Have you ever made cake balls? I made 4 dozen of those little guys yesterday, and let me tell you, it is a labor of love. We had a baby shower for my cousin today (post later!) and I love her enough to make those cute but painful goodies. Not having a microwave makes melting the outer shells very interesting. Imagine my excitement when this morning Scout found his way onto the counter and snagged a couple, thus deeming the entire batch tainted in my eyes.
No, this is not a post about attempted dogicide or about how I feel the need to make an appointment with my priest to confess the long and extremely creative line of obscenities that came out of my mouth when it happened. It is about my subsequent trip to the Fresh Market on this cold, crappy, rainy, busy day to buy petitfors to make up for my lost batch of cake pops.
Never, ever, ever go to the grocery store hungry. It is the first line of defense against buying stuff you do not need. If you must go hungry, do not under any circumstances go to the Fresh Market hungry. All that produce smells so freaking good! My nose led me through the store. I spent $28 on petitfors and an additional $60 something on… I can not even tell you, except the pimento cheese I wolfed down on my way to Dalton and the fresh cranberries that inspired this post.
I. Love. Cranberries. Period. End of story. I want to put them in everything. I want to boil them on my stove with oranges and cinnamon to make my house smell good. I want to drink alcoholic drinks with cranberry juice in it… Or better yet the simple syrup that boiling cranberries in sugar water creates. They are just so versatile and delicious.
Immediately I did a mental rundown of my meal plan for the week to see where I could work cranberries in. The only potential place I could see was fish taco night. My experimental cooking brain went into overdrive wondering how cranberry flavored pico de gallo would taste. I decided to go for it!
I made it tonight for Wednesday’s tacos. Initial thoughts after it was made: YUM. We shall see on Wednesday after it has had three days to meld together. I am pretty sure it will only get better. In fact, I am so confident, I am posting the recipe now instead of after we try it. I say we because I am so confident in this little salsa I invited my ever critical favorite foreign friend and the Gentrys over to experiment with me.
Here it is folks… Experimental cooking at its finest.
You will need fresh cranberries, orange slices, red onion, a jalapeño, parsley and cilantro, 2 tbsp olive oil, garlic, and tomato. I have no idea how much I anything I put in and it really is dealer’s choice based on what you like. Little Sister gave me some leftover clementine sections and that is what I used.
I had this many cranberries.
Maybe a cup? Who knows? What I do know is you have to boil them to soften them up a little. It was so tempting to add sugar to the water like I normally do when cooking cranberries. It probably would not have hurt anything but I am not looking for sweet… This time. You will know when they are ready because they will start bursting. It only takes a few minutes. It is hard to see but if you closely at this picture you will see their skins are split.
Strain out the water and put them in a mixing bowl. No need to chop these little guys… They are soooooft. Everything else will need to be chopped and added to the bowl. When it is all in there, add 2 tbsp olive oil and mix it up. It will need to be refrigerated for at least 3 hours but the longer it sits there the better it will turn out.
I spooned mine into a quart sized mason jar so I can shake it up this week before fish taco night. Here is my finished product!
Do you ever do experimental cooking? How do you choose what to throw together? What do you to when it is bad? I have had so many experiments turn into disasters! I just get so bored with everyday recipes. Sometimes I need to get a little kooky in the kitchen. :)
Starring the Middle Sister 