Eating Dinner With My Family

I made Cranberry Sauce to take to my friend's house this Thanksgiving.  Funny story around this dish.  I was never a fan of cranberry sauce growing up, but I remember being fascinated with the tube of it as it came out of the can and managed to still look like a tin can but just cranberry colored.  So, fast forward a million years or so and I am a mom and learning to love cooking.  I made a cranberry dipping sauce and a cranberry sauce from Alton Brown one Thanksgiving and I liked it.  I decide then and there it isn't cranberry sauce I disliked but the canned stuff we always had as a kid.  I write a newsletter for Front Porch Pickings , a local and organic produce delivery company that serves Volusia county.  It is my job to offer recipes for the produce, particularly the more unusual items that many may not have cooked with.  Well this week was all Thanksgiving items, cranberries included.  I relate my above experience with cr...

So, I am not cooking this Thanksgiving!  I am both happy and sad about that.  We are going to friends house, but I have to bring something. (despite their protests;)  I am taking them their favorite salted caramel pretzel bark , but I also want to try out something new and holiday.  As I am thinking of it, there appears on my tv, Alton Brown doing a cranberry show!  I am also getting cranberries in my Front Porch Pickings basket!  Not being one to ignore fate, I decide to make some recipes on the show.  I choose this granita for two reasons.  The light, fresh and tart ice sounds like a great treat on a day full of heavy foods.  The other it that it can be made in to a cocktail!  That is a win-win for me.  I am bringing a desert and a drink with one recipe.  I made this early to taste it and make sure that I was bringing a guest worthy treat and cocktail.  It was.  I loved the granita.  It was a Thanks...