A Better Cranberry Condiment

Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away, and it's time to think about the cranberry options we cooks and diners have. I agree with this writer at Serious Eats who much prefers cranberries served as a thick or chutney-type consistency, instead of the gelatinous "cranberry sauce" that comes out of a can. SE's Kerry Saretsky admits that the latter is "iconic Americana" but the former is tastier.

His observations are followed by this recipe for cranberry chutney with crystallized ginger.

This recipe is another one of my favorites -- cranberry sauce with dried tart cherries. (You can use canned tart cherries if you can't find the dried variety.) The cloves in the recipe add a nice twist.

Wonderful Clafoutis, But So Many Versions

Over at the food portal Serious Eats, Robin Bellinger writes that she took her second stab at making clafoutis, a custardy French dessert that is usually made with cherries. She wasn't sure at first how this version would turn out, but

. . . in the evening my husband pronounced it irresistible. I was truly sold the next day when I had a sliver of clafoutis straight out of the refrigerator; the flavor and texture of the clafoutis were best when it was cold.

She even pitted her own cherries. Impressive. I have a clafoutis recipe, and I'm pretty happy with it. But what I find curious is that no two clafoutis recipes are identical. There seems to be some distinction from one to the next. I noticed that this recipe contains more than a cup of milk, while this recipe calls for exactly 1 cup of milk, and this one contains only 3/4 cup.

One thing that probably trips up amateur cooks who try their hand at clafoutis is the fact that the batter is so runny. I'm willing to bet that many people try to "fix" that runniness, and what results is a custardy texture that is denser than it should be.

What a Waste of Eagle Brand

My sister-in-law appreciates good food. When we're talking about dessert recipes, she has this saying that I've always agreed with:

"Anything with sweetened condensed milk in it is bound to be good."

I've always concurred with her, that is, until I stumbled on this weird recipe from the website iFood. Yeeccch! I love cherries, but candied cherries? No, thank you. It reminds me of fruitcake. And the ingredients just don't sound like they work well together -- butterscotch morsels, cherries and peanut butter?

Replace the butterscotch morsels with chocolate morsels and you might be on to something.