Cranberry Orange Almond Biscotti

The cranberry craze continues here.  First it was cranberry preserves, then salad with cranberry and other delicious ingredients, and now biscotti.

What are your thoughts on biscotti?  Love it?  Hate it?  Never thought much about it? 

Historically I've turned my nose up to biscotti.  I always viewed them as boring...and a little too crunchy for my taste.  I tried my first homemade biscotti a couple of years ago as part of the Sweet Melissa Baking group.  I was pleasantly surprised that I did in fact like these little cookies.  For the record, I prefer my biscotti to be a little on the soft side.  Meaning, not super crunchy/hard.  It's all about the second bake time.  I under bake mine a bit to avoid an uber hard biscotti. 

Now don't go comparing biscotti to a piece of cake or your favorite fudgy brownie.  To fully appreciate biscotti you have to put them in their own category.  It's a great snack or light breakfast.  What I like is that it's not overly sweet, but is still enough to satisfy my sweet tooth.  And no, you don't have to be a coffee drinker to like biscotti.  Though I will say it's really perfect with a hot cup of tea if you're into that.

I made this batch of biscotti to send off for November's Operation Baking GALS (where volunteer bakers send home baked goodies to military stationed overseas).  And I'm gearing up to make it again this weekend for December's OBG since it travels so well.  I'm pretty jazzed about this round of OBG because it's Christmas.  On Sunday a few friends and family are gathering at my house with their baked goods and we are going to pack up boxes to send two recipients stationed in Afghanistan.  I'm really excited to see how many boxes we can put together to bring a little Christmas cheer to the military personnel who sacrifice so much for us all.  I'll be posting more on our baking party next week. :)


In the meantime, if you haven't tried biscotti you might want to give them a shot.  And biscotti makes a nice homemade holiday gift if you're looking for ideas.  

Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Almond Biscotti
Adapted from Sweet Melissa Baking Book

1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
4 Tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
Zest of 2 oranges
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup whole blanched almonds, roughly chopped

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or foil.  In a small saucepan, heat the orange juice and cranberries and bring to a simmer.  Cover and remove heat, allowing the cranberries to reconstitute in the orange juice.

In a medium bowl whisk flour and baking powder and set aside. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, zest, and salt until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing fully after each addition.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Add the vanilla, almond and orange extracts and mix until combined.

Add flour mixture to wet mixture in 3 additions, with the mixer on low speed.  Drain the cranberries and discard the juice.  Stir the cranberries and almonds into the dough.  Turn dough out onto plastic wrap and flatten.  Refrigerate until firm, about an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Turn dough out on a lightly floured surface and divide in half.  Roll each half into a log, patting and shaping it until you reach 14 inches.  Place the logs on the prepared baking sheet, about 4 inches apart. 

Bake for 30 minutes, until lightly golden and slightly firm.  Remove from oven and place the baking sheet on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes.  Reduce oven temperature to 275 degrees.  Transfer the logs to cutting board and cut the logs into 3/4 inch sticks at 45 degree angle.  Transfer the cookies to a freshly lined cookie sheet, cut side up.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Turn cookies over, exposing the other cut side and return to oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes.  If you want a really crunchy cookie, bake for a total of 60 minutes.

Apple, Cranberry, Feta Salad with Candied Pecans

We put up our Christmas tree this weekend.  It's a fake tree.  My first fake tree.  Turns out Hubby is allergic to real trees and was pretty much miserable last year.  I was kind of bummed that we had to go the artificial route.  I've had real trees my whole life.

But you know what? 

Our fake tree is AWESOME. 

It's easy to assemble.
It's pre-lit with 500 lights so no need for me to spend hours stringing lights.
It fits perfectly into the small space we have to put a tree. 
It doesn't make a mess leaving dead needles everywhere. 
It doesn't need to be watered.
The branches bend so you can arrange your ornaments to hang just how you like them.
And, it looks real!

Now all I have to do is get a Christmas tree scented candle and I'll have my tree smell too.  A small trade off.

Even though we already have our tree up, I'm a bit discombobulated with the timing of the holidays this year.  Thanksgiving felt like it came early which has subsequently thrown everything else off.  This is definitely the earliest we've had a tree up and running.  And I felt a totally panicked last week that we hadn't even thought about holiday shopping, even though it's completely normal for us to wait until early December to start.  But it's all good and I'm going with the flow and enjoying the season. 

In the spirit of the holidays, I've embraced an ingredient somewhat new to me this year.  The cranberry.  Cranberries have an extreme tartness that has turned me off in the past.  The turning point started with the Can It Up challenge for November--where I had the task to can something using cranberries.  It was my first time using fresh cranberries and I made these cranberry orange preserves.  It was a big success.  And it seems like it's been a flurry of cranberry ever since. 

Starting with this salad.  I'm loving this salad.  Normally when I make salad at home, 99% of the time it's the basic garden variety type--lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, peppers, maybe a mushroom or two.  But when I go to a restaurant, I always order the non garden variety type.   Like salad with fruit, nuts, beets, a little goat cheese or blue cheese.  I'm not really sure why I rarely make this type of salad at home.  No need to dwell in the past though.  I've made this salad no less than 3 times in a week.  Even Hubby is eating it (a modified version anyway).  It's sweet, it's tart, it's crunchy, it's salty.  It's yummy.  It's fall on a plate.



This salad would be a great side dish to a holiday meal, or to savor any day of the week as your lunch.  This is more of an ingredient list than a recipe.  Tweak it and make it your own. 

Happy holidays!

Enjoy!

Apple, Cranberry, Feta Salad with Candied Pecans

Lettuce (such as spring mix, butter lettuce or romaine)
Apples, thinly sliced (I used honey crisp)
Dried cranberries
Feta cheese
Green onions, thinly sliced
Salted candied pecans
Your favorite vinaigrette (such as balsamic)

Put it all together and voila!

Cranberry Orange Preserves

Thanksgiving went by way too fast....Hubby and I arrived at Grandma's house on Tuesday night, with our cat Oliver in tow, ready to get up first thing on Wednesday morning for a full day of preparation to begin.  My cousin was also there to help so it was all hands on deck.  We...

• made 6 pies--1 apple, 1 pecan and 4 pumpkin
• made 3 salads--blueberry jello salad, 7 layer salad and prepped fruit salad with whipped cream and marshmallows to be put together the next day
• made the base and topping for sweet potato casserole and traditional sweet potatoes with marshmallows, also ready for assembly the next day
• peeled potatoes for mashed potatoes (and vacuum sealed them in a little water so they would be ready to go the next day--I love the idea of vacuum sealing them so you can avoid all that potato prep on Thanksgiving day when you are busy with a 1000 other things)
• made 2 big pans of cinnamon rolls to be baked early Thanksgiving morning (looks like this one might be a new tradition)

Grandma had also done some serious prep before we got there...she made all the pie crusts and froze them (including making crust for turkey pot pies to be made from leftovers) and chopping all the veggies for the stuffing and the relish/veggie tray.  Not to mention all the shopping of course.  Grandma's been hosting Thanksgiving for a while now and has it all down to a science.  She makes it look so easy to pull together all these dishes, along with a traditional turkey (and a ham), for 20 people all by 1pm!  We eat early which means we have room for "second dinner" in the early evening where everyone is already anxious to break out the leftovers.  Yum.   

One of the treats that graced the Thanksgiving table this year were these cranberry orange preserves.  It was my first time working with fresh cranberries and I wasn't sure how the preserves would come out.  I'm happy to say my fears were unfounded and it was a big hit at the Thanksgiving table.  Even my 10 year old nephew couldn't stop talking about how much he liked the preserves.  It was really a nice accompaniment to the turkey and has officially turned me into a cranberry believer.  I gave away 6 of 7 jars to family members (had to keep one for myself so I could share it with you all!).

The inspiration for these preserves was Hima's Can It Up project over at All Four Burners.  Each month Hima announces an ingredient and all who are interested make a recipe featuring that ingredient that can be water bath canned.  Without Hima's pick of cranberries for November, I'm not so sure I would have taken the cranberry plunge.  Cranberries in the raw are extremely tart and somewhat bitter so I've always been hesitant to use them.  But I'm so glad I looked past that.  A little sugar (okay, a lot of sugar) and some other fruit transform these tart rubies into something really special.  So if you have a cranberry phobia, I encourage you to give these little beauties a try.  It would make a nice addition to your Christmas menu. 

I have a sneaking feeling these preserves will become another new Thanksgiving tradition right alongside those cinnamon rolls.

Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Preserves
from The Ginger Snap Girl

6 cups whole fresh cranberries
4 cups apples, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (I used honeycrisp, but you could use any combination)
2/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2/3 cup water
4 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Zest of 2 oranges (about 1 packed full tablespoon)

Add all ingredients to a large pot and cook on medium, stirring frequently, until the mixture simmers.  Turn the heat to medium low and continue cooking until fruit is very soft and slightly thickened (this took about 20-30 minutes for me).  I like my preserves to have a smooth texture, so I used an immersion blender to puree the mixture prior to canning.  To check if your preserves have reached the right consistency, spoon a dollop onto a small plate and place the plate in the freezer for a couple of minutes.  Remove the plate from the freezer and turn it on its side.  If the preserves slide right down and look runny, you probably want to continue cooking.  If they hold their shape and only slide a little, you're good to go. 

To can your preserves, prepare jars, lids and rings by washing them with hot soapy water and rinse thoroughly.  Once you start cooking your preserves, fill a pot with enough water to fully submerge all the jars and turn heat to high (note I use the same pot for preheating the jars as I do for the actual water bath).  Heating the jars allows you to ladle in the hot preserves without cracking the jars.  In small pan also heat your lids.  Have a clean ladle and tongs ready.  Once your preserves are done cooking, remove a jar from the hot water with your tongs and drain excess water.  Hold the jar with a kitchen towel while you ladle in the preserves.  Fill jars leaving a 1/4 inch of head space.  Use your tongs to carefully lift a lid out of the hot water and place it on top of the jar.  Screw on the outer ring until firmly snug, but not too tight.  Set aside on a clean kitchen towel and repeat the process, filling all your jars.  Bring your canning pot of water up to a boil and submerge each jar in the water using tongs.  Make sure jars are covered by at least 2 inches of water.  Boil for 10 minutes.  Remove jars from water and set on a kitchen towel to rest, undisturbed for 24 hours. 

Makes 7 half pint jars