It Can't Be almost December!

Sorry for the long gap in postings. After work, gardening, housework, Rotary and church choirs I have little time for blogging. The garden is now officially done for the year. We had a hard freeze two weeks ago – the earliest hard freeze here in ten years. Now it’s warmed back up, but everything died except for the herbs and arugula. I gathered in the root crops for Thanksgiving dinner.

We had wonderful carrots steamed with butter and fig jam (from my fig tree, of course), The rest of the menu was the same as last year, except we didn’t have the turnips au gratin. Instead I harvested the rest of the salisfy and made salisfy au gratin salsify au gratin
I made some oven roasted turnips that I enjoyed, but no one else did. They were much stronger tasting than the turnips au gratin. So, I won’t be making that dish again.

Judi made a cranberry granite that she found on Food TV.

We served it as a cocktail. Put a scoop in each cocktail glass and add:
1 ounce Southern Comfort for a frozen Scarlet O’Hara or
½ ounce vodka and ½ Triple sec for a frozen cosmopolitan or
1/4 cup sparkling cider for a non-alcoholic treat.
The original recipe had ¼ vodka mixed in before the freezing stage, but we left it out so people could make non-alcoholic drinks if they wanted. It was delicious.




Cranberry Granita Recipe adapted from a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis

2 cups cranberry juice
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
6 fresh cranberries, for garnish

Whisk the cranberry juice and sugar in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves. Pour the cranberry mixture into a 13 by 9 by 2-inch glass baking dish. Cool completely. Whisk in the lime juice. Freeze until the granita becomes slushy, about 2 hours. Using fork, stir to blend. Continue freezing the granita until frozen, stirring every hour to form crystals, at least 5 hours or overnight.
Divide the granita among 6 dessert glasses. Garnish with fresh cranberries, if desired, and serve.

I’m thinking of getting an ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchen- Aid mixer.