Cranberry Sauce

 I make a cranberry relish, that I love.  Some of my family members prefer this sauce.  Both are good.  I make this a day or two before Thanksgiving or whenever we have turkey.  Quick and easy to make.

CRANBERRY SAUCE

Ingredients:

*1 (12 ounce) bag fresh cranberries

*1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

*1/2 cup water

Directions:

~Rinse 1 (12 ounce) bag cranberries and remove any soft ones and place in a saucepan.

~Add 1 1/4 cups sugar and 1/2 up water to saucepan.

~Cover with lid, and cook over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil and the cranberries are popping (stirring once occasionally).

~Remove from heat and place in a blender or food processor (or use an immersible blender) and blend to desired smoothness.

~Place into a bowl and cool before eating.

Christmas Pears

My grandmother used to can cinnamon pears, and what a treat it was for us to have throughout the winter. My daughters Tonia & Autumn and my sister Connie absolutely love these. Autumn describes it as, "It's Christmas in your mouth".

CHRISTMAS PEARS

(serves 4)

Ingredients:

*4 medium sized pears, peeled, cored, & sliced

*3/4 cup water

*3 tablespoons cinnamon hots candy

*1 teaspoon white sugar

Directions:

~Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan.

~Bring to a boil.

~Cover, and reduce heat.

~Simmer for 20 minutes or until pears are tender.

~Remove from heat & let cool.

~Store, covered in the refrigerator overnight.

~Stir, serve cold.

Fruit Sala

This is very easy and so yummy and pretty healthy. There really is no way to mess this up. It's good as salsa, but also wonderful to put on top of ice cream, waffles or pancakes. You can leave out any fruit you might not like, and add what you do like and it will be just as good.  This is about 275 calories per serving.

FRUIT SALSA

 (serves 12)

Directions:

*1 pound strawberries, sliced

*8 ounces raspberries, lightly mashed

*4 ounces blueberries,

*2 kiwis, peeled and diced small

*2 fuji apples, peeled, cored and diced small

*2 tablespoons of your favorite fruit preserve

Directions:

~In a large bowl, mix 1 pound sliced strawberries, 8 ounces lightly mashed raspberries, 4 ounces blueberries, 2 peeled and diced kiwis, 2 cored and diced small fuji apple.

~Mix in 2 tablespoons of your favorite fruit perserve.

~Cover and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

CINNAMON CHIPS 

Ingredients:

*10 (10 inch) flour tortillas

*buttered flavored pam

*2 1/4 cups cinnamon sugar

Directions:

~Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

~Put 2 1/4 cups cinnamon sugar in a large zip-loc bag.

~Coat both sides 10 tortillas with butter flavored pam.

~Cut into wedges with a pizza cutter or kitchen scissors.

~Place a few cut tortilla's in ziploc bag with the cinnamon sugar.

~Seal, and gently shake. Coating the tortillas.

~Place tortillas single layer on a cookie sheet coated with a cooking spay.

~Bake for 8-10 minutes.

~Remove from oven and let cool. It takes about 15 minutes to cool completely.

~Serve to dip in the fruit salsa.

Variations

`Substitute butter flavored pam or melted butter.

`Add 2 peaches, peeled, diced small

`Add 2 mangos, peeled, diced small

`Add 3 plums, diced small

`Add 4 ounce blackberries, mashed
`To make it even healthier use low carb-whole wheat tortillas.

Helpful Hint:

If the fruit is out of season and the salsa is not as sweet as you like, add 1 teaspoon brown sugar and 2 teaspoon white sugar. Mix well, to dissolve sugar.

Applesauce

Not only do I love the taste of homemade applesauce, but I love the smell of it as it wafts throughout the house. My girls do not like store bought applesauce anymore, it's homemade or nothing.

                                                                                                                                                

APPLESAUCE 

(serves 6)

Ingredients:

*5 pound bag of apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

(Golden Delicious, Fuji, Mcintosh, Granny Smith, Jonathan)

I finding mixing a couple different types of apples make for a much better tasting applesauce.

*1 1/2 cups water

*1/2 tablespoon cinnamon or 1 cinnamon stick (optional)

Directions:

~Place 5 pound bag chopped apples, 1 1/2 cups water, and 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon in a medium sized saucepan.

~Bring to a boil.

~Reduce heat, and simmer for 30-35 minutes.

~Remove from heat, remove cinnamon stick if used.

~Mash with a potato masher or if you like no lumps run through a food mill.

Variation:

`Add a few pears to cook down with the apples.

`Add 1 cup of crushed strawberries cook with the apples.

`Add 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice when you are done cooking the applesauce.

Helpful Hint: Apples are like potatoes and once you peel them, they brown rather quickly. Put a little lemon or lime juice in a bowl of water and put your peeled fruit into the water while you finish peeling apples.