Greetings from Arlington

[redbird]

adrian_turtle, cattitude, and I had a very cozy Thanksgiving, with enough good things to eat that we forgot all about the home-made cranberry relish until we'd filled up on turkey, onions, beans, sweet potato and apple casserole, stuffing, and gravy. Pie didn't happen (small hardware glitch), so we just ate chocolate for dessert. And mostly it was the warmth of being up here with both of them.

We took the train up, splurging to avoid day-before-Thanksgiving traffic on I-95. Cattitude went back yesterday, and has discovered that the buses aren't made for people his height. He went home with turkey, olives, and the aforesaid relish, for his supper last night; Adrian and I had turkey and cranberry relish on pita bread from the Middle Eastern store downstairs (source of the olives). [I'll be taking the bus back to New York today.]

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When you put turkey and whatever fixings on lefse, it's an Ole Taco. I have no idea what it would be with pita bread, though.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

It's yummy. In the dialect of the local pita pusher, "red meat" comes from turkey or chicken legs (the kind of meat I'm used to calling "dark"), though of course anything becomes red under enough of that cranberry relish. I have to make more before the cranberries go out of season. I intended it for use as a condiment, and put some in the freezer because I didn't think we could eat it all before it went bad. But eating it with a spoon means it doesn't last nearly as long.

[redbird]

Toss me the recipe, please, love.

cranberry-orange relish

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

1 lb cranberries (wash and pick over)
1 large navel orange (wash the outside, cut into eighths, remove any seeds)
a bit less than half a cup of sugar (to taste, depends on orange)
ginger to taste -- this batch used about half a teaspoon dry powder plus a tablespoon of the crystallized lumps

In a large food processor with a steel blade, chop half the berries and half the orange wedges together until the consistency looks right. Then dump it into a bowl and chop the rest of the fruit with the crystallized ginger. Add the sugar and powdered ginger when it's in the bowl, with the usual stirring and tasting. Mixing everything in the processor, as I did, is an advanced technique -- you have to recognize "almost the right consistency."

If you use a small food processor (3cup capacity), you need to divide it in three batches, so the orange peel gets chopped efficiently before the cranberries are all juice. I've heard of making this in a blender, but I've never seen it done. If a person had a food processor in the apartment and wanted to make some of this stuff, I think it would justify unpacking the food processor and washing it. *hug* It's remarkably pleasant frozen at the relish consistency. I wonder what it would be like ground down finer and frozen in your ice-cream maker.