This Mostarda Style Cranberry Orange is something different that you might want to try for your Thanksgiving Turkey. It’s not too sweet and is sort of light and refreshing. True Fruit Mostarda is made from candied fruit and mustard syrup since I didn’t use candied fruit or mustard syrup I called the recipe “Mostarda Style.” Serving size is hard to determine. My guess is up to ten servings.
Ingredients
1 12oz bag of cranberries
2 oranges – use all the zest and put to the side and remove the rest of the skin and chop the fruit into small pieces
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon\
1/4 teaspoon ground star anise
1/4 teaspoon course sea salt
Directions
Everything except for the zest goes in a medium sized pot on high heat. Stir and turn down to medium when it starts to boil. Stir occasionally and continue to cook until the berries burst. When it’s done stir in the orange zest.
These tasty cheesy rice balls are based on several arancini recipes but are made different. I read about people making the risotto like rice instead of frying the special rice and slowly adding the hot broth with lots of stirring so I gave this a try. I also put in a lot of extra cheese in them so they came out different than arancini so I didn’t want to call them that. This recipe made about 40 rice balls for me. It comes out better if you make the rice mixture the day before.
Ingredients for maybe 20 servings (I’m thinking most people will eat two or more)
2 cups arborio rice
4 cups vegetable broth
1 cup dry white wine
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 onion – fine chopped
3 cups parmesan cheese – grated
4 oz taleggio cheese – grated
5 eggs (one gets added to rice mixture the rest are for coating rice balls ) beaten
optional – about 1/2 cup mozzarella pearls or small cut chunks of mozzarella cheese to stuff cheesy balls or you can use peas or something meaty.
1/2 cup corn starch
3 cups panko
1 Tablespoon Aleppo pepper
oil to fry (enough to cover rice balls I used canola)
Directions
Heat up broth and add wine, onion, and butter. Boil about 4-5 minutes. Add rice and stir every now and then till mostly absorbed. Take off heat. When mixture is warm or cool (just not hot) mix in one beaten egg, the shredded parmesan and telaggio cheeses. chill well or overnight.
Put on a pot of oil and cook at around 350 degrees F you need enough oil to cover rice balls.
Set of a pan with the cornstarch, panko, and Aleppo pepper mixed.
Set up a bowl with the beaten eggs.
Roll a ball of rice and stuff it with a mozzarella pearl. Then roll rice ball in egg and then into panko/cornstarch mixture.
Fry in oil until browned
let fried rice balls rest on paper towel lined pan.
Enjoy either plain or with tomato sauce or a pesto aioli.
I had an opened pack of egg roll wrappers that I had to use because when they get past their date the egg roll wrappers get impossible to roll. Last week cabbage was on sale for 49.cents a pound so I had extra cabbage here and egg rolls are just mostly cabbage so that is what I made. My recipe made 18 egg rolls.
Ingredients for around 18 egg rolls
1/2 head of cabbage – remove core and slice thin
2 carrots – shredded
1 cup corn kernels
1/2 cup scallions – sliced thin
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon 5 spice powder
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon sesame oil
peanut or canola oil to fry – enough to well cover the egg rolls
egg roll wrappers
2 eggs – beaten (to help wrap)
Directions
Put the cabbage, carrots, corning a microwavable container and microwave for four minutes. Mix in the scallions, sugar, salt, 5 spice, white pepper, and sesame oil.
Heat up your oil in a pot to around 350 degrees F.
Take an egg roll wrapper (I put it down in a diamond shape) and brush it with beaten egg. Then fill it with about a tablespoon of filling. I pull the right and left sides into each other. Then I pull the top over the middle and roll it up.
Repeat till done.
Fry what ever feels comfortable to you at a time till they turn crispy and lightly browned.
Serve with Chinese mustard or some kind of asian dipping sauce.
These are foods that YOU can make too! Most of the recipes or variations of the recipes can be found here on www.TheFORKINGTruth.com.
Up above are potato and cheese stuffed egg rolls (no recipe because anyone can make a cheesy mashed potato and stuff it into an egg roll wrapper and fry.
Spinach Fatayer – The filling is mostly Tony Shalhoub’s recipe but I added mozzarella and feta cheeses.
Biscotti with pomegranate, rosemary, and chocolate
Macaroni and Cheese Stuffed Potatoes (No recipe just bake potatoes and hallow out. I make macaroni and cheese maybe slightly different depending on what cheeses I have around. This batch was American, Sharp Cheddar, Parmesan, and Queso Cheese. I just make a white sauce with corn starch and add the cheeses, white pepper, Franks hot sauce, a little cayenne, a pinch nutmeg) This batch I also added crushed butter/cheese crackers and more cheddar.
Falafel flavored meatballs (ground turkey) with home made quick hummus
Some biscotti pomegranate, rosemary, chocolate.
Froze 1/2 of the Potato & Cheese Egg Rolls and the Spinach and Cheese Pastries and served them again.
Like everything above everything went very fast and I got lots of compliments.
Tomato and Cheese Pizza
Tomato and cheese pizza and also corn and cranberry corn muffins
Small cocktail sized pastrami (yes I made) and rye rolls (Yes I made the rolls too)
People always love potatoes stuffed with macaroni and cheese
Corn Pudding stuffed mini bell peppers
and cookies of hazelnut/chocolate and pistachio
Did macaroni (shells) and cheese stuffed potatoes and (with the potatoes I scooped out) potatoes and cheese stuffed mini bell peppers.
Stuffing and cranberry sauce egg rolls and potato and cheese pierogi
Mashed potato tacos with mild hatch chilies (no recipe) but with salsa and tomatillo salsa
Radish slices topped with blue cheese butter and sriracha
Cannoli (home made ricotta & home made shells Recipe on here on site)
After this I made gnocchi with the extra ricotta cheese I made.
It’s fun for me to come up with a new cranberry sauce every Thanksgiving. I’m sorry that I didn’t get to publish this in time for your Thanksgiving celebration but maybe you can use it soon anyway. This year I came up with two new cranberry recipes. Next week I will publish an Italian inspired Cranberry sauce that is Mostarda Inspired. This week I’m doing something very different for me…….I already have at least eight cranberry sauce recipes published so I know something about making cranberry sauce but this is the first one that is more traditional and plain. Serving size is almost impossible to determine. I don’t know if you like a spoonful or a quarter cup serving. Since a one pound bag of cranberries is considered to be 7 servings I will guesstimate this recipe to be 14 servings. Leftovers can be frozen.
Ingredients for about 14 servings
32 ounces of cranberries (or 8 cups)
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 + 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups filtered or spring water
1/2 teaspoon course sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground star anise
Directions
Everything goes in a sauce pot on high heat. Stir occasionally. When it starts boiling turn heat down to medium. Stir occasionally. When the boiling bubbles get fast again turn heat down again to medium-low. Break down berries you see that are whole with your spoon or another utensil. Cook until most berries are broken.
Was thinking a bright corn and cranberry corn muffin would be just right for this time of year so that’s what I made. I studied a few basic corn muffin recipes and changed a few things and added a few things so this is what I came up with and it’s very good. Kinda LIGHT and not too sweet and depending on your bite maybe a bit tart. I made 15 cupcake sized muffins and 24 mini muffins with this recipe. You can freeze leftovers. You can make all mini muffins or all regular sized muffins or mix them up like I did.
In a big bowl hand mix –
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon course sea salt
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs – slightly beaten
1 cup fresh cranberries
1 cup cooked corn kernels
non stick spray
Directions
All the ingredients (except for the non stick spray) get hand mixed in a large bowl until mixed together.
Pre Heat Oven to 400 degrees F
Spray the muffin pans with non stick spray.
Use a small meatball scoop and scoop out batter. You need a little over 1/2 a scoop for the mini muffin pan because you only want them filled only a little more than 1/2. Ovens do differ – in my oven these only took 10 minutes.
For a regular size cup cake tray use a heaping meatball ball scoop and you also only want them filled just over 1/2. Ovens do differ – In my oven these only took 15 minutes.
I was watching the new TV Show called Tony Shalhoub’s Breaking Bread. He made these Lebanese Pastries called Spinach Fatayer. I found his recipe on the web and I think it was at www.FoodNetwork.com They might have fixed the recipe since I looked but at the time the pastry recipe had a major misprint an didn’t work out many people said. I figure that the recipe for the pastry part is pretty close to pizza dough so I just whipped up m normal batch of pizza type dough. To his spinach recipe I added more spinach and just added feta and mozzarella and a big sprinkle of Alepo pepper but kept the flavors the same. I also added a beaten egg to the pasties for a nice finish. This is only a recipe idea so I didn’t fully figure this out for you. You just have to wing it. But it’s pretty easy anyone can do this and you can even buy pizza dough to make it even easier. I do note that I mixed up the spinach the day before so that it cooked itself.
In a big bowl mix up –
1 8 ounce bag spinach
1 onion – chop fine (I slice thin on mandolin and then chop)
1 large lemon – the fresh squeezed juice
2 heaping teaspoons dried mint
2 teaspoons z’atar (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (or more to taste)
This gets mixed well and sits in a ziplock bag in your refrigerator over night.
*******Next Day ********
Set your oven to 375F
Take your spinach mixture and try to leave the liquid in the bag. Add your spinach mixture to a bowl and add 4 ounces of crumbled feta cheese and 16 ounces of shredded fresh mozzarella and set to the side.
Get out your meatball scoop and scoop out a meatball size piece of dough. You might need a little extra flour and roll your dough into a circle. Add a scoop of the spinach and cheese mixture. Fold up three ends of the pastry over the spinach filling. you can leave a small hole in the center if you like. These go on a non stick sprayed baking sheet. Then brush them with a beaten egg. They go in the oven till lightly Browned. (about 25 minutes)
Tony Shalhoub Inspired Spinach and Cheese Pastry
A Special Thanks to Tony Shalhoub so I could make what I got here.
This Cucumber Salad is easy and quick to prepare. It comes out very tasty so you might want to give it a try. I used four good sized cucumbers so I’m guessing that this makes (depending on the size of cucumbers about 8 servings.
Ingredients for about 8 servings.
4 good sized firm cucumbers. – peel, cut in half longways, remove seed center with a spoon. Slice not too thin about 1/4 inch slices.
1/2 large onion – slice somewhat thin and cut the slices in half.
1 cup water
1 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 squirt honey (1-2 Tablespoons)
1 Tablespoon capers
1 Tablespoon dried dill
Directions – just mix everything together in a large bowl.
I got the idea in my head for Jerk Seasoned Meatballs. I worked carefully on a spice blend and came up with something special. I called them Jerk Inspired because I didn’t make them as hot as real jerk should be. Also “REAL JERK” needs to make made with Scotch Bonnet Peppers that are burning hot. They came out FORKING Fabulous. I think everyone out there would enjoy them. I carefully made up a spice mix. You need to make the spice mix first and 3/4 cup of the spice mix gets mixed into the turkey mixture and the rest flavors the sauce for the meatballs. Serving size is always difficult to determine because I don’t know if you want to make them for appetizers, lunch, or dinner. Today I made the balls a little bigger and got 67 meatballs. I guesstimate 1-2 meatballs per appetizer portion, about three meatballs per lunch portion, and 4-5 meatballs per dinner portion.
Ingredients for Jerk Spice Mix
6 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon dry ground ginger
1 Tablespoon granulated onion
1 Tablespoon granulated garlic
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 ground teaspoons allspice
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 Tablespoon dried parsley
********************************
Jerk Inspired Turkey Meatballs
3 pounds ground turkey
6 eggs – beaten
1+1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
8 cloves garlic – crushed to paste
3/4 cup Jerk Spice Mix
1 cup cooked chopped bell peppers and onions (a couple tablespoons oil)
1/2 cup scallions – chopped
non stick spray
olive oil spray
Directions – Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray sheet pans with non stick spray. Mix together in a large mixing bowl – Turkey, eggs, panko, garlic, 3/4 cup Jerk Spice Mix, onions, peppers, scallions all get mixed together. Ball them out on already non stick sprayed pans and spray the tops of meatballs with olive oil. They go in a preheated 350 degree oven for around 15 minutes.
Sauce-
28 oz can crushed San Marzano tomatoes
Rest of Jerk Spice Mix
Big squirt of honey (around two tablespoons
Either heat up for meatballs or reheat on meatballs.
