Cranberries
- Add fresh cranberries to a rich meat, game or chicken casserole in the last 10 minutes of cooking time.
- Sprinkle dried cranberries over your favourite breakfast muesli.
- Cooked and sweetened fresh cranberries will bring extra flavour to a salad of chicken, bacon and fresh spinach tossed in a warm honey, white wine vinegar and olive oil dressing.
- Mix dried cranberries into chocolate cookie dough for biscuits with a fabulously fruity flavour.
- Use dried cranberries instead of dried fruit when making a bread and butter pudding.
- Stir-fry strips of duck, pak choi, sugar snap peas and a little plum sauce, then add fresh cranberries in the last 1-2 minutes of cooking.
- Make our Port, Kumquat and Cranberry Sauce.
Dates
- Take whole pitted Medjool or Deglet Nour dates and half-dip in melted white or plain chocolate. Cool, then serve with coffee.
- Dates and apple wedges make good cheeseboard accompaniments.
- Add chopped dates, pistachios and chopped flat-leaf parsley to couscous.
- Make chutney to serve with cold meat by gently cooking chopped dates and apples with a little brown sugar, a dash of vinegar and a pinch of cinnamon and cloves, Cook until thickened and easy to spoon.
- Chopped dates with a pinch of mixed spice and a little brown sugar make a great filling for whole, cored cooking apples. Simply bake in the oven until golden and bubbling.
- Stir chopped dates into a lamb tagine for the last 5 minutes of cooking time.
- Try adding chopped dates to fruit cake or banana bread. They will add natural sweetness and a firmer texture.
Nuts in shells
- Decorate your Christmas pudding with caramelised mixed nuts. Melt sugar with a little water in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Allow to boil until it caramelises and turns a golden colour. Stir whole shelled nuts into the caramel to coat, then tip on to greased foil. Allow to cool before arranging on top of the Christmas pud.
- Make walnut pastry for mince pies by sprinkling chopped walnuts into the shortcrust pastry mixture before adding water and rolling out.
- Add extra texture to stir-fries by adding toasted cashew nuts.
- Serve spicy nuts with pre-dinner drinks. Warm Marcona almonds in the oven, then toss in a little olive oil, sea salt, paprika or cayenne.
- Make a simple fudge sauce. Add brown sugar to melted butter, heat, then stir in chopped pecan nuts. Serve warm over ice cream or pancakes.
- Make a pilau with leftover turkey, then scatter with chopped almonds or pistachios.
- For a Christmas cake decoration, brush the top of a fruit cake with sieved apricot jam, then arrange a mixture of shelled nuts over the surface. Glaze with apricot jam.
Mince meat
- Add a couple of spoonfuls of mincemeat to a basic vanilla sponge mixture, bake, then serve for dessert with warm custard or cream.
- Make mini mince pies and top with crumble or piped meringue, instead of pastry lids.
- Use ready-rolled puff pastry to make an open apple and mincemeat tart, then dust with icing sugar before serving.
- Stir into softened vanilla ice cream, then re-freeze and serve with baked apples.
- Make lighter mince pies by lining small bun trays with squares of filo pastry, then top with 1-2 tsps mincemeat.
- Complement the flavour of mincemeat by adding other ingredients, such as chopped, peeled pears and ginger, or fresh cranberries and a little port.
Rachel Carter is Waitrose Recipe Cards’ Food Editor, and Alison Oakervee is Food Editor of
Waitrose Seasons and New magazines
This article is from Seasons:
Issue November 2007