Cranberry Salsa--put it up or give it away

Sweet and spicy, this gluten free condiment is terrific on a leftover turkey sandwich. The bright color makes a lovely edible gift during the holiday season.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

I have a confession and an apology. Apology first. When I shared the Cranberry Chicken Swiss Chard Leek Enchiladas I was unaware that one of the ingredients I used, cranberry salsa, was not always available. I'm sorry.


Now for the confession--I often work ahead, posting recipes made up to a year in advance. See, I'm slow as the molasses in my cold kitchen in the wintertime. If I were to get recipes written, photographed and typed and published in order I'd be sharing tomato recipes in November, pumpkin recipes in January, and butternut squash recipes in April.


Nobody wants that--not even the folks Down Under?! Instead of missing the seasons by a mile, I opt to save posts until they are seasonally ripe. I've got some flexibility that way, so I can toss in a Beef and Venison Sloppy Joe recipe or a Slow Cooker Apple Chai for a crowd when the spirit moves me [and I'm asked].

Most of the time this method--of working ahead and taking my time, works fine. Sometimes I screw up. Royally. In this case I tried to find the same brand of cranberry salsa in the store and even contacted Ocean Spray only to learn that they don't make cranberry salsa each year. Instead of just saying 'oh well, you're on your own', I grabbed a bag of cranberries from my freezer stash and some hot peppers from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share and made a batch.

If you've ever made cranberry sauce from the bag of berries, you can make cranberry salsa. It's just boiling and stirring, after all. If your cranberry sauce involves opening a can from both ends, let's talk and explore your options.

I canned this cranberry salsa. In fact I've canned so many things that my shelf support broke! Luckily the shelf fell onto the jars of salsa verde and Cantina Style Strawberry Salsa, so nothing slid to the floor. Although I did get 7 jars to fill up my canner, I did have a wee bit left over and it has been in my fridge for 2 weeks and tastes delicious. I'll bet it's good for at least 2-3 weeks in the fridge, and that's plenty long for Thanksgiving turkey sandwich leftovers. That means you don't have to process this before using.

Salad greens from the farm share and kohlrabi pickles make this sandwich amazing.

Honey Citrus Throat Soother | Couples Guide to Marietta, Ohio

Honey Citrus Throat Soother is perfect for sore and scratchy throats during cold and flu season--made at home with all natural ingredients, this tastes good and is a lovely drink for warm sipping on chilly nights. It keeps in the fridge for up to 2 weeks and makes a great gift in the fall and winter.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

Disclosure:I spent 3 days in Marietta, Ohio on an agritourism press trip. I was put up, fed, and shown the sights courtesy of the Marietta CVB. In exchange, I have written this post--and two others, since I'm so charmed by this town and I think ya'll should visit. This post details a Couples Guide to Marietta, Ohio. Check out this post for a Family Guide to Marietta, and this post for a Girlfriends' Getaway to Marietta.


(scroll down to the 'how to' video if you just want the recipe)

Marietta--at dawn and dusk.

My spouse is an active guy. No "lie in the sand" vacations for him. He needs to be going places to do, see, and learn new things. A visit to Marietta, Ohio would be right up his alley. We'd stay in the historic Lafayette Hotel right along the water downtown, so we could wake up and walk along the river checking out the birds. I saw geese, ducks, sandpipers and a great blue heron during my recent Agritourism Adventure in Marietta, Ohio. After a stroll across the pedestrian bridge, we'd eat a locally sourced breakfast at the Busy Bee Restaurant (he'd love the massive blueberry pancake). On the weekends, we like to hit our local farmer's market, so we'd be sure to check out the River City Farmer's Market and bring home some Broaster's Coffee for our son.

Slow Cooker Apple Butter | Family Guide to Visiting Marietta, Ohio

Local apples taste best in this slow cooker apple butter recipe. Use your kitchen appliances to do the work for you! This recipe can be canned for shelf stability & food gifts.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

Disclosure: I spent 3 days in Marietta, Ohio on an agritourism press trip. I was put up, fed, and shown the sights courtesy of the Marietta CVB. In exchange, I have written this post--and two others, since I'm so charmed by this town and I think ya'll should visit.


One aspect of traveling that I enjoy is the opportunity to learn something new--both about myself and the places I visit. This doesn't apply just to adults--kids can grow and thrive in new environments as well. On my recent Agritourism Adventure in Marietta, Ohio we visited many places that will delight the whole family, and I'll share them today in my Family Guide to Marietta, Ohio. If you'd like to visit Marietta with a group of girlfriends, please check out my Girlfriends' Guide to Marietta, Ohio. If you'd like to steal away for a couples weekend, stay tuned for my Couple's Guide to Marietta.

How to Make Kalua Pig in a Slow Cooker

Bring the luau out of the back yard and into the slow cooker with this simple 3 ingredient recipe for slow cooked pork. This is a great meal to take to friends, and the leftovers freeze well.

Disclosure--there is nothing to disclose. This post is not sponsored by anyone--it's just for me. I'm putting on the 'blogger' hat and writing a web log about recent events, primarily to help me debrief myself as much as to have a record on my website of this recipe, this experience. Scroll down (there's a video!) if you're just interested in the recipe and not my life.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

Earlier this year I read a book called The Year of Yes [Amazon link below with some other stuff. You click, you find something else to buy, and I may get a couple of pennies for my annual website costs. Up to you. Thanks.] In the book, Shonda Rhimes wrote about choosing to say Yes to projects outside her comfort zone, and I decided to do the same thing. When my local community center asked me to teach another canning class I said yes and developed a pickling class I'll be teaching next month. When Jennifer of the Ohio Pork Council asked me to do a cooking demo at the Ohio state fair? Of course I said yes.

The schedule looked busy. The dates of Fair Week included the time I'd be up in Minnesota having a family reunion celebrating my folks' 60th anniversary and visiting my spouse at his new assignment, meaning I'd come off driving 2200+ miles and jump right into cooking? It seemed reasonable 3 months ago, and in fact it was just fine. I was crazed and harried, but just fine. Jennifer asked me to cook something easy, and after about 30 seconds of thought I knew I'd be grabbing a lei and channeling my time in Hawaii. I could cook this with my eyes closed, although there are knives involved so I don't recommend you try it.

I lived in Hawaii, on Oahu, twice--both times courtesy of the military. During my first stay, my son was born in a Pepto bismol pink hospital on the side of a mountain while I was assigned to the patient squadron and waddled around exploring as much of the island as I cared in my heavily pregnant/postpartum state. [You might think that's not much, but you don't know my spouse. He had us hiking up to see waterfalls the day after our baby was released from the NICU--2 weeks after my C section.] My spouse was the one stationed in Hawaii the next time we lived on Oahu. He likes to refer to the assignment as my 3½ year "Hawaiian Honeymoon". [We had a JoP wedding in the States and I'd flown back to Germany 2 days later, so no honeymoon. The marriage was the important part, not the vacation.] When we arrived in Hawaii, our kids were 2½ years old (returning to his birthplace) and 8 months (our baby girl). They were 6 and 4 when we left. Yes, I changed a lot of  diapers. I don't think you're supposed to wash diapers on a honeymoon, nor have your spouse go on a deployment, so I'm still waiting for my trip.

Sweet Sausage Bread

This quick nut bread combines sweet fruit and savory pork sausage for the ultimate in grab and go breakfast treats, with plenty of protein to get and keep you going.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

This post is sponsored by the Ohio Pork Council. They have compensated me for my time and provided the sausage I've used in the recipe below. Please see the link at the bottom of this post for a short survey and a chance to win a KitchenAid mixer with sausage attachment. That's a $350 value!

The BLUF (military acronym for Bottom Line Up Front) is this is a quick sweet fruit & nut bread that happens to use a pound of pork sausage. Meat and fruit in bread? It sounds crazy--but recall that mincemeat originally contained meat. Honest--you gotta try it! This recipe comes from Ruth Runyan of Oakview Farms. She and her family have been raising hogs in Urbana, Ohio for going on 4 generations now. You can read about my visit to Oakview Farms here. In this post I share how 3,500 Ohio farms raise enough pork to feed 25 million people. That's more than double Ohio's population, but these good folks share with plenty of other states. When you buy pork at the grocery store or farmers market, you are supporting Ohio farm families! (Hey thanks for eating locally and supporting local businesses. It's kind of a thing of mine.)



I was intrigued by the idea of using savory sausage in a sweet bread. After all, I like maple syrup on my breakfast sausage, bacon in my Maple Peanut Butter Bacon waffles, and I have been known to do "quality control" testing on the honey bacon at work. Sweet and savory just goes together. In addition to a hearty breakfast option, this bread can be served as a side dish (like I first tried it, with Perfect Grilled Pork Chops). I suspect it would make a terrific stuffing or dressing alongside a holiday meal. I bet you could even stuff thick cut pork chops with this bread! No matter what your application, it's an unusual recipe to add to your repertoire. If you enter the survey below, and win the KitchenAid mixer and sausage attachment, you could even customize your own sausage to make this bread!

Spiked Hot Cocoa Gift Mix and Giveaway for #ChristmasWeek

Give the gift of hot cocoa to the entire family with this allergen-friendly mix. Add a bottle of the spike of your choice so that the entire family can enjoy a treat. This post is the start of #ChristmasWeek, a sweets-filled extravaganza hosted by Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Kiss My Smoke. 

 Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

Note: I am taking a break from my usual routine of posting recipes using local produce from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, the farmer's market, and the garden. If you've got a pile of veggies you're looking to use, may I suggest checking out my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient? 

Does this photo look like the chaos that ensues during tree trimming time?  It's supposed to. Or maybe that's just my house.

I'm going to come across as a total booze hound in this post and I apologize in advance. I know that turning to alcohol will not solve any of life's petty little annoyances nor cure any chronic behavior issues. I know that alcohol is not a long term coping solution for any of life's stressors. If you are concerned about giving a gift with alcohol, please feel free to substitute any of the flavored syrups posted below as your spike of choice. Those flavored syrups are going in our Christmas stockings (and hopefully my kids aren't reading this).

With that caveat out of the way . . . it can be pretty damn hard to solo parent teens, or really kids in general, and the extra activities of the holidays make it doubly hard. Please consider giving the gift of a jar of Spiked Hot Cocoa Mix to anyone you know who would enjoy it--even yourself. What a wonderful way to unwind after a busy holiday than with a cup of hot cocoa--spiked with a little something for mom & dad, [mom & mom, dad & dad, solo parent] left plain for the kids. I've had such fun working on this recipe and I looked forward to my nightly recipe testing!

You'll notice a couple of subtle changes from the standard hot cocoa gift mix recipe. First off, there is no powdered milk in this recipe. That means you need to get to mix it with the milk of your choice. An extra step to be sure, but I have my reasons. I grew up drinking the occasional milk-stretched-with-powdered-milk and personally can't stand the taste of reconstituted milk. I'll bake with it no problem, but I will not drink it by choice. I'd rather literally walk a mile down the street to pick up a gallon of organic milk for me and my kids. [It's good exercise for the dogs, too.] If you have a dairy allergy or are avoiding cow's milk, this mix is for you as it is dairy free. Please feel free to mix up your hot cocoa with the rice, soy, or nut milk of your choice.

Make and Take Smoothies for Moms

Consider giving the gift of smoothies to a new mom, a friend recovering from oral surgery, or a harried neighbor. Ready to shake up and drink, smoothies are a fast way to get some nutrition and get back to business--be that bonding, healing, or caregiving.

Motherhood equals nurturing (no, you don't have to have created/raised offspring to read on--we've all had moms). One way folks nurture is via food [hello, nurture and nutrition share the same root].
Taking meals to a new mom is one way of nurturing the new family as they become a unit. Taking a meal to a mom after her 6th kid is just plain nurturing for her [though watching the kids and doing her laundry so she can get a massage is even better but doesn't fit with my theme for today's recipe].

What about other folks who need nurturing? A busy friend caring for aging parents? A neighbor caring for his ailing wife? Someone recovering from oral surgery? It's the last situation that inspired today's post, but the more I though about it the more I think this concept would work for a variety of circumstances.

Smoothies keep for several days, and it's easy to scale up a recipe to make an extra portion. With that in mind, when I found out my friend wouldn't be eating solid food for quite some time after her tonsillectomy, I offered to bring her some smoothies. I was going to be near her home on post-op day #5 and that seemed like a good time to deliver as she'd be coming out of the initial post-op haze.

Candied Grapefruit Peel

A tart, tangy, lightly sweet nibble, delicious with a cup of tea. Makes an unusual holiday food gift.

This recipe is from my favorite guest cook.  I'm just the photographer and note-taker here (and quality control manager--someone has to taste test!).  The recipe is simple:  grapefruit peels, sugar, honey or syrup, and water--but there is technique involved, so I've opted to use more photos and fewer words.

However if you like to read, don't despair!  For my 30 Days to Better Food Photography Challenge one of our early tasks was to 'write your food photo story' and I took the assignment a wee bit too literally, so after the recipe I'm sharing my short story, Grandma Came for Tea.  First, the recipe.

Leftover Remake: Ham and Bean Soup--No Salt Added + Slow Cooker option (Leftover Ham Week)

My spouse took this photo.  This flower that has sprouted in a seam between the tiles on the roof of the Believer's Palace in Baghdad, which was actually a decoy building to hide a bunker that was built underneath the palace.  On my FB page I've shared what it looked like just to the right of the photo.

Bloom where you are planted.

To me, this quote exemplifies the best of military spouses.  Due to our spouses' careers, we often find ourselves re-creating our lives every few years as we move across the globe.  So many military spouses I know are enthusiastic, energetic people genuinely interested in exploring what makes this new location different than the last home.

It was with this spirit of adventure that I joined the local military spouse group for a tour of Dorothy Lane Market.  DLM is an amazing grocery store less than one mile (according to Map My Walk) from my home.  You may know of Wegman's--the Northeast US chain of grocery stores known for amazing customer service, happy employees, and terrific products.  DLM is a 3 store midwestern version.  During our tour of DLM, the thing that struck me was how similar to my kitchen the store is run.

Stores, they're just like us.

I make no secret that I'm partial to marked down produce, day old bread, and discounted meat and dairy products.  I'd noticed that I never saw magical markdown stickers at DLM, and during the tour I learned why.  Primarily, most of the baked goods and dairy products are picked up by different shelters each day.  But the rest of the stuff?  Tom told us it gets made into soups for the hot foods area, into salads, and into prepared foods sold in the ready-to-eat section.  Have you ever looked at your fridge and thought, "well, I need to use up that half onion, that baked potato, that bit of chard, that ham . . ."?  Can you imagine having an entire produce section/meat department/dairy department at your disposal?  Wowza.

During our tour we went from the top of the store to the basement, checking out different departments along the way and enjoying samples--including amazing fresh mozzarella made by the very talented Tracey.  Wow, that on a pizza, with some cherry tomato pesto and CSA farm share spinach?  We checked out the kitchens--does anyone other than Hobart make commercial dishwashers?  I really appreciated the chance to peek behind the scenes of a place I shop at frequently--all because of a curious military spouse's initiative.  Thanks, Aileen!

When we moved in to our home, our neighbors welcomed us with a box of cookies and Killer Brownies® and I was just blown away.  Seriously amazing goodies.  I'd known that we could walk down to Graeter's ice cream before we moved in, but this DLM store was new to me.

I was delighted when my daughter went Christmas shopping at Dorothy Lane Market.  No, she did not give me a Killer Brownie.  Instead, she gave me a container of beans + a recipe for Heavenly Ham® Bean Soup.  Recently she helped me make the soup--and her interpretation of the seasonings turned it into a delicious soup without any additional salt (the ham is salty enough, we think).

I used to buy the bags of Ham Been soup that contained such a pretty array of beans plus a seasoning packet.  I'd follow the recipe, using my leftover ham bone, and make a delicious soup.  Then I read the contents of that seasoning packet and resolved to make my soup without it, and it never really turned out right.  Something was just off.

I'm so glad I had my daughter help me make this recipe I'm sharing with you today.

There are 2 cool things about this recipe.  First, the recipe includes the amounts and kinds of dry beans*, so if I wanted to make up quart jars of my own pretty bean mix for gift giving I could.  Second, I got to use a jar of crushed tomatoes that I put up in the fall (which, come to think of it, would make a good pair of jars to give:  a jar of crushed tomatoes plus a jar of dried beans plus the recipe to use both to make soup).

*If you want to make your own pretty bean mix, here's what the recipe suggests:  1/2 cup (dry) each of lentils, split peas, black-eyed peas, pinto beans, navy beans, black beans, red kidney beans and lima beans.  Four cups total of mixed beans.