Back to the cranberries....

Over the weekend, we were at Costco and noticed they have started to carry these humongous bags of fresh cranberries. Of course, I had to buy them so I'm looking to use them up and also freeze some for later use. To start using them today I made Cranberry-Orange Muffins.

These muffins are packed with coarsley chopped cranberries and toasted walnuts. They are very moist and the fresh orange juice/zest bring a lot of flavor into the tender muffins. The walnuts add a crunchy surprise and the additional sugar sprinkled on top lends a nice sparkle. So far, these have definetly moved to the top of my favorite muffins.

A few weeks ago we bought a dry stuffing mixture to make a sausage casserole. I wanted to get the rest of it used up, so tonight we combined it in an interesting way. Stuffing-topped Turkey Pot Pie turned out to be much better than expected.

Instead of a traditional pastry topping, we spread some stuffing cubes moistened with turkey stock over a vegetable and turkey mixture. To give a little more moisture and a creamy texture we used some turkey gravy. I made the gravy after roasting a turkey earlier so I could have some meat on hand for lunches later in the week and in this dish. After baking, the stuffing on top had a crispy texture and pulled all of the flavors together.

Serving along side I used the vegetables I mentioned yesterday. Honey-Roasted Root Vegetables is a mixture of Parnips, Sweet Potatoes, Turnips, and Carrots which are seasoned with dandelion honey, olive oil and salt. The original recipe called for tupelo honey, but I did not have much luck finding that in my area. The vegetables obtained a glazed caramelized finished and the dandelion honey gave them sweet and slightly floral flavor.

Recipes
Cranberry-Orange Muffins
Stuffing-topped Turkey Pot Pie
Honey-Roasted Root Vegetables