Holiday Delight

Armed with new batteries for my camera that seems to run out of batteries once a month even though I only use it for food blogging, I am back with a vengence!

Tonight I was feeling especially merry as evidenced both by the excessive Christmas decorations adorning my apartment and by the seasonal delights I made. I've been wanting to make some sort of cranberry soda since I had a giant bag of berries leftover from my acorn squash stuffing. I did some googling and came up with this recipe, a combination of homemade ginger ale and cranberry juice recipes:

1 cup peeled, finely chopped ginger

3/4 bag fresh cranberries

2 cups water

Boil cranberries until the pop, add ginger for 5 minutes, then set aside for 20 minutes. Strain into container of your choice- I opted for a glass jar. Now, I suppose you should combine it with club soda, but I'm a huge fan of seltzer water and used that instead. I just mixed until I found what I liked. To sweeten, make a simple syrup by mixing 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of boiling water and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Add what tastes good to you.

For dinner I went for some stuffing, and when I looked up the recipe I noticed that on the same page was a recipe for Brussels sprouts, my favorite. So, from page 228 of the November 2006 edition of Better Homes and Gardens, I used this Old-Fashioned Bread Stuffing recipe. My only change was that I used fresh sage and fresh tarragon (left over from the squash stuffing) and I used vegetable broth instead of chicken.

Also on that page I found this recipe for Creamy Brussels Sprouts. I followed it for the most part, again subbing veggie broth for chicken, but it calls for whipping cream and cheese so I had to get creative. I creamed together a half block of silken tofu and about 1/4 soy milk to replace the cream, and I made no attempt to sub for the cheese mostly because I overlooked it when I was making my shopping list.

The stuffing was a little bland despite my addition of fresh herbs. I'm wondering if they cooked too long and lost their flavor. Or maybe I just prefer poultry seasoning. And I suspect the veggie broth was less than stellar because it wasn't high quality.

The sprouts were interesting but I enjoyed them. Nutmeg is the secret ingredient in everything and even though I don't particularly care for it, it made the dish what it was. Next time I'll use Better Than Cream Cheese instead of tofu/soy mlik and I bet it will taste even better.

And of course, they were both delightful chased down with my delicious cranberry soda.