Chipotle Lime Cranberry Sauce

We're baaaacccckkk.... I know, it's been a long time. The holidays are a constant source of inspiration for us, so even though we are still trying to find our way in this new place and topsy-turvy life, the ideas start flowing in November.

Are you excited for Thanksgiving? Ben is a huge Thanksgiving enthusiast; if I am being honest, I get a little bored with the same old thing every year. This recipe I have today is a twist on a typical favorite, but adds a little tang and spice to mix things up. The idea for this recipe came from a college friend of mine who has her own awesome, southern food blog, Biscuits and Such. I made Elena's recipe four years ago when she first published it and over the years I have changed it up a little to match my own tastes. Let's just say that Ben is a little bit of a control freak when it comes to Thanksgiving and I need to have my own projects if I want to feel useful.  This is one of a few that I've focused on over the years.

The flavors aren't too extreme, and let's face it, anything that can be doubled as a salsa is ok in my book. Salsa is just sauce, right? Cranberry salsa and chips will serve as the perfect holiday themed appetizer for your holiday potlucks. As you are pulling together your menu, consider adding this one to the lineup. 

This cranberry sauce uses several of my favorite things: lime, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and even cranberries. I've always had a thing for cranberries, maybe it goes back to visiting the Ocean Spray factory when I was a kid and riding by the flooded cranberry bogs, but I've really always liked their unique taste, even though it isn't a very popular kid flavor. 

Kitchen cranberry bog.

Besides serving this as a ridiculously great salsa with tortilla chips, we have also loved it on bread with Goat Cheese or Smoked Gouda. OR (!) as I am writing this, Ben is experimenting with putting it on a peanut butter sandwich as a sort of smoky, spicy jam; this should serve as evidence to the versatility of this very special holiday recipe. I'm going to keep making it this year as long as I can keep buying the cranberries in the store! 

These are not the prettiest things you've ever seen but they bring a lot to the flavor game!

Minced peppers measured out to two teaspoons.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup plus 1 TB of sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp minced chipotle in adobo, plus 1 tsp of the adobo sauce
• 2 cups fresh cranberries
• Juice of 1/2 a lime
   

Directions

1. Rinse your cranberries. Use the same method as a cranberry bog and fill up a large bowl with water and dump the cranberries in. The bad ones will sink to the bottom, don't use those.
2. Add water, sugar, and cumin to a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
3. While the water and sugar are coming to a boil, mince the peppers. I used 2 peppers and they measured out to 2 teaspoons in total. This is not a very neat and tidy mince, more of a controlled mash. Just make sure that the pieces are small so no one gets a big mouthful of chipotle.
4. After the water and sugar comes to a boil, add the peppers and cranberry; return to a boil.
5. Lower the heat and simmer for 15-30 minutes, waiting (and listening because it is exciting) for the cranberries to pop, and the sauce to thicken.   The longer you cook, this thicker the sauce will be.
6. Add the juice of 1/2 a lime, and stir to incorporate.
7. Allow to cool at room temperature before serving.

Bonus Dish: Cranberry Salsa!!!!!!

Grilled Cheese and Garlic Scape Sandwich

We're continuing our self-declared, heat wave inspired, Grilled Cheese Week. This time we're using a farmers market favorite, garlic scapes! We had these for the first time, a few years ago, when they were among the options for our CSA pickup. They're so interesting looking, it's hard to just walk by. 

I experimented them to create the original version of the Garlic Black Bean Dip that I shared a few months ago, and today we're using it to make this Garlic Scape Pesto. We thought that the flavor from using only the garlic scrapes was a little much, so we made a spread that combines basil and garlic scapes. There are about a million pesto recipes online, I looked at a few and decided to wing it. Where we ended up is a slightly thicker spread that holds up well in the sandwiches.

In this installment of grilled cheese week, we went for the mozzarella to pair with the garlic and basil floors from the pesto. The melted, gooey, sandwich's flavor is close to heavenly, and tastes as fresh as the ingredients from the farmers market, and feels like a summer flavor classic.

Garlic Scape Basil Pesto

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 - 4 oz olive oil
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup cashews
• 1 1/2 cups of fresh basil
• 10 garlic scapes, roughly chopped

Instructions

This one's easy; toss all ingredients into your food processor or high speed blender and blend until it is a spreadable consistency. Start with less olive oil and add as you go until your desired consistency is reached.

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Grilled Cheese and Garlic Scape Sandwich

Ingredients

For each sandwich:

• 2 slices of crusty bread
• Softened butter
• Garlic Scape Pesto
• 1-2oz fresh mozzarella, sliced

1. Butter one side of each slice of bread
2. Flip the bread over, and spread the pesto on each bread face.
3. Layer slices of mozzarella across your bread, and close your sandwich, butter side out.
4. Fry your sandwich up on a skillet of grill pan on medium high heat!

Enjoy! What are some of your favorite grilled cheese combos and additions?

Hot, Spicy, and Sweet Grilled Cheese with Turkey

In Seattle it has been HOT! The temperatures are closer to what we're used to having in Baltimore, without the humidity, but also without the air conditioning! There is just no escaping it. People keep assuring us that it isn't typically like this, but this heat wave has lasted over two weeks, and I am starting to wonder if this is the new normal.

Luckily, the extended forecast shows the temperature dipping at the end of the week, but I hope that doesn't change by the time we actually get there. Anyway, it is too warm to turn on the oven when we would normally cook dinner, so we've been going with alternate cooking means. We could just eat salads, but that gets boring after awhile, and I still miss the hot meal feeling, even it I'm feeling very warm myself. One of those options is to cook something quick on the stovetop, it goes on, cooks, and turns off in a few minutes, avoiding the preheating and literal box of hot air, that cooking with the oven would prescribe.  

Based on the need to use the stovetop, I declare this week, GRILLED CHEESE WEEK!

So I am sharing a sandwich today that I loooove!!!! And I'll share another on Thursday! I could eat this one almost every day; the flavors in it play off of each other so well, and they dress up a plain grilled cheese to be something pretty spectacular. There is some heat mixed with the sweetness of the jam that leaves me craving the flavors of this sandwich. I based this combo off of something I picked up at a shop in Philadelphia and changed around so that Ben would eat it (the original had ham and that isn’t Ben’s thing). 

We made this in Baltimore before we left with smoked turkey breast from Neopol, and if you live in Baltimore, or near a meat smoker—THAT IS THE WAY TO GO! For all of us living far away from that beautiful specialty market, sliced turkey or chicken breast will do just fine. You can also add some smoky flavor by choosing smoked cheese.

Let’s talk jam:

I started with fig preserves, which is what the original sandwich used, but they’re a little hard to find. My mom finally found it at Harry and David, but we left it in Baltimore. When we were trying to find a replacement I picked up aprium jam and pluot pepper jam at the farmers market, and they both seem to taste great. I think the most important thing is the sweet note, not necessarily the flavor of the jam so you can customize it. I prefer the pluot pepper jam, since it adds a little more heat to the sandwich.

The pan:

You can use whatever pan you would use for grilled cheese, just give it a go, and be careful to keep all the loose parts inside your sandwich when you flip.

We use the grill pan from Le Cruset and their panini press, I find that it holds everything together a little better and cooks a bit more evenly, but really, just use the tools that you have.

For Each Sandwich you need:

• 2 slices of crusty bread that is fairly dense, and will trap your cheese in the sandwich and not cover your grill pan in cheese (so, not ciabatta)
• Provolone Cheese
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 Scant TB of jam (enough to smear on one piece of bread).
• Sliced oven roasted turkey (smoked if available)
• Room temperature butter

1. Heat your pan to medium high, and lightly grease. There is a lot of psychology that goes into how you heat up your pan. Are you a frequent grilled cheese burner? You may want to go low and slow. Are you really hungry, and you aren’t going to take your eyes off of the sandwich while it is cooking? A high temp may be just fine with you. Really, I try to find the balance so that it cooks pretty quick on the outside but not so fast that the outside of your sandwich is hot and the inside is full of cold ingredients and solid cheese. Experiment with your desired temperature and results.
2. Smear one side of each slice of bread with butter.
3. Flip the bread, butter down on your work surface, and start building your sandwich.
4. Spread jam on one face of your sandwich (I’ve tried both sides, and it’s a little heavy on the jam for me).
5. On top of that add a slice of cheese.
6. Now sprinkle the cayenne pepper.
7. Layer your turkey.
8. Top with a piece of cheese, and your other piece of bread (butter out).
9. Carefully transfer your sandwich stack from work surface to the grill pan. 
10. Cook until golden brown on one side and flip.
11. Cook until the second side is done and enjoy!

What is your favorite thing to heat during a heat wave?