#1: CRANBERRIES

I figured that the season was right to buy fresh cranberries, so I did ($2 for one 12oz bag of Ocean Spray at Key Foods in Park Slope). The first recipe I made was Carrot-Cranberry Gratin from Food & Wine Magazine. As you can see in the photo, the recipe involves a lot of shredding (I attempted the food processor before resorting to the manual method) of carrots and apples. You toss those with the cranberries, some apple juice, and some butter, and bake it for 40 minutes.

At the end of baking, my gratin looked suspiciously similar to how it had looked 40 minutes prior, before baking. The composition of the dish had changed very little. The taste was pretty bland, though in a "wow-I'm-really-healthy-for-eating-this" kind of way. Next time I would add some spice (cinnamon, cloves perhaps) to give it some kick.

Instead of testing out those adjustments, however, I quickly moved on to a different, spicier recipe: Cranberry Chutney. I found this recipe online, and while I wasn't necessarily looking for a sugar-free, it sounded good and I already had all of the ingredients. I'm sure you could just use regular sugar, too.

















Unlike the Gratin recipe, you can see that the chutney changed the cranberries (as well as the other ingredients) a lot from start to finish. It's a sensory dish to make due to the popping and hissing of the foods as they cook down and because of the aromatic spices. I ate my chutney with a salad as well as with some pork. A little goes a long way, and I still have some left.