Hopefully you’ve already ordered your local, free-range, and/or Heritage-breed turkey, but now what?

cranberry baked brie

My strategy for cooking Thanksgiving dinner with a toddler underfoot is to prepare one simple but impressive appetizer. My favorite cranberry baked brie is sure to get your family and guests oohing and aahing while they wait for dinner, just in case it takes a little longer than planned to make it onto the table…

Here are a few other favorites from the Foodie Tot family over the years:

organic maple spiced cranberry sauce

Organic Maple Spiced Cranberry Sauce (and a post about organic cranberries)

Green Bean Almondine with Blue Cheese — a green bean casserole alternative

Pumpkin Pie … from a pumpkin!

I’m pondering a new chocolate dessert this year, courtesy of Nigella. What new recipe are you trying this year? Please share!

The second bread in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice (BBA) challenge was Artos, a Greek celebration bread typically enjoyed for Christmas or Easter. While I added the fruits found in the Christmas version, I stuck with the basic Artos shape rather than adding the decorative cross design.

The recipe begins with a starter, either a barm or a poolish. I chose the poolish as it was the simplest of the two, and I’d never made either before! The poolish is simply yeast, flour and water allowed to ferment for several hours. You then refrigerate it overnight and then are supposed to pull it out of the fridge an hour before mixing the rest of the bread’s ingredients. I took it out Memorial Day morning thinking I would mix it up before brunch, but of course that didn’t happen. When I returned five hours later (brunch was followed by playground and errands), it had exploded through its plastic wrap, over the top of its jar and oozed all over the place. After scraping off the crusty top, there was just about a cup left in the bottom of the jar which was precisely the amount needed for the bread.

Artos had a pretty long ingredient list, including a number of spices and extracts. I used cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg (no ground cloves). After mixing the dry ingredients, I plopped my gooey poolish-monster into the bowl….

… and added the beaten eggs, warm milk and almond extract. I had neither fresh citrus nor extract, so had to do without that. I mixed it in my Kitchen Aid again, but it was so sticky that I sprinkled an extra tablespoon of flour around the sides of the bowl so it would fully pull away from the bowl to knead. I added the organic dried cranberries and sultana raisins for the last two minutes of mixing.

After kneading, the dough went into an oiled bowl and was left to rise for 90 minutes …

Yep, more than doubled. I shaped it into a round boule and left it on the baking sheet for another 60 minutes. I was a little concerned that it rose outward at that point, rather than up, but went ahead and put it in the oven after 70 minutes as other BBAers had commented about humongous loaves.

Sure enough, 43 minutes later this fragrant beauty emerged from the oven … loved the cinnamon fragrance while it baked! And it was a moist, delicious bread.

• Note: I haven’t used spray oils in years, but after slathering oil on the Anadama dough by hand I decided I should pay attention to Mr. Reinhart’s instructions. I was happy to find spray grapeseed oil at my organic grocer. They also had organic olive oil spray but the grapeseed was recommended for baking.
• N.2. My bread shrunk a little while cooling, leaving a few wrinkles in the crust. (Any baking gurus out there know why?)
• N.3.: I hate to take a bye week so early in the challenge, but we’ll be traveling next week so bagels will be posted the following week, along with bread #4. Come back and see what’s baking!

You can see a (lovely) authentically-shaped Christopsomos loaf at Appoggiatura; or check out the enormous braided version by the Engineer Baker. And be sure to visit the BBA homepage at Pinch My Salt to check out other’s successes, failures and advice as we bake our way through The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

Looking for a last-minute Thanksgiving appetizer? This cranberry baked brie kicks things off with seasonal flavors and will keep your guests happy if the turkey is a little slow arriving on the table — always a challenge if you’re cooking with toddlers underfoot!

Recipe: Cranberry Baked Brie

I couldn’t resist Whole Foods’ new Isigny Ste. Mere Holiday Brie, produced by a co-op of eco-friendly farmers in Normandy, France. It was fairly mild-flavored, creamy and rich, and went wonderfully with the sweetly tart tang of my spiced cranberry sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 12 ounce (6″) wheel of brie
• 8 sheets fillo dough, thawed
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup cranberry sauce
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• sliced apples and bread

Instructions:

Cover a baking sheet with a layer of parchment paper. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Unwrap the brie and have the cranberry sauce and thyme ready before you begin working with the fillo dough. Lay out one sheet of fillo dough on a clean work surface and brush generously with melted butter. Repeat with the additional sheets of fillo.

After the last layer, spread cranberry sauce in a circle in the center, as wide as the round of brie. Center the brie over the sauce and lay thyme sprigs over the top.

Trim the corners off the fillo to make an oval shape. Working quickly, fold up the edges over the brie, brushing folds with melted butter as you go. Once it’s closed, gently flip over onto baking sheet and brush outside with butter. Bake for 25 minutes, until fillo is golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for 45 minutes, then serve with apples and bread.

If you’re impatient like me and can’t wait to dig in, be prepared for a gooey gush of warm, melted cheese. Mmm. Enjoy!

From the FoodieTots’ family to yours, we wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! And check back on Friday for some fresh turkey leftover recipes.

Now that we’ve covered why organic cranberries are important for your health and the environment, how easy are they to find? Read on for my shopping recap, or just skip to the bottom for my Spiced Cranberry Sauce recipe.

I scoured the produce sections at three local grocery stores, Safeway, Giant and Whole Foods. I generally find that Giant has a better selection of organics than Safeway, but I was intrigued by the promise of “locally grown” berries in yesterday’s Safeway ad. My hopes were quickly dashed when bags of Ocean Spray were all I could find – bags labeled, “Product of Canada,” at that. I asked the produce manager to verify that was all they had, and he reported that they stocked organic cranberries last year but none were sent this year. To his credit, he did try to be helpful and suggest I just go to Whole Foods…

I was hoping to prove that you could find organic cranberries without having to go to an organic market, so I continued on to Giant, a local chain. I did see a few more organic items, potatoes, onions, etc. at first glance, but was about to give up when I spotted two lone boxes of organic cranberries. (Naturipe brand from Wisconsin.) Score! I do hope they are planning to restock before the holiday, though. Curiously, Giant’s bagged Ocean Spray berries were “Product of USA,” stating that they were packed in Wisconsin, Massachusetts or Washington. Not the most helpful if you’re trying to plan a 100-mile Thanksgiving, but slightly more local than Canadian berries for most of us in the states. (I guess if you’re in Minnesota you can go either way.)

On then to Whole Foods, which offered two choices, organic from a family farm in Massachusetts (Orcranic brand), and Ocean Spray branded IPM berries from New Jersey. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) attempts to use natural methods first and pesticides as a last resort, but the consumer has no way of knowing what that means in actual quantities of chemicals unless you can talk to the producer directly. It is generally preferable to conventional, at any rate.

How do the prices stack up?

• Safeway: No organic fresh cranberries.
• Giant: Naturipe brand organic cranberries, $2.99 (in-store only, not available through Peapod delivery service).
• Whole Foods: Orcranic brand organic cranberries, $4.99; Ocean Spray IPM cranberries, $3.99.

Now I was primarily focused on fresh berries, but I perused the dried and canned options at each store as well, for those who have to have the can or just like to snack on dried berries year round. Here’s the scorecard:

• Safeway: Newman’s Own Organic (from US or Canada) $2.99 (4oz.) vs. Sun-Maid “Cape Cod” conventional cranberries, $3.99 (6oz.)
  No organic canned cranberry sauce.
• Giant: Nature’s Promise (store brand) organic dried cranberries, $5.99 (9 oz.). (Out of stock yesterday, but available through Peapod.)
  No organic canned canned cranberry sauce. (Ocean Spray conventional, $1.00.)
• Whole Foods: Organic cans, 365 brand, $1.79.

Recipe: Organic Spiced Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce is surprisingly easy to make, and can be made ahead of time and stored up to a week in the refrigerator. This simple spiced version incorporates other classic fall flavors, apple cider and maple syrup, to lend a dark (and healthier) sweetness. I used the Orcranics for this, and they were firm, tart and full of flavor.

Ingredients:

• 1 12 ounce bag organic fresh cranberries, rinsed
• 1 cup apple cider
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice

Instructions: Place all ingredients in a medium sized saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Berries will pop and burst. Don’t worry if it is still slightly runny, it will set up more as it cools. Remove from heat and cool; refrigerate until ready to serve. Makes the equivalent of one can, but tastes infinitely better! Enjoy!

Have you seen organic fresh cranberries in your local grocery? Let me know!