My mother makes the best cranberry sauce in the world, but that’s not the recipe I’m sharing today.* Sorry to disappoint.
*Just kidding! I wrote her original recipe in the notes at the end. It’s a Thanksgiving two-fer 🙂 
I have a good reason for holding out on you. My mom’s cranberry sauce is made with a large amount of brandy, which gets cooked off over the course of an hour in the oven. As I have mentioned previously though, I cannot safely consume alcohol, and therefore do not keep it around, even for cooking.
Since I quit drinking five and a half years ago, cranberry sauce is one of the only dishes that I have really missed. I’ve found work-arounds or substitutes for all sorts of other recipes, but I just couldn’t find one that hit all the same buttons as my mom’s.
In case you’re wondering, those buttons include:
- It’s gotta be whole berry. No weird can-shaped cranberry jello here.
- It can’t have more than three ingredients. I’ve had cranberry sauces with nuts and spices and other fruits and all sorts of other silliness, and all of it was completely unnecessary.
- It shouldn’t have any citrus. Orange and cranberry are complementary flavors, but I can’t stand them together in cranberry sauce. This is more of a personal preference than anything, but I mean, this is my personal food blog.
- It can’t be too sweet. I hate when cranberries are so over-sweetened that their natural tartness is completely masked.
- It has to be easy. Like ridiculously easy. So low-maintenance, it’s silly. And if it can be made more than a day ahead, that’s ideal.
- If nothing else, it must be so delicious that I want to eat it every time I spot the jar in the fridge.
It’s taken a few years and many sauces with unrecognizable berries, too much sugar, flavors I didn’t care for, and a lot of feeling sorry for myself, but I’ve finally made a cranberry sauce that hits all those buttons. And the missing ingredient was looking at me the whole time in the form of a seasonal fridge staple: apple cider. It has flavor, but not enough to overwhelm the cranberries, and it’s sweet without being saccharine. Perfection.
This sauce comes together over the course of an hour in the oven. It gets stirred twice, but needs no help otherwise.
The result is soft, bursting berries that slump into a sweet, sticky sauce. It’s just divine. As is the fact that it can be made today and nuked in the microwave just before you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, it’s probably even better that way. Love that.
Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers.
Want more cranberries? See here and here. For more apple cider, see here and here.
Apple Cider Cranberry Sauce*
makes about 3 cups
2 12-ounce bags whole cranberries
1 cup apple cider
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Preheat oven to 350F.
Combine all ingredients in a 9×13-inch casserole dish and stir together. Bake 60 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes.
Remove sauce from oven. Cool for a few minutes before transferring to a serving dish. Serve.
Cranberry sauce may be made up to two days in advance; it reheats well in the microwave.
Note:
If you want to try my mom’s cranberry sauce, swap the cider for brandy and double the sugar. Everything else is the same.
If you go back and look at the order of recipes on this blog, you can clearly see my train of culinary thought. Last week, I posted three 
This week, I’m caramelizing everything. On Wednesday, it was 
Baked brie is always a holiday hit—what’s not to love about the combination of melty cheese and flaky pastry?!—but I am all about the sweet addition of caramelized onions here. They’re cooked low and slow until they’re soft, sweet, and deeply browned. I like to add some minced garlic and fresh rosemary (it’s 
After the onions cool, it’s time to assemble the baked brie. Roll out a sheet of puff pastry (I use 
Smear a little dijon on one side of a wheel of brie and place it on top of the onions. The mustard flavor isn’t too pronounced here, but it’s sharpness helps offset the richness of the cheese and pastry.
Wrap everything up tight, give it an egg wash glaze, and decorate with some little pastry leaves, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into.
Bake the brie until the pastry puffs and turns golden. Wait a few minutes before serving it with seasonal fruit and the crackers you made your roommate go get from the overpriced cell-phone-dead-zone grocery store behind your building (and you didn’t even complain when he came back with some weird flavor instead of plain because you’re an adult and someone did you a favor)…
…um, what was that? Oops. Back to baked brie.
You’re going to love this brie, y’all! It’s rich and buttery, and oozes in the best possible way. One bite of this melty, cheesy, salty-sweet treat is worth every second it takes to cook those onions, I promise. I know all your holiday guests will agree.
I don’t spend much time writing about vegetables, seeing as this is a baking blog and all.
But the truth is that I eat a lot of vegetables. A lot. Gotta balance out all the baked goods somehow, you know?
These Caramelized Brussels Sprouts are one of my fall/winter favorites. They’re basically your standard roasted brussels sprouts with the volume turned up. Plus, they’re super easy to make and have this sweet-salty-herby-spicy thing going on that makes them totally irresistible. Like, good luck getting them from the pan to the table without eating half the batch. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I make Caramelized Brussels Sprouts for regular weeknights all the time, but they’re also great for dinner parties and holidays. I made them for Christmas dinner last year and they were a huge hit with my whole family! I can’t help but think they’d make a great Thanksgiving side dish, too.
Caramelized Brussels Sprouts are very simple to make. Start by trimming the brussels sprouts and removing any banged-up outer leaves. There’s no need to slice them in half—minimal prep is the name of the game!
Put the sprouts on a baking sheet and toss ‘em with fresh rosemary, red pepper flakes, salt, a little sugar, and olive oil.
Roast the brussels sprouts for 40 minutes, giving the pan a good shake every 15 minutes. The resulting sprouts will have deeply browned (but not burnt!), crispy exteriors and buttery-soft centers.
Remember that “sweet-salty-herby-spicy” thing? Well, add “crispy-buttery.”
And maybe “-things-dreams-are-made-of.”
Around this time every year, I draw a bit of a blank when it comes to this blog. I mean, I have plenty of ideas, but they are all autumn-related right now and I am a stickler for seasons. I know it’s getting cooler and the light is changing and all that, but it is technically still summer.
We still have some 
So, if I’m done with most summer produce and am not ready for fall, what’s left? Figs. So many figs. They are everywhere right now!
You know what goes great with fresh figs? Salty prosciutto. And arugula. And gorgonzola. And balsamic vinegar.
I could have taken all of these things and made a salad or something, but instead I threw them all on a pizza and you should, too.
I take great pride in the quality of 
I let it start in a 500F oven before pulling it out, scattering some crumbled gorgonzola and a few more figs over the top (for variance in texture), and then throwing it under the broiler. I like to let it get a little crispy for a coal-oven-esque flavor.
Next comes a bed of arugula that’s been tossed with olive oil. I love the contrast of these peppery greens with the saltiness of the prosciutto and the jammy figs.
This pizza gets finished off with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar that’s been reduced to a thick, sweet syrup. Mmhmm.
Oh, y’all. This is really good. Like I-ate-half-a-pizza-and-feel-absolutely-no-remorse good.
It’s a good thing the recipe makes two pizzas. That’s one for you and one for me, okay?!
Last Monday night, I took a picture of a dinner I had made at work that included this simple Shrimp, Corn & Zucchini Sauté, among other 
This quick, fresh one-pan meal is one of my summertime staples. It’s made with all sorts of great seasonal produce like corn and zucchini (duh), tomatoes, spinach, and fresh herbs. And shrimp. And a squeeze of lemon.
It’s my favorite meal this time of year.
I measured all the ingredients out so I could write the recipe for you, but I usually just make this by feel—it’s that simple.
This dish is the sort of thing that works just as well for a weeknight meal as it does for a party. It can be scaled up and down without any fancy math—a relief after all the math I did 
You can adapt this recipe any way you please—take this and make it your own. Don’t care for shrimp? Swap in chicken (but, uh, cook that longer). Halve the amount of corn. Add more zucchini. Nix the tomatoes. Fold in fresh arugula instead of spinach. Use bacon grease instead of butter. Heck, you could even take this in a southwestern direction by adding jalapeño, black beans, cilantro, a dash of cumin and a squeeze of lime! Really, the possibilities are endless.
However you choose to make this…well, just make this.
e2 bakes brooklyn 