Never eat cranberry sauce out of a can ever again (gluten free)

                                                            Holiday Cranberry Sauce

I have a friend that told me "if it does't resemble a can it's not cranberry sauce". He was joking but the thing is I think too many people assume that the cranberry, sugar filled gelatinous stuff is what holiday traditions are are all about. They are so WRONG, you all have been missing out on some delicious stuff, and excellent left over turkey sandwich condiment bliss.

Things you're going to need

1) blender, vitamix, or food processor

2) 2 bags of raw cranberries

3) 40 ounces of quality orange juice

4) 1/3 cup brown sugar

 5) teaspoon of orange zest

In a large stew pot (that has a lid) add your 2 bags of cranberries, 40 oz of orange juice and orange zest. Set on medium/high and boil until cranberries are tender and starting to burst.

stir in 1/3 cup brown sugar (you can add additional sugar if you prefer sweeter) and reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat and set aside with lid off for at least an hour then with a slotted spoon scoop the cranberries into a blender/vitamix/food processor and puree until smooth (add additional juice from pot if mixture is too thick).

Refrigerate and enjoy!

Want to know what to do with the left over juices? Strain with a small hole colander and use for bellini mix with a sparkling wine of your choice =) Also works well with club soda for kid friendly drinks.

Trial errors and kiddie snacks that are picky eater approved =)

Oh my this week has been an interesting run of trials and errors in my kitchen...First, I wanted to make gluten free sticky buns and decided to try the "sweet bread sorghum flour" from Bob's redmill. Did you know you should read instructions closely? It's only meant to replace 10-15% of the gluten free bread mix! The sticky buns were far from sticky, they were like dog biscuits!  Then I had two separate requests for sugar free or low sugar cupcakes. Since my Chocolate velvet cupcakes only require a 1/4 cup of sugar I thought this would be easy to use standard flour instead of gluten free and Stevia sweetener instead of sugar. I was wrong. So gross. Beautiful texture and disgusting flavor, truly grotesque. I'm going to try again with using carrot juice instead of almond milk and make sugar free carrot cupcakes. Stay tuned for how those turn out.

So today's post is going to be your every day staple snacks for gluten free kiddies or just kiddies in general!

"Octopus" hot dogs and apple slice peanut butter sandwiches. 

For the hot dogs I took Foster farms natural turkey dogs and for 3/4 of their length cut them into strips (tentacles). Then boiled them in unsalted water until the tentacles curl up.

This little picky eater approves!

Another fun, easy and nutritional snack for your picky eater is a twist on the peanut butter and apples snack.  Nadine LOVES sandwiches but it's always more for the honey or the jam and she can get wild with sugar.
I "planked" an apple on cut size 3 on my pamper chef mini mandolin and used those as my "bread" for the sandwich.

Apple, peanut butter and a knife or mandolin. Easy!

So simple and delicious!