Cranberry-Orange Muffins

I have found my inspiration to post more often! As of last night, I'm taking part in The Cookbook Challenge. My blog focuses on recipes from cookbooks anyway, but now I have the fun of themes and deadlines with this. And I just love a challenge!

Today is the final day for the current theme, citrus, so I had to use what I had on hand. The only citrus fruit that I had was oranges, so I started searching through all my cookbooks looking for a good recipe that uses oranges, and I really couldn't come up with much. For some reason, if people want to make something that involves citrus, they pretty much only ever want to use lemons.

So I had to settle for a recipe that wasn't very citrus-y, being outshined by the cranberries, but still very good.

This is another recipe from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook, published in 1996.

1 tbsp grated orange peel

1 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 large egg

2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour

1/3 cup sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup fresh cranberry halves

Note: I felt that these could have been sweeter, so you might want to increase the sugar slightly.

I honestly had no idea what the inside of a cranberry looked like before today.

Beat orange peel, milk, oil, vanilla, and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder and salt all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).

Fold in cranberry halves.

Heat oven to 400F. Grease bottoms only of 12 medium muffin cups or line with paper baking cups. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.

(This is what overstirred muffin batter looks like. I decided at the last moment to add a little bit of cinnamon, and stirring that in made the batter a lot less lumpy.)

Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden. Immediately remove from pan to wire rack.

Cranberry Sauce

For Thanksgiving, people always put so much time and effort into making a nice, home-cooked feast for their family. But when it comes to the cranberry sauce, what do they do? They plop some goop in the shape of a can down on a plate.

It doesn't have to be this way! Whole cranberry sauce with fresh cranberries is one of the easiest things you can make for Thanksgiving. It really takes very little effort and the cranberries are inexpensive. So please, this year, don't buy that can of cranberry sauce. Make your cranberry sauce from scratch. It is so much more delicious.

This recipe is not from any cookbook, it's just something I know by heart. It's pretty much what is printed on the package of cranberries, although I would like to give some credit to Adam Carolla because it was from him that I first heard the recipe during his Loveline days.

1 package (12 ounces) fresh cranberries
1/2 cup to 1 cup sugar (depending on how tart you would like it to turn out)
1 cup water

optional ingredients, to taste:
cinnamon
ground cloves
orange zest
honey

Stir sugar and water together in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add cranberries and return to a boil. Reduce heat, add any optional ingredients you would like, and simmer for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat, cover, and let cool. Serve warm or chilled.

Note: You might want to cover it while you're simmering, as well. The popping cranberries can be a little violent at times.
Note 2: If you think your family is not quite ready to make the transition from canned jellied cranberry sauce to homemade whole cranberry sauce, just use a strainer to remove the chunks of cranberries!