If you’re looking for a simple, succulent, silky addition to any meal, this is it. A true classic from Dallas, TX, originally chronicled in The Great American Cookbook, by Clementine Paddleford. This is my take on Mrs. A. L. DeGuire’s chicken pilaf, a truly gorgeous dish.

While some may argue that pilaf is not an American creation, this recipe comes from A Texan family of mixed French, Armenian and Greek descent. Both second-generation Americans. This recipe, like most American dishes, is an adaptation from their family heritage. We are, after all, a country of mixed cultures. This dish is a perfect example of the mix of influences that makes our cuisine, well, ours.

Preparation in this case is extremely simple. At its core this is simply rice steamed in chicken broth with a touch of lemon juice and butter. The addition of cilantro was ours, because we had a bunch of it to use up, and because my family adores it. It adds just a bit more flavor and gives it a bit of a colorful pop on the plate.

While this could probably be prepared in a rice cooker as well, I wouldn’t recommend doing so. The recipe calls for a few initial stirs on the rice, and those few minutes of stirring are what gives this dish its remarkably silky texture. You aren’t going to get that silkiness in a rice cooker. Also, if you happen to have some fresh chicken broth on hand, the experience will be that much more sublime.

What I would have done differently had I thought of it at the time:

I actually under cooked this slightly. partially because I’m learning to use our new kitchen and partially because I didn’t use the right pot for the job. Be sure you’re using a heavy-bottomed stock pot for the job and you’ll be just fine.

Links to other recipes like this:

• Brown Rice and Almond Pilaf, from Lydia at The Perfect Pantry
• Bulgar and Spinach Pilaf, from 101 Cookbooks
• Rice Pilaf, From Elise at Simply Recipes

It’s not often that a cookbook grabs my attention and makes me check my budget to see if I can afford to buy it. That’s not to say I don’t get excited by cookbooks penned by friends and contemporaries like Lisa Fain and Matt Aminderez. I do. I’ve bought those books and will be reviewing them soon. This book however, was not on my list of books to buy.

Now it’s on my list of books to never be without.

In fact, if I were stranded on a desert island with just three books to read, this book would be on that list. It has replaced the Betty Crocker cookbook as my main source of good, achievable recipes that, for the most part, can be made in any home kitchen. Yes, it’s that good.

Have you ever heard of Clementine Paddleford? If not, you aren’t alone but you should be ashamed.

We should all be ashamed.

Clementine Paddleford was a woman well ahead of her time. She was a food writer from the 1940′s until her death in 1969. In that time, she wrote about the food of America. Not just the America she was familiar with, but the America she had to travel to see. In her own words:

…I have traveled by train, plane, automobile, by mule back, on foot—In all over 800,00 miles.

I have ranged from the lobster posts of Maine to the vineyards of California, from the sugar shanties of Vermont to the salmon canneries in Alaska. I have collected these recipes from a wide variety of kitchens: farm kitchens, apartment kitchenettes, governors’ mansions, hamburger diners, tea rooms and from the finest restaurants with great chefs in charge. I have eaten with crews on fishing boats and enjoyed slum gullion at a Hobo Convention…

Through her fearless and often relentless travels Clementine introduced America to the cuisines and cultures of the entire nation. In a time where nobody on the East coast had heard of an enchilada, Clementine was there. In a time when Californians had never experienced a blintz or a cruller, she was there, sometimes flying thousands of miles (in her own plane) to experience the food and culture of America.

I can’t stress on any level how important this book is to any American cook. These are the recipes of our great grandmothers and great-great grandmothers. This book is a slice of history that covers each and every state in the union. This is not just a collection of recipes, but a tribute to individual families, about which Ms. Paddleford writes warm and fond words.

She introduces you to the people, the places, the things that made these particular recipes important to her. Pot roasts made by a chef in the home of a Viennese princess in Vermont, Beans and Brown Bread in the Cradle from Boston, Chicken Pilaf and Bean Dip from Texas, Mrs. Benton’s Roasted Guinea Hens from Missouri, Olive Rabbit from California and the Brindle Brothers’ Crab dip from Alaska. Each of these recipes comes with a story of the people who made it and of the place they lived. Her book is a snapshot of lives in America, adapted and retested for the modern table by Kelly Alexander. In short, it is not only a piece of history, but a piece of culinary art and delight.

Without gushing any further, I say this. Run. Do not walk. Get to your local bookseller or online retailer. Order this book. Have it in your collection. You owe yourself and your family this book.

If you prefer to buy from Amazon, you can get the book here: The Great American Cookbook: 500 Time-Tested Recipes: Favorite Food from Every State. If you prefer to buy it from somewhere else, then feel free to do so. You won’t hurt my feelings. What would hurt my feelings would be for you to miss this experience.

Go. Now. You need this book in your collection.

We will be posting adaptations of many of the recipes in this book over the coming year, and I invite you to play along with us.  I’ll post details on that particular challenge later.  Until then, remember;

Food is love. Share and Enjoy!

Please welcome guest poster Hans ‘The Ramen Rater‘ Lienesch, who shares one of my greatest passions; Instant noodles!  Hans and I are both fans of  Ramen and other varieties of packaged convenience noodles, and he’s agreed to share one of his favorites here. Please give a warm welcome to another noodle fanatic.

Take it away Hans!

Since I was a small child, I have enjoyed instant noodles. I started out with what every other kid in the USA has – Top Ramen. Then, they came out with something called Roasted Ramen, noodles that already had the seasoning within them – no packet!

These were off the market soon though and that’s when everything changed in my instant noodle world. My parents took me south to Seattle and we went to a big Japanese grocery in the heart of the International District. As it turned out, the Roasted Ramen I so enjoyed actually was how they marketed Chikin ramen – Nissin’s first instant noodle in 1958, of which they had a great quantity.

What I noticed (I was about 12 years old) was that there were a ton of different varieties of instant noodles to be had there; with different colored packaging and strange foreign writing I couldn’t begin to understand.

My folks let me sample a few and it was fun – some were almost impossible to cook; what were the instructions saying?

Over 30 years later and having officially sampled over 650 different unique varieties, I have found that there’s one brand that I must say is my favorite. They’re not from Japan, and it’s not soupy.

The brand is Indomie and their product, Mie Keriting Rasa Ayam Panggang (Special Quality Curly Noodles With Grilled Chicken Flavor) is the variety.

So what’s the deal? Why is it so good? Well, It’s got some great noodles, a smorgasbord of seasonings and garnishes within the package and I’ve come up with a lot of different additions one can make to really round things out. Here’s how I make it. What’s more, if you have absolutely no way to pick up this particular brand, any brand will do fine as far as the additions go (just drain off all but a trickle of the broth).

The Ramen Rater’s Indonesian Number One Noodles

Ingredients:

• A pack of Indomie Special Quality Curly Noodles With Grilled Chicken Flavor (or any other brand as long as you drain off all but a few tablespoons of broth)
• Kizami Shoga (pickled Ginger – the bright pink sharp kind)
• Fried shallot (fresh or dry)
• 2 Eggs
• Huy Fong Sriracha Sauce (aka Red Rooster or Cock Sauce)
• A little chicken or turkey sliced lunch meat
• Seasoning salt

The first thing you need to do is open the package of noodles. You’ll find a daunting array of packets. No worries – this is where the fun begins! The single packet on the right is a small packet of chicken flavored soup base. Set it aside – we’ll use this later.  The top packet has a combo of Manis Pedas (sweet hot chili sauce) and seasoned oil. Below that is a dual packet containing powdered seasoning and veggies.

Now is a good time to fry up some eggs. Make sure the yolks don’t get solidified – runny yolks are essential.

Get a pan full of water boiling. You’ll want to put the noodle block and the veggies in there for about three minutes.

All of the remaining ingredients (except the small single packet) need to be in a bowl as you see above. Once the noodles are cooked, drain them well and put them in the bowl and mix well. Put the eggs on top of the noodles.

Pour the little packet into a cup and add a little boiling water and stir well. You can add as little as 1/8th cup to 1/4 cup, depending on your tastes. The trick now is to pop the yolks gently so they start to leak. Pour the broth over them slowly – this creates a really rich and flavorful small amount of broth

which makes everything sing.

This is when I usually add a liberal amount of pickled ginger as well as fried shallot. A blog reader sent me a small bag of fresh shallots recently and I found home-fried shallots to be a delicacy worth going the extra mile to make. Other fine things to add are garlic, onion, leeks, anything you think would taste nice probably will. I usually add a pinch of seasoning salt at this point.

I added some turkey this time and a little Sriracha sauce all around. Voila! All done. You can add more or less of what you like. This is my general recipe to make instant noodles come alive. The Indomie is wonderful stuff; this makes for a very good breakfast that I’ve enjoyed for years. As I said above, you can use any other instant noodle you want – I would say that strong seafood varieties be avoided as the eggs don’t always jibe well nor do the additions of chicken or turkey. Shrimp, chicken, beef and pork as well as Oriental flavored instant noodles do quite well in this configuration. Dig in and enjoy!

You can find other articles by Hans here:

Hans ‘The Ramen Rater’ Lienesch

Web – www.theramenrater.com

FB – www.facebook.com/theramenrater

twitter – www.twitter.com/theramenrater

reddit – www.reddit.com/r/ramenrater

Yes, I lifted the title from Tolkien. I’m sure he and Bilbo wouldn’t mind too much.

Life begins and ends in Texas. At least it does as far as this blog and my life is concerned.

This story, as most well told stories do, has a beginning, middle and an ending.  Like many other stories, the beginning and the end happen in roughly the same place. As far as the rest of the story goes, it’s my story and being such, the similarity with other stories that are not my story end.

If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be sitting on an airplane at 37,000 feet writing about my permanent return to Texas I would have told you that you’d lost leave of your senses.  (Either that or I would have told you that you were as nutty as a fruitcake or something similar.) Yet here we are, in a Boeing 757 cruising at several hundred miles an hour toward the place that we will be calling home forever.

Just like our good friend Bilbo Baggins from the Hobbit, this adventure of ours is fraught with uncertainty. We’re embarking on something new in a place that we aren’t familiar with. Our situation is tenuous and margins for error are slim, if they exist at all.  We may not be fighting a dragon for Dwarven treasure, but we are battling the rental market on a very slim budget.  in short, this is all scary as hell, since for the first time in years the military isn’t here to help us out.

There is no one to tell us where to live, or to provide stability.  Our insurance is now squarely on our shoulders. we don’t have any furniture or even a car, at least until the 9th of next month. We can’t put the kids in school until we know where we’ll be living. It’s kind of like we’re just starting out as kids in a new city, rather than as an established family.

Crazy much?

Let me take a step back from this monumental redirection in our lives to the year preceding the creation of cbsop. Both my wife and I had just left bad relationships. We were introduced online by mutual friends. The next thing I knew I had moved from California to Texas, a move that I had not anticipated and had never contemplated.

I had managed to meet a woman that I cannot express my love for in words, in music or even through food. It was because of her that cbsop exists at all, and her encouragement has been the driving force in this blog since its inception in January of 2007. She has supported, prodded, goaded and, at times, brow beat me into continuing this project. Last year she joined it along with my oldest son, Super Chef Jr. Cbsop has gone from a personal project to a family affair.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So for cbsop, the return to Texas is natural. It all started here. (OK, it all began a few hundred miles from here, but it began in Texas.) For my wife, the choice was for medical reasons. No other place in the country will take better care of her than San Antonio, TX. That alone would have been enough of a reason for me.

So here we are, back where it all began. Yes, I went back to California for a bit, but I came to realize that California is no longer my home. It will always hold a place in my heart, but it isn’t the place that I grew up any more.

It’s time to shake things up a bit.

So hello from the great state of Texas. Cbsop and the family that drives it are home.

I know I say it a lot, but sometimes the simple things in life are the best. They are often the most satisfying, the most soul-soothing and heartwarming things. It could be a child’s laughter, a favorite frumpy old sweatshirt or a soft smile from that significant someone-else that makes an otherwise normal and dreary day better, but in this case it’s a cookie. A simple, plain, ordinary cookie.

Sure, there are a million variations on the classic chocolate chip cookie. Some are grand and elegant. Others are mischievous and include hidden ingredients. Some are soft, some are chewy and some are crunchy. A few boast nuts and exotic ingredients and others will blow your mind with the complexity of flavors involved.

These are not those cookies. These are the perfect combination of ooey-gooey, warm, chewy and “my mother loves me.” They’re the warmth of a fire in winter and a cup of hot cocoa after a long, hard day in elementary school. These are the chocolate chip cookies of childhood, something between the ones that came out of the Betty Crocker Cookbook and a Toll House cookie.

The recipe is an adaptation on one taken from a bag of chocolate chips, but modified by my wife. This also happens to be the one dessert recipe that neither my wife or I make. No. these cookies are not our domain. They are the domain of my oldest son, now dubbed Super Chef Jr. by my wife. I must admit, I think she might be right. He does these very, very well.

Though I may be biased by the fact that my son made these for us, I am still convinced of one thing. Out of all of the chocolate chip cookie recipes I’ve ever had, these are by far the best. I’m sure that you and your family will enjoy them as well.

Do you have an absolute favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe? Are they chewy or crunchy? do they have nuts? Let us know in the comments. Perhaps we’ll change our minds when we hear about your favorite. I doubt it, but perhaps.

What I would have done differently had I thought of it at the time:

Let me think about it for a minute…

Nothing!

Except perhaps to make a double batch next time. Yeah. That sounds good.

Links to other recipes like this:

• Chocolate Chip Cookies, not the best ever, but still good!
• Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Smitten Kitchen
• Gluten Free Chocolate chip Cookies, from Gluten Free Goddess

This post brought to you by GravyMaster. All opinions are 100% mine.

We, as both food lovers and as a nation, are starting to look back on American cuisine in a new light.  This is a good thing. We’ve spent too long looking to other cultures and cuisine for guidance, somehow feeling that the foods our parents and grandparents created was something less than stellar, that it was mundane in comparison to foods from other places. Of course, that is not the case at all.

American cuisine is simple, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious. chefs all over America are looking to our past. they are recreating dishes once relegated to memory or ridicule, like hash, and elevating them to new levels. We as a culture have finally learned the most valuable lesson of a food community.

If it was good then, it’s good now.

Our grandmothers knew how to create fabulous dishes with very little. They used what was available and flavored it with what they had, or with what their mothers showed them how to use. In the 1950′s, many of these flavorings are things that modern home cooks have forgotten, but why?

Somehow we’re ashamed of the ingredients that our predecessors used. There’s a stigma attached to canned soups, store-bought seasonings and pre-measured spice blends. It’s a bias thrown at us by the classically taught chefs on T.V. and embraced by trend chasing foodies across the nation who shout loudly that if it isn’t made from scratch, it’s wrong.

But they’re the ones who are wrong. While times may change, a great dish does not. it may go out of favor at restaurants (remember lemon-pepper chicken?), but that doesn’t negate the fact that it was good in the first place, and still is. The fact that my grandmother used a store-bought flavor enhancer when she made her Holiday gravies and sauces does not make those gravies any less good than they were. Without the addition, they wouldn’t have been the gravy I remember from childhood, the gravy I still try to recreate every year, but never quite get.

When the folks from GravyMaster contacted me to ask if I’d create a recipe using their product, I remembered my grandmother. She had all kinds of “helpers” and “secret ingredients” in her cupboards. Among them was a product very similar to the one I use here. Others included special flours, a stash of nutmeg and some other things she would never share with me.

It was then that I realized that we are at a crossroads in our food culture. We stand at a point where products that have been used and loved in American kitchens since the 30′s and 40′s stand a chance at being forgotten. We risk passing them by, for no good reason whatsoever, just because someone with French training doesn’t agree with their use… But that’s nuts.

So I took a look at the ingredients list on the bottle. It isn’t gluten free (soy proteins), but other than that, it’s basically a reduction of soy and corn proteins (read, something like soy sauce) and some spices that I could make in my own kitchen, though I wouldn’t want to, it would be an expensive alternative to using what’s already in the bottle.

And what’s in the bottle is pretty darned versatile. As basically a soy sauce reduction, you can do about anything with it. The profile is a bit outside of what I think of as Asian, but it packs a good bit of umami and will definitely add a hint of savory/sweet to whatever it touches. Basically, wherever Hoisin or Soy would work, this will go, too.

I looked at the Master the meal portion of their site and checked out some recipes to see what others had done. A lot of the techniques looked familiar, the usage was what I would expect from a sweet soy reduction used as a glaze, so we took a shot and whipped out some sweet potatoes using a recipe I think my Grandma would have been proud of, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

       Print This Recipe!    

Do you have an old family recipe that has a “secret ingredient” floating around in it?  What would you create with a product like GravyMaster? Let us know in the comments. if not, head over to the recipe section at the GravyMaster website and take a look around. I know I’ll be trying variations on a few in the future.

Submitted for your approval:  The shortbread cookie.  Up until now it has lived its life in the shadow of other confections. Until now it has been happy to be looked at as a rather vanilla addition to Holiday tables everywhere, but today a wrong turn down a dark alley will transform the shortbread cookie’s life forever.

Without ever realizing that something irreversible was about to happen, a chance meeting with two ingredients from the Southwest have sent this common little cookie on a path it never could have imagined.  Today it has entered on a one way tip to…

The spicy zone.

OK.  Perhaps a bit of a cheesy intro for something as simple as a shortbread cookie, but the thing about a simple recipe such as shortbread is that it doesn’t take a whole lot of tinkering to go from really good to “Oh My Goodness.”

Don’t get me wrong.  Shortbread all by itself is wonderful.  It fits all my basic requirements for a great recipe.  It’s simple, unassuming and delicious.  99% of my favorite cookie recipes are based on shortbread.  This cookie just hit the top ten, making it completely worthy of both the overly melodramatic introduction and the time and effort that it takes to make them.

Do you have a favorite shortbread-based recipe?  If so, why not share?  we’d love to hear about it.

Share and Enjoy!

What I would have done differently had I thought of it at the time:

These little wedges are fabulous. A tad spicy, a bit savory and not too sweet.  I can’t see a reason to change them up much and if the speed at which my kids demolished them is any indicator, I really shouldn’t.  They were a certified hit and will remain so for years.

Links to other recipes like this:

• Chocolate Chili Shortbread, from Esurientes – The comfort Zone

This post brought to you by Tassimo. All opinions are 100% mine.

And now, the post (we hope) you’ve all been waiting for.  This is our completely unbiased review of the Tassimo Professional single cup brewing system. And yes, it is unbiased. It’s also a darned positive review.

Before I begin: This post was supposed to have several images of people from the office trying it out and enjoying the coffee. Because we took this unit to a military installation, I am only allowed to use one photograph. (It’s an operational Security thing. Can’t be giving out details or layouts of Military hospitals. I’m also not allowed to show photos with ranks or name-tapes, so I was a bit limited!)

First: Please let me say at the outset that I was completely prepared to give an honest opinion, and had everyone involved not been pleased with this machine, I would have been the first to tell you about it. I was fully prepared to give you the good, the bad and the ugly… But I can’t give you the bad or the ugly, because I didn’t get a single piece of negative feedback from anyone.

To be honest. It’s just a great machine that works exactly as advertised and brews a hell of a good cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. It’s especially good at making specialty beverages like lattes and mochas. trust me, they’re good. Very, very good.

Now for the required bullet points before I give you the whole story. (Hey, there are requirements for these things. bear with me!)

The Tassimo Pro offers premium beverages from makers like Gevalia coffee, Suchard hot chocolates and Twinings tea.  The pro model T-disks use a double bar code system for superior brewing and are not compatible with home systems, so you don’t have to worry about employees “borrowing any coffee for their home use. (Unless of course they went and got a pro-model machine for their home… But that’s a bit unlikely. Lastly, it’s a breeze to use. One button, follow instructions, coffee, tea, chocolate or whatever, is done. just like that. No fuss, no muss, no cleanup other than tossing the used disk in the trash.

And with that, here’s the experience that my family and the fine airman at the 673d Medical Squadron had with the unit and the included beverage selection:

Set up:

Out of the box, the unit required cleaning and priming the included water filtration system.  This makes sense, as you want to be sure that everything is nice and tidy inside the machine that’s making your drinks.  the system comes with a cleaning disk that stores handily in the back of the unit and cleaning took about 5 minutes. A bit tedious perhaps, but necessary and understandable.

Use:

This is where I find that I’m a bit at a lack for words. this machine is the simplest thing I have ever had the pleasure of using. Insert disk. close lid. follow instructions on the screen. That’s it. It tells you it’s ready, it asks you to push a button, it brews whatever you have in the receiver and tells you when it’s done.  If you’re brewing coffee, it asks if you’d like a little more in the cup when you’re finished.

I mean seriously. I was like a kid in a candy store the first time I made a cup. It was like poetry to watch. And I’m not the only one. the looks of awe and wonder were obvious on everyone’s faces in the office, too. it’s a sheer JOY to use, and it brews a cappuccino in about 2 minutes.

Flavor:

This is where I was worried. I shouldn’t have been. while the Tassimo doesn’t brew the perfect cup of Columbian coffee for me, that isn’t because it doesn’t try. It’s completely because I love very strong coffee. For me it’s a hair on the weak side, but that’s completely an issue of preference.

As for the folks in the shop? Well, I have two quotes for you:

The first, from a guy who imports his coffee from his preferred home roasting company, even when on deployments overseas: 

“Amazing Quality. Really quality!!”

(After brewing a cup of espresso roast and adding a cup of hot cocoa to it.  Gotta love a mocha.)

Second, from my wife’s supervisor:

“Having been to Italy and tasted the cappuccinos there, i have to say that this machine stacks up.”

I can’t make this stuff up folks, nor would I.

In short, not only do I recommend that you get one of these for your office, but I’m currently trying to figure out if a home office with two people in it qualifies as an office that should have one of these machines in. I WANT ONE!

Everyone in the office loves it, too. In fact, when they found out that it would probably be leaving today, they all scrambled to go grab just one last cup before going back to the drip coffee maker in the back of the break room. Thee folks are not involved in the review and they don’t care about this article, they just like the coffee that much. That, in and of itself, tells me that it’s worth having.

What are your thoughts? would you like to have a Tassimo Professional in your office? Do you think it’s important to have good, high-quality coffee a work? let us know. And let your supervisor know that your office can have a Tassimo Professional free demo within the next few weeks. Just follow the link. Do It!

Holiday leftovers are some of my families favorite meals. They tend to be quick, hassle free and simplistic, yet brimming with flavor. They’re easy because after all the work that went in to the Holiday meal, nobody is really in the mood for a complicated affair or a long day spent tending another meal. Of course, you still get all the flavors that you put into the original dish, so BONUS!

This particular dish is one of my favorites from childhood. It’s a simple combination of ham and beans, but don’t let the simplicity fool you. This soup is as close to perfection as you can get, and paired with fresh homemade bread or cornbread, it’s a complete meal in itself.

Many will say that this is just a rehash of the 15 bean soup with smoked ham hocks recipe I posted earlier this year, but it isn’t. Really! Anyone that’s familiar with smoked hocks knows full well that they should not be treated in the same manner as a true ham, and that ham should never be treated like hocks. the differences between the two are not subtle at all and this recipe takes those differences into account.

Ham has a milder, sweeter flavor and needs to be treated far more delicately than hocks (They may say ham hocks but they are not made the same way!) It also does not pair exceptionally well with garlic. Actually, it doesn’t pair at all with garlic. It’s best to simply remove the garlic from the room while making this so that the cook will not be tempted. If necessary, remove the garlic from the home and keep in an undisclosed location. You’ll thank me for this, trust me, you will.

And now, because I know that you’re really here for the recipe that follows, and because I think it’s crewel to keep you waiting any longer, please allow me to introduce you to a family favorite. A Holiday tradition passed from our family table to yours. (Of course, you don’t need to wait for the Holidays to make this!)

What are your Holiday leftover traditions?  Everyone has their own, and they all tend to be unique. We’d love to hear about yours.

What I would have done differently had I thought of it at the time:

Yeah. Um. Nothing. Ever. Not a darned thing. Except perhaps make a bigger batch.

Links to other recipes like this:

• Ham Bone, Greens and Bean Soup, from TheKitchn.com
• White Bean soup with Ham and Rosemary, from Kalyn’s Kitchen

Sometimes a Holiday meal should be uncomplicated. There’s enough stress out there for anyone, right? Why should you also be expected to put out expensive, fussy meals throughout the season on a regular basis? The answer is; you shouldn’t.

Your holiday meals don’t have to be complicated to be fabulous. This dish is a recreation of one we made several years ago. As I stated at the time, I thought that a few additions would be nice. The attempt was an utter success and something that I’m sure that your family and friends will thoroughly enjoy at any Holiday meal.

The nice part? It only takes 6 ingredients and cooks in about an hour; even less if you use leftover turkey.  This dish packs all the flavors of the Holiday table into one single, cohesive plate, freeing you from the hassle of a monumental undertaking, but still satisfying both the cook and guests.

Some might roll their eyes at the mention of canned cranberry sauce in the recipe, but if you want to make fresh cranberry sauce or have some leftover homemade cranberry sauce hanging out, feel free to use it! It only makes the recipe better.  The same is true of the oranges. If you have fresh Clementines or other oranges, go right ahead and use them, just be sure to add a little orange juice and perhaps a tablespoon of sugar to the mix before you bake it.

This dish can be as simple or as complex as you’d like to make it. It’s about saving you time during a hectic time of the year. It was a runaway hit with my family and I’m sure it will be with yours.

What’s your favorite easy to make holiday meal?  Is it leftovers after the fact or a quick and easy appetizer for Holiday parties? A slow cooked all-in-one crock pot meal or a stir fry? Let us know in the comments. you’ll help us help everyone have a simpler Holiday season.

What I would have done differently had I thought of it at the time:

The only two things I might add to this would be a hint of cloves and some orange zest as a garnish. Otherwise, it’s fabulous.

Links to other recipes like this:

• Cranberry Orange Turkey Thighs, from us, to you
• Turkey Cocktail Meatballs with Orange Cranberry Glaze, from John at Food Wishes
• Turkey Tacos with Cranberry Salsa, from Elise at Simply Recipes