Saturday, November 13, 2010

Cranberry Sauce with Apricots and Meeting Dorie Greenspan


All of the stars aligned this week, and I was able to combine a trip to Massachusetts with a drive on Thursday over to Madison, Connecticut to attend an event at the fabulous bookstore R.J. Julia: Dorie Greenspan spoke of her life in Paris and read from her new cookbook Around My French Table.

Even though I sat in the very back of the house, Dorie's personal warmth filled the room and her engaging stories kept us all captivated. As she signed books afterward, Dorie left us feeling that each of us was the most special one in the room!

Dorie baked us sable cookies - they were fantastic! Thanks to Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures for taking this picture of Dorie and me.

An added bonus of the evening was meeting Dorie's charming husband Michael, and also fellow Tuesdays With Dorie and French Fridays With Dorie bloggers Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures, Audrey of Food From Books, Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet, and Rebecca of Cooking Lucia Cara.

And now for a recipe from Dorie for Cranberry Sauce With Apricots that will be a great addition to your Thanksgiving menu (and one that you can throw together in under 15 minutes to boot!)


n.o.e.'s notes:

- [update November 2023: the original links in this post are broken.  You can find the recipe on the Parade website.]   Dorie featured the cranberry sauce on this 2009 entry on her blog and you can find the recipe, along with tempting Thanksgiving recipes from other chefs, in this article from Parade Magazine.

- The basic process is to cook fresh cranberries with orange juice, jam, sugar, powdered ginger, and chopped dried apricots on top of the stove until it becomes a thick sauce.

- 1 pound of cranberries makes 2/3 recipe of this cranberry sauce.

- For the jam, I used Stonewall Kitchen's Peach Amaretto jam. Stonewall's jams always sound wonderful, but once I open a jar I find that they tend to be too sweet and oddly low on flavor. To compensate I halved the sugar in the recipe and added a generous squeeze of lime juice. The level of sweetness/tartness can be adjusted as needed while the sauce is simmering.

the verdict:

This cranberry sauce was as delectable as it was easy to make. I loved that it was tart, but not too tart, and that the flavors of the different fruits came through. This is a definite addition to my Thanksgiving table this year, and beyond that, it's a good one to have on hand to garnish roasted meat or a sandwich, or even stir into yogurt.

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11 comments:

Unknown said...

Love your post and the photos you chose to share! Even 2 days later, I can't stop thinking about what a great night that was with Dorie :)

Homemade cranberry sauce is the best and this one sounds so interesting with the dried apricots. Great shot too!

Di said...

Wonderful pictures, Nancy! It sounds like you all had a really great time. I've really got to finish writing up my Dorie experience. =)

AmyRuth said...

Nancy, First last impression of the storefront photo w/the heading. Makes me think of "You've Got Mail." Its a lovely photo but as we all order our books from Amazon I continually wonder how they stay in business.
I have so enjoyed the cranberry festival we all have enjoyed and looking forward to making your recipe as I love cranberries & apricots so yum. So happy for you that you had such an amazing opportunity. What fun. You'll treasure the memory, I'm sure.
AmyRuth

Audrey said...

It was so wonderful to meet you, although it certainly didn't feel like we were meeting for the first time. That's the power of baking! :) Thanks for sharing your wonderful pictures. I want to go back and spend some more time in that bookstore, and just walking up and down that main street.

Unknown said...

What a wonderful evening at my favorite little bookstore - I am so sorry I missed the chance to meet Dorie and all of you! (I lived in Madison until 5 years ago, then one town over until 4 months ago - we moved to Philly.) Sounds like a good time was had by all.

Your sauce looks delicious - such a nice change from the usual. I'm always looking for a good fresh cranberry sauce recipe and I might have to try this in a week or two.

Kayte said...

Great photos of the big trip! Such fun to read about it all, although it would have been much more fun to actually get to go. I just couldn't see being away from Matt's big college signing week and missing that...I would always have regretted missing that with him...just like now I will regret that I didn't get to go with all of you! Ah, well, next time!

dorie said...

Nancy, I 'm still floating from meeting you and Tracey and Audrey and Rebecca and being at Mary's house. I'm also still eating your great bread and your best, best macaroni and cheese. I can't thank you enough for being, as Audrey called you, 'the friend gatherer', and for making the evening so special.

And about the cranberry sauce ... I'm glad you like it. I'll be making it for Thanksgiving also -- I always do.

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I was thrilled to recieve a comment from Dorie but would have been in heaven to actually meet in person. I know she was at Blogher Food this year.

Mary said...

What a wonderful post....I love that cranberry sauce recipe too. I can't believe thanksgiving is right around the corner.

Welcome to our crazy blessed life said...

How fun! I am a little jealous that I didn't get to see Dorie on her tour! Fun that you got to meet some of the other TWD and FFwD bloggers. :)

Leslie said...

How fabulous that you all got to meet and then meet Dorie! I'm sure it was a special, special evening. That's a great photo of you and Dorie together!