i'd rather be baking

My favorite part of Thanksgiving has always been my grandma’s cranberry relish. The past few times she’s served it (Thanksgiving or otherwise), she’s wisely placed the serving dish next to my plate. The lip-smacking sweet-tartness is one of my favorite foods on earth and one that I now make in my own home. I love the tartness of simple, fresh cranberries – that which turns most people away and to the sweetened, dried variety.

It’s kind of rare to find a recipe that happily channels the cranberry without suffocating it with sugar, but I’m pleased to report that this is one of them. Next time I think I’ll add a bit of orange zest to truly capture cranberry relish in bread form, but this bread is pretty darned delicious just the way it is. And in a burst of serendipity, it’s ridiculously easy to make.

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It’s only the second week of November and our third snow is on the ground already. I have approximately twenty green tomatoes that will apparently be ripening in my kitchen windowsill. It’s one of those days when clearly eight hours of sleep was nowhere close to enough and my coffee cup seems to always be empty. To top things off, the holiday season is nipping at my heels and I’m in a baking rut.

Strangely enough November is nearly always my favorite time of year. I know it’s cold and often bleak, but to me November has always meant the start of the holiday excitement, which I love. Thanksgiving is a big holiday in my family and one that I dearly love. This year we find ourselves fifteen hundred miles away from our families and for me it’s put rather a big damper on November. Which naturally, leads to chocolate.

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I don’t know when I’ve baked so many savory muffins and quiches and things as I have this fall, but I suppose it’s my own feeble effort to keep from going into pumpkin/apple overload. Don’t worry, we’ll return to our regularly scheduled sugar overload very shortly.

In the meantime, this is a wonderful cornbread addition to many things you’re probably eating these days, namely soups, stews, chilis, and the like. It’s that time of year, right? The days are shorter and crisper and although I’m usually decidedly anti-soup (a bowl of liquid for dinner, really?), I find myself making exceptions. Admittedly, I’m a lot more interested when things like this are involved. Plus it gives me an excuse to play with chile peppers and an open burner.

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