Cranberry Jalapeno Dip

Sweet, spicy, and tart - this dip has it all and it's the absolute best!

You'll have to excuse these pictures, but they were taken in Christmas 2019 when my family was in Florida in a small airbnb (which we thought was supposed to sleep 11 - which was a stretch - it was so small. We thought the kitchen would have all the tools we would need, but it was really sparse (also a stretch in the description). I wanted to use a food processor and have a chunky salsa, but ended up having to puree it in a blender. Regardless of the method and how I had to adapt, this salsa was absolutely the best. I loved it so much. The family did too. You get sweet and tart from the cranberries, heat from the jalapenos, and cream cheese to offset the heat just a little and add a bit of savory to the whole thing. We used pretzel crisps because they are our favorite dippers!

Sparkling Cranberry White Chocolate Cupcakes

Perfect vanilla cupcakes with a white chocolate ganache filling, tart cranberry frosting, and sparkling cranberries!

Hear me out on this little "story"...when I was a kid, I had only experienced cranberries through the jellied cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. I just assumed that I didn't like cranberries. As an adult, I have tried new foods and foods that I previously thought I didn't like to see if I changed my mind. So now that I know I like cranberries, I'm trying to make all the cranberry things. These cupcakes are so great because they have the candied cranberries AND a white chocolate ganache filling. Honestly, what more could you ask for for a festive holiday treat?!

Cranberry Bliss Bars

These copycat Cranberry Bliss Bars are the perfect winter treat with a chewy sugar cookie base with cranberries and white chocolate topped with cream cheese frosting!

Every year, I look forward to getting the seasonal Cranberry Bliss Bars at Starbucks. We have a little Starbucks in our grocery store and it's a nice little treat to get one while grocery shopping. The cookie part is chewy, the frosting is creamy, the cranberries are tart, and then there's the white chocolate. They are rich little bars, but so delicious. A must for the winter season, if you ask me. The original has orange zest in it, but my oldest is allergic to oranges (and possibly pineapple - we're waiting on his results for that and he is devastated that he may not be able to eat Hawaiian pizza anymore), so I just subbed in a little lemon zest. It's still got that bright acidic zing needed to offset the rest of the recipe.

Cranberry Cheesecake Crumb Pie

Take that can of cranberries and make something magnificent with it!

As a child, the only experience I had with cranberries was the canned jellied kind. Now plenty of people enjoy that, but I am not one of those folks. I thought that I just didn't like cranberries, period. End of story. Then as an adult, I decided to try them again, but not in jelly form. I think my first brush with cranberries as an adult was fresh cranberries and I loved them. Fresh cranberries are so perfectly tart. So I am making up for lost time and eating all the cranberry things.

This pie was a good compromise for me because I also don't really care for pie (because of the crust) but Nick does. But it's also partly cheesecake, so that works for me. This is like the perfect mixture of so many delicious things. The cranberries are tart and are lovely paired with the creamy cheesecake and buttery crumble. I can't even with how wonderful this dessert is. Perfect substitute for jellied cranberries, if you don't like it :)

Sausage & Pecan Cranberry Stuffing

Dress up (pun intended) that premade stuffing mix with spicy sausage, tart cranberries, and pecans and be a Holiday Hero!

I still haven't quite figured out the difference between stuffing and dressing when it comes to holiday food, but I do know that I have always loved Stove Top stuffing. But it seemed like most times when it came to stuffing/dressing on the holiday spread, I wasn't a fan. One of my food aversions is wet bread/crackers. I don't dip breads in anything that will make it soggy. No crackers in my soup. No way.

When I moved to Tennessee, my aunt had made cornbread stuffing for Thanksgiving and I fell in love. It was the perfect texture and tasted amazing. I decided to try my hand at a stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving and could not have been more happy. It has spicy sausage, a sour green apple, pecans, and tart dried cranberries. You can choose what type of stuffing you want to use, but I reached for the cornbread stuffing because it's my favorite and honestly, why wouldn't you pick cornbread stuffing?! I am happy to report that everyone who tried it enjoyed it immensely and it will definitely be a go-to side dish recipe for the holidays.

Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins

These sweet muffins have a burst of tart cranberry - the perfect winter breakfast!

Hello, December! The end of the year is upon us and once again, I can't believe it. For some reason, cranberries don't really hit my radar until after Thanksgiving. I don't like cranberry sauce, but I love cranberries in baked goods. These muffins are the fluffiest, moistest, creamiest, loveliest, and all the other -ests. The bite of cranberry is just the right amount of tart to offset the sweetness of the muffins and it's the best. I could not stop eating them.

Puffins

Pancakes meet muffins in this wonderful breakfast that you can customize in so many ways!

This is one of the most genius recipes I've ever found and made. It literally can be turned into whatever flavor combinations you want it to have. It could be savory or sweet. For our puffins, I made mini chocolate chip, cranberry and white chocolate, and bacon and caramel. All three combinations were fantastic, but my favorite was the chocolate chip for sure. The possibilities are endless and if you do make these with your own combination, please leave me a comment. We make these often and keep making the same three flavors because we love them so much, but I would love to try new combinations too!

Cranberry Spritzer

Liven up your holiday season with this non-alcoholic beverage that is fruity and fizzy!

I'm trying to be better about making recipes other than dinner and the occasional dessert. I'm so bad for never making beverages or snacks or appetizers or side dish recipes. I do make these courses during the holidays though, so, of course, I have a lovely beverage to share with y'all that is perfect for Christmas and New Year's/winter months. We had this on New Year's Eve. I was pregnant and obviously the kids can't have any alcohol, so we got to enjoy these nonalcoholic fizzy drinks :)

Christmas Cranberry Dip #SundaySupper

A perfectly sweet and tart appetizer for easy holiday entertaining! This cranberry dip is wonderful finger food for family and friends while you enjoy each other's company.

This week's theme for #SundaySupper is Easy Holiday Entertaining and the event is hosted by Michelle of The Complete Savorist and Valerie of Lifestyle Food Artistry. When I heard the theme, my mind went to what I fixed last holiday season. Because I'm barely getting 1 or 2 posts done each week...my "made" recipes are stacking up. And, to be honest, it's a little weird to post a Christmas recipe in the dead of summer. Right?

To me, the easiest recipes for the holiday to entertain a whole crowd are finger foods (appetizers). There's so much big feast fixing that sometimes you forget to eat breakfast...and lunch. It's nice to have something on hand to dig into with your hands!

So last year, I made a ton of appetizers for Christmas and New Year's. Cami loves appetizers and so we had to make sure to have some on hand for her. My mom-in-law made a cheese tray with pickles and olives and banana peppers. And I, of course, made the sweet appetizer. Cami also really loves cranberry sauce and we always make it special for her, so I decided to make her an appetizer with cranberries. This one is a pretty easy dish. You simply bake the cranberries with sugar, stir in the preserves, allow to cool, and mix in the cream cheese. If you are lucky enough to NOT have someone who would never touch this if he saw the unmixed cream cheese, *cough* Nick *cough*, then you can spread softened cream cheese on the bottom of your casserole dish or a pie dish and pour the cranberry mixture over the top and serve it that way.

It was perfectly sweet, perfectly tart, and super addictive. I could not stop eating it! The buttery crackers are a must. They definitely compliment the cranberry dip in a way that no other dipping food could!

Cranberry Coffeecake #SecretRecipeClub

It's time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal day for my group, Group D! What is Secret Recipe Club? It's a bunch of food bloggers separated into four groups that post once a month on a designated Monday. Each month, we are paired with another foodie from our group secretly (hence the name). We then pick a recipe (or two or more) from that blog and make it. On our reveal day, we reveal whose blog we had and what recipe(s) we chose all at the same time. It's like a Secret Santa every month, but with food and blogs! It's a great deal of fun :)

My assignment this month is Lauren from Sew You Think You Can Cook. Lauren is an air force wife, mom, and aerospace engineer. Quite impressive, right?! She does aspire to be a caterer - since she loves to cook. Lauren has a ton of great recipes on her blog (plus she also shares some of her other hobbies, like quilting and holiday decorating/hosting), so I took to searching immediately!

I found some very tasty looking treats, like Pineapple Macadamia Nut Bundt Cake, Strawberry Pomegranate Smoothie, Chile con Queso, Caprese Steak, and Spinach Salad with Spicy Pineapple Dressing. The last few weeks of my pregnancy gave way to an insatiable fruit craving. It's all I wanted. And it's sort of lasted past giving birth. I'm also craving the crap out of some steak. So my finds were fruit heavy and then there's the steak recipe :) I ended up going back and forth between two breakfast recipes featuring cranberries because I have been obsessed with them since Thanksgiving timeframe. So I was down to Cranberry Cinnamon Rolls and Cranberry Coffeecake.

As you could tell by my blog post title - I went the coffeecake route! I wasn't sure I could find fresh cranberries for the cinnamon rolls - I hadn't seen any in my local Kroger in a while. The coffeecake used canned cranberries (the whole cranberry sauce kind, not the awful jellied kind) and that's much easier to find. I only changed out one ingredient - the orange for a lemon - because I didn't know if Matthew would eat it or not and he's allergic to oranges. I loved this coffeecake. It was perfect. I rarely get recipes to look close to the original recipe, but my cake looked exactly like Lauren's picture. I made this as a surprise for Sunday dinner at my in law's - Nick had already taken Matt & Cami over, so I was trying to manage holding Mason and making this coffeecake, so I used my phone camera instead of my Canon. Pictures aren't the best, but the coffeecake IS the best!!