One of our favorite thanksgiving foods are the cranberries. About 10 years ago when I finally learned to cook for my poor family, I found out that cranberries are not supposed to come out of a can for your Thanksgiving meal. (Yeah, you didn’t know either LOL). Actually, growing up I never had most of the traditional Thanksgiving foods. We ate turkey but on the side was usually rice and beans and other spanish foods.
In my quest to give my kids a traditional Thanksgiving meal, I tried out a recipe which has been tweaked throughout the years but every Thanksgiving I make two different types fresh cranberry dishes. One of them has oranges and cranberries and lots of herbs, yum. The other is a very simple combination of cranberries and strawberries.
A really great way to use up your leftover cranberry sauce is to make waffles.
My Belgian waffles recipe:
2 cups cake flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 4 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon good bourbon vanilla extract ( use Niesen Massey)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, 2 cups milk
Preheat your waffle iron. In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Set aside. In a second bowl beat together the egg yolks and sugar until sugar is completely dissolved and eggs have turned a pale yellow. Add the vanilla extract, melted butter, and milk to the eggs and whisk to combine.
Combine the egg-milk mixture with the flour mixture and whisk until blended. Do not over mix.
In third bowl, beat the egg whites from the seperated eggs with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, about 1 minute. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Do not overmix!
At this point take a cup of your cranberries sauce and fold into your waffle batter. I take my basting brush and I dip it into canola oil and brush the waffle plates so my waffles won’t stick.
Put the rest of the cranberry sauce into a saucepan. Add a half cup of organic light corn syrup, a cup of water and a half cup of sugar to the sauce. Let it simmer for 10 minutes. Take a cup and put 1/4 cup of cold water and 3 tablespoons of corn starch to the water. Add this to your sauce and let it cook for a few minutes to thicken. Pour over your waffles and next year make enough extra cranberry sauce to can some because it is good on everything. As a matter of fact, I think I better go out and buy up a bunch of fresh cranberries before they are all gone.
