke dip. Comforting because it is gooey and cheesy and also because you can eat it with healthy things like celery and carrots, thereby appeasing any guilt you might feel over consuming large quantities of a gooey cream cheese based dish - and allowing the comfort to better permeate your soul. I even tested two different hot spinach and artichoke dip recipes on my husband the night before (we may or may not have consumed mostly hot spinach and artichoke dip for dinner that night). I had a plan. It was perfect!

Except that I woke up the morning of the challenge and all I could think about was cheesy, gooey, chicken enchiladas with green sauce. I mean seriously, ALL I could think about. Maybe it was divine intervention. Maybe it was my hormones. Either way, I needed to have creamy, cheesey, chicken enchiladas. Like now. For breakfast even. I talked to my husband hoping he would help me see reason. That I should stick with my tested recipe. But in the end, my gut feeling (literally) prevailed.

Having a known issue with regular enchiladas falling apart, I was trying to figure out how to counteract that. But while cruising for inspiration, I saw a recipe for enchilada lasagna and I thought it was exactly the construction I needed! I would make the enchiladas I craved in a lasagna format and win the day!

And I did. Despite having the stupidest story ever.

Because even though the above story isn't too shabby, that's not the story I told the judges. As I was plating my dish in the kitchen before presenting it to the judges, someone came in and told me "Hey, you know you're supposed to have a ridiculous story to tell the judges, right?"

"Really? But I don't have a ridiculous story."

"Then you have to make one up. It doesn't even have to be true. Think of something that will move them or make them cry. You got this recipe from your grand mother. On her death bed. Or you traversed the world to get it."

"Oh. Hmm. Okay so.....this lasagna is a delacacy because it grows on trees in Italy?"

""Perfect!"

So that's the story I told....it grows on trees in Italy. And whenever I want comfort to remember my home country (Home country? I'm a 3rd generation American!) I want gooey, cheesy enchilada lasagna. Like the kind that grows on trees. In Italy. The end.

No joke.

I don't know what I was thinking either. And honestly, I'm pretty embarrassed to be telling you I had a moment of SERIOUS lapse in judgement and told this horrendous story instead of the legit one.  And I won anyway. I know. I can't believe it either. Because I had some pretty intense competition.  This is the winning circle:

The "Story Teller Spirit" Award went to my friend Sunita who is an award winning song writer. She told a (true!) story that I hear was pretty fabulous about her African Peanut Stew. And no doubt. I wouldn't be surprised if she sung it.

The winner of "Save My Soul Satisfying" (AKA the savory category) was Trenton, who make a colossal 5 cheese blend grilled cheese sandwich on sourdough. Practically large enough for its own zip code and full of gooey cheesiness.

The "Sweetly Sentimental" award for the best sweet dish was Leanna, who made a mini cupcake trio of french toast cupcakes with maple syrup frosting, red velvet cake, and a herb cheese biscuit with goat cheese topping. WOW. I'm trying to get her to start a cupcake blog and/or do a guest post here about the french toast cupcakes because it may have been one of the best cupcakes I have had ever. And I have had some cupcakes.


And me. I won the title of "Comfort Food Champ" which is pretty humbling especially when you consider the combination of how fabulous my competition was and the embarrassment of how stupid my story was  (word to the wise: don't let people change your story pre-competition. For real.)

But now that you've made it through that whole story, you deserve to be rewarded. How about with the recipe?

Green Chicken Enchilada Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1.5 pounds raw chicken OR 2 cups shredded cooked chicken
• 1 large can green enchilada sauce
• 16 oz. cream cheese
• 1 bunch cilantro, washed and chopped (stems discarded)
• 4 cups shredded Monterrey jack cheese, divided
• 1 medium sized onion, diced
• 12 corn tortilas

Notes:

This enchilada lasagna is assembled in a 2 piece, covered stoneware baker (I use the Pampered Chef "Deep Covered Baker") and then cooked in the microwave. Alternately, you could use a glass casserole dish with a microwavable lid. If you do not have a two-piece microwave safe dish of suitable size, you could a deep caserole dish and bake it in the oven at 350 for approx 45 minutes. 

Instructions

1. If using raw chicken, pour enchilada sauce into a large skillet. Cook chicken pieces over medium high heat in enchilada sauce, turning every 10 minutes or so until cooked through. Remove chicken from sauce, and shred. Set aside. Leave sauce in the pan.
   OR
   If using pre-cooked chicken (such as from leftovers), put shredded or chopped chicken in a bowl and mix with 1/2 cup of enchilada sauce. Toss to coat.  Pour remaining enchilada sauce into a deep plate.
2. Place cream cheese in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until cheese is very soft and easy to stir. Mix in chopped cilantro and 2 cups of the shredded cheese. Set aside.
3. Spread approximately 1/2 cup of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of your deep covered baker.  Assemble lasagna layers like so:
1. Dip 4 corn tortillas in the reserved enchilada sauce, and place in the bottom of the baker (overlapping and tearing as necessary to fit the shape and cover the whole bottom)
2. Drop half of the cheese mixture in little blobs on top of the tortillas. Smooth out with an offset spatula.
    
3. Add half of the chicken
   
4. Top with 1/3 of the diced onion and 2/3 cup shredded cheese
4. Repeat the layers 1-4 one more time. Top with last 4 sauce-dipped tortillas, remaining enchilada sauce, shredded cheese and diced onion.
   
   
   
   
   5. Place cover on baker and microwave for 15 minutes (or bake at 350 for approx 45 minutes). Allow to stand 5-10 minutes before serving.  
   
   
   
   Garnish with fresh pico de gallo salsa and sour cream.
   
   
   

I'm linking up this week with these fabulouso parties!

* Catch a Glimpse Thursday from A Glimpse Inside * Creative Juice at Momnivore's Dilemma * These Chicks Cooked Party at This Chick Cooks * What's Cooking Wednesday at The Kings Court 4 * Show and Tell and Blue Cricket Design * Tutorial Tuesday at Newlyweds on a Budget *

Better-Than-Canned Pumpkin 101

Last week I had the opportunity to share a guest post over at The Green Kids Guide (edited 2012: Green Kids Guide is now Healthy Home Magazine. This link below has been updated). If you are like me and are always looking for ways to help eliminate BPA exposure (or just like learning new cooking techniques), come check out my post, "A BPA-Free Halloween is as Easy as...Pie!" where I'll teach you how easy it is to make fresh pumpkin puree instead of having to get it from a BPA-lined can.

PLUS you'll get my recipe for chocolate pumpkin spice cake....which is a fabulous way to sneak some fresh veggie nutrition into your husband's or child's diet and they will love you for it!

The Candy Fairy

 Halloween can be a funny holiday. I have never enjoyed the creepy, gross-you-out, super scary things that some people like to do for Halloween. But I do love pumpkins, leaves and costumes (non-scary ones of course).  As mom to a little guy, though, Halloween brings a whole new dynamic....what to do with all that candy?!

Last year, we didn't go trick or treating. I made K a Yoda costume, Joe was a Jedi and I was Princess Leia. We went to a Halloween party and K was so little we just wore him around in the sling all night. We had a blast but because we didn't go trick or treating, there was no need to worry about piles of candy when we got home.

Halloween 2010 - K is 5 months old

This year was a little different because K can walk and could actually go trick-or-treating. K's friend Evie came over and we took them out trick-or-treating. Evie was a cheerleader and K was a monk (You can even check out my monk costume tutorial), although he was also frequently mistaken for being a Jedi. We just went around our block but still came home with a nice little bag of candy.

Halloween 2011 - K is almost 18 months old

So now, what to do? We have a bag of candy and we don't really eat candy. K, especially, doesn't eat candy. I got a lot of "let him have one piece a day" advice (and a lot of looks from people who thought I was nuts for wanting to avoid giving my 1 year old candy), but I just didn't feel comfortable going from one piece of candy or a bite of a cookie about once every 10 days or so to once a day. Why? Primarily because most candy has high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient - which is made almost exclusively from genetically modified corn. Most candies also include artificial food dyes, which studies are starting to show can cause behavior problems in some children, especially those with an intolerance to food dye, like my nephew. So, uh, no thanks.  

But back to my original question....what are we going to do with the candy?  Enter...

The Candy Fairy!

I read about the Candy Fairy online and thought it was such a genius idea that we decided to adopt it. The Candy Fairy, you see, is a cousin of the tooth fairy. Her job is to help her cousin's mission of pristine teeth by removing excess candy from homes post-Halloween. Once you are done trick-or-treating, you can pick out one thing from your bucket for every year old you are. Everything else gets left for the candy fairy. She comes overnight and takes the candy away and leaves a cool toy in it's place!

The Candy Fairy is also industrious enough to wrap presents in a blankie and  ribbon from Mommy's studio

Whoa! Cool alphabet toy!

What do you do with all your Halloween candy? Does the Candy Fairy visit your house? Do you bake it into cupcakes? Do you give it away?  I'd love to hear about it!