A journey of recycled goodness. Recipes to reinvent leftover food.

I have been thinking about this blog for some time now, but amidst the laughter (and tears) of two small children - we'll call them Little Miss and Monster, a husband - we'll call him Mo, and a dessert business - we'll call that Very Sweet, time is scarce, to say the least. But somehow on this rainy November day I have managed to slow down time - or at least not feel guilty about spending too much of it - to create this blog. I have been quite lucky as a mom. Little Miss and Monster will eat anything. Green beans, squash soup, roast beef, even tofu. Mo isn't picky either. In fact, I've even seen him order liver. But one thing that all of them refuse to eat? Leftovers. It doesn't matter how much they've enjoyed it, even praised it, the night before - they don't want to eat it again. Hence the birth of this blog concept. Not only, to get my family to eat leftovers, but also to help us all use just that much less. I know that my little family probably throws away enough food to feed another family of 4 every week. I hope this to be a place where we can all come together and share our recipes and advice to help recycle leftover food into something fabulous. If you would like to be a contributor to this blog, please leave a comment. Bon Appetit!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Cranberry Cream Cheese Squares

This recipe is still a work in progress - I don't think it's perfect yet, but definitely worth sharing. This is a great way to use up left over cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. I don't know about you, but I always make like 6 cups of cranberry sauce, and we maybe use 2 cups during our meal...



Crust and Crumb Topping:
2 C flour
1 1/2 C oats
3/4 C brown sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t kosher salt
1 C butter, softened

Cream Cheese Layer:
1 8oz package cream cheese, softened
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 egg
1 t vanilla

Cran-raspberry Sauce:
2 C frozen raspberries
2 C fresh cranberries
1/2 C sugar
1 T cornstarch
1 T frozen OJ concentrate, or 1 t orange zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make the cranberry sauce mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until bubbly, thick, and cranberries begin to burst. Use for you turkey dinner and reserve one cup for this recipe. Or just use your traditional cranberry sauce recipe, I'm sure that will taste great here as well!

To make the crust mix all ingredients together until it resembles large crumbs (I did this in my stand mixer, with the whisk attachment, but you can use a pastry cutter also). Reserve 1 cup of the mixture to put on the top. Press the remaining mixture into a greased 9X13 pan. Bake for about 12 minutes in the preheated oven.

While that is baking beat the cream cheese until it is smooth. beat in egg, vanilla, and condensed milk until light and fluffy. Spread onto crust. With a spoon place even dollops of cranberry sauce (I used about 1 cup of sauce) on cream cheese layer and use a butter knife to swirl in dollops, but not mix. Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture on top. Bake in 350 oven for another 40 minutes, or until golden. Cool completely, chill, and cut.

1 comment:

Somer said...

They look so yummy! I'll have to give them a try.