Homemade cranberry sauce in a can

Add some kitsch to Thanksgiving this year with homemade "canned" cranberry sauce using an upcycled empty can for the mold.

My sister and I have this thing.

Well, to be honest, my sister and have about eight million things. We're like those twins that have their own language that no one else can understand ... but we're not twins. She's two years older than I, but we've always been best friends. (In fact, I told her recently, "You'd better never die because, if you do, there will be no one to understand me!")

So, anyway, one of our things is canned cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. My first "adult" Thanksgiving was when I was in graduate school. I was attending school in the South, too far away from my parents' home in New England for me to afford to make a quick trip home for the Thanksgiving holiday. And my sister was living not that far away, so we decided to throw our own little Thanksgiving dinner for two.

Even though I had almost no idea how to cook anything and she was only slightly more talented, we went all out in a little apartment kitchen: turkey, stuffing, green beans and cranberry sauce.

In all fairness, let's clarify. We roasted a turkey (poorly), steamed some green beans, mixed up a box of Stove Top stuffing and opened a can of jellied cranberry sauce.

But we were both in agreement that the cranberry sauce was a must-have. You know, because of the the "ssssllluuuupp" noise it makes when released from the can. And, frankly, because it's freakin' shaped like the can.

Skinny cranberry chocolate oatmeal cookies

Skinny cranberry chocolate oatmeal cookies are the perfect snack: chewy, crispy and chocolatey but also loaded with guilt-free ingredients.

I read somewhere once, a long time ago, that having a little something sweet after a meal is a good thing because it sends a signal to your body that it's time to stop eating, the meal is over.

Doesn't that sound credible?

Honestly, I don't know if it's true, but it works for me.  Because I generally do find that just a taste of a little something sweet makes a meal complete.

Now, I'm not advocating that you eat an entire cheesecake just to send your brain a message. Note that I said a little something sweet.

Like a cookie.

Even better: A skinny cranberry chocolate oatmeal cookie that's chewy but crispy and loaded with good-for-you ingredients.

Easy fruit and grain energy bars

Fruit and grain energy bars are protein-rich, delicious and easy to prepare -- a perfect portable breakfast or afternoon snack. 

These easy, homemade fruit and grain energy bars have successfully gotten us out of our current breakfast rut at Casa de Ninj.

Booyah.

They are just the right amount of chewy and not too sweet -- perfect for a grab-and-go breakfast. The danger is that they are so good that I'm tempted to keep making batch after batch.

But eating them constantly would likely get us into another breakfast rut, right? Gaaaaah, when will I learn?!

Changing up the kinds of dried fruit you use in these energy bars keeps them from getting boring. I use dried cranberries and cherries since we have them on hand most often, but I've been known to use dried apricots and plums, too. (Prunes and apricots are a particularly favorite flavor combination of mine, in case you hadn't noticed.)

And if you're not in a breakfast rut, these are still the bars for you. Their portability (and freezability!) make them great afternoon snacks.

Light broccoli slaw pasta salad

Light broccoli slaw pasta salad: Two of everyone's favorite summer sides and pot-luck staples combined into one healthy meatless meal salad.

Spring is in the air, peeps: We've finally had some warmer weather, the flowering trees are tinged with green buds and I'm preparing to plant my garden. Squeeeeee!

I cannot wait for fresh summer veggies. As much as I love cold-weather squash and root vegetables, I'm once again really ready for some leafy greens, crunchy brassicas and sun-ripened tomatoes.

Booyah.

To get you psyched for the bountiful days that are coming (complete with all those gorgeous CSA veggies for which I happily supply you with delicious, good-for-you recipes), I made this lightened broccoli slaw pasta salad.

Yes, slaw and pasta salad in one. This dish combines two of everyone's favorite summer sides and pot-luck staples -- broccoli slaw and pasta salad -- into one lightened, meatless meal salad.

Baked oatmeal

Baked oatmeal

Sorry to give you yet another brown food photo but I'm on a whole grain kick right now and whole grains are, well, frankly, brown.

As part of the From Scratch Club's virtual book club, I'm cooking various whole grain recipes out of Lianna Krisoff's Whole Grains for a New Generation. Our new meeting topic is oats.

Yay! I love oats and oatmeal. This will be a bit easier for me (and for Mr. Ninj!) than spelt.

(Sidebar: We have our book club discussions over on GoodReads and are fortunate enough to have Lianna, the author, as a participant. I just want to say hats off to Lianna for agreeing to do so; I can't imagine too many cookbook authors that sit around and listen to what amateur cooks have to say about their lovingly crafted and tested recipes. Particularly last week, when one of our book clubbers reported back that the recipe she made was "disgusting." Ouch -- thick skin required.)

I was drawn to Lianna's recipe for baked oatmeal for two of my favorite reasons: it's easy and healthy. Not to mention that it makes a panful of breakfast, perfect for either the two of us to eat throughout the week or weekend breakfasts when we have houseguests.

You likely also have all the ingredients in your pantry on any given day. A huge plus.

Cranberry rice and book clubs

Cranberry rice

Are you part of a book club?

I joined my first book club in 1991, just after graduating from college. This was pre-Oprah, so the concept was new to me. Get together with other book lovers to read and discuss books? Oh, happy day: it was like college lit class without the term papers.

I was hooked.
 
Even though we move around a lot (every five to six years, historically), I have been in one book club or another almost continuously since that first one.  Right now, I'm in two clubs: one physical, one virtual.

I joined the From Scratch Club's virtual book club at its inception last year. The first book we read and discussed was Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal.  While we all enjoyed the book and Adler's gorgeous prose, the book club members were ultimately more interested in a "cookalong" type of book and format. The second book we tackled was Alana Chernila's Homemade Pantry; every two weeks we read and cooked recipes from two chapters in the book and shared our stories and creations through Good Reads and Facebook. It was great fun, made even more enjoyable by the author's participation in the discussions and willingness to give feedback and answer questions.

We're now into the third book: Liana Krissoff's Whole Grains for a New Generation; again, we're fortunate enough to have the author joining us our journey. This book will be bit of a challenge for me, as I'm fairly grain-ignorant. Because of the nature of the book, instead of cooking by chapter, we are cooking by grain type.

This week, it's rice -- a nice, easy introduction to the world of grains.