The Best Berries are Cranberries!

Wow, time is flying by. This is our busy season at work, seeing as we are in the business of giving out food. I doubt I will have much free time until January. I can't even fathom that next week is Thanksgiving! Ahhh! Delicious foodie love must be given to this holiday!

In the world of my kitchen and other food events there's actually a decent amount to report. I've had a delicious meal cooked for me recently, also have been enjoying making different things with my bag of fresh cranberries. YAY! I LOVE cranberries. So awesome. At the moment I can smell my cranberry corn muffins baking up in the oven and it's fantastic!

Last week I made Cranberry Zucchini bread. I'd bought zucchini with the express purpose of making it into bread, because really, what else do you do with it that tastes good? I was trying to figure out what I'd make with the cranberries so it seemed logical to put them together. I checked the interwebs for a recipe and sure enough there were many.

I love the way cranberries look cut up! They have that cool inside that looks like a flower. The recipe was pretty straight forward and didn't involve too much work. Everyone in the house really liked it. I never got to bring it in to the office because it was too good!

The other great part about baking this bread was that I got to use new Super Awesome ginger bread spatula from Target!! I can feel the Christmas spirit.....

Now we have the cranberry corn muffins which are a combination of home made and prepared. I coated cranberries in some light oil and a nice sprinkling of sugar then added them to Jiffy corn muffin mix. I threw in a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg and another pinch of sugar into the batter.

There might not have been quite enough sugar to cut the tartness of the cranberries, but they look gorgeous! The color is fantastic, although I wish the muffin browned up a bit more.



I still think they taste awesome. They could definitely do with a bit of honey or sugar on the butter when you eat them, but it also depends how many cranberries are in each muffin. I already ate two of them, and there are only 8, so I doubt they will last terribly long since I'm eying a third one.
I still have cranberries left so I'm going to make them into something if I feel motivated between now and Thanksgiving. Suggestions welcome! Now let the Holidays begin!

Food Bonanza day

After lying in bed all day, literally all day until about 5:00pm due to some adventures last night, I decided some cooking was in order. We originally were planning to have a little bbq but no one was really prepared so I decided it was a good day to do some cooking for the week.

On the menu:
Corn muffins
Red Potato Salad
Tuna Casserole

Corn muffins are easy because all they involve are a box, an egg and milk. They went into the oven while I prepared the water for the noodles. Meanwhile we start heating up water for the potatoes and slicing some onions. I knew the general principles behind potato salad and tuna casserole but I didn't have an actual recipe so I did a quick check online and found an easy tuna recipe that I could modify a little. The potato salad I used Paula Dean's recipe to vaguely go off of because all the other recipes involved hard boiled eggs or bacon for some reason. There are no eggs allowed in my potato salad, thanks anyway. The corn muffins come out in 15 minutes and then I can put together the tuna.

While I was waiting for the noodles to cook and the potato water to boil I started putting the "sauce" for the casserole together which is cream of mushroom soup, tuna, milk, onions, a little cheese, salt, pepper and paprika. Since I was still waiting I explored the fridge for some additions and got a tiny bit of frozen peas and carrots, some pickles and a few pieces of a portobello mushroom.

The whole thing wouldn't fit in one pan so I used a second small pan, which I happened to be storing a little bit of leftover tofu in. It seemed silly to toss out the tofu so I crumpled it up and put it on top of the second casserole. I haven't gotten to taste that one yet but it looks pretty good.


Meanwhile, the potatoes that take forever to cook come out and I mix them in with onions, mayo, mustard, a little cider vinegar, salt, pepper and a tiny bit of water. I was pretty proud of it cause it tasted good. Some of the potatoes may still be a tiny bit underdone and the onions are cut in kinda ridiculously huge pieces, but that's ok.

All in all it was successful, although not the best dinner to invite company too cause there's a lot of onions. I did get a thumbs up from my roommates on the tuna casserole. Yay cheap and easy food!!! And the best part is I have tons of leftovers so I can eat for a long time!