As promised, here are the photos taken as I cooked up my two favorite side-dishes for Thanksgiving – as posted earlier this week for the Cranberry-Pear Chutney recipe and the Sauteed Mushrooms with Garlic.  See HERE to get the list of ingredients and steps.

Cranberry-Pear Chutney recipe requires fresh cranberries, but of course!

Love that red color.  And as noted in my prior posting of the recipes, the smell and popping noise as it simmers is wonderful.  What could be easier than putting cranberries in your pan with water and the brown sugar.  Talk about easy!  And if you have any cranberries left over that you did not use for the recipe, they can be used in decorating – double-usage, love that too.  I took photos of the nutrition information as well.

Brown sugar. The recipe calls for 1.5 cups but I used one cup to cut down on the sugar.  And I buy the light sugar type.  I like the taste of tart versus sweet, so to me, it is better with less sugar for the taste factor as well.  There are enough sweet flavors at Thanksgiving during dessert!

Lime juice.  I realized this morning, I forgot to add the lime juice!  I hope it doesn’t mess up my recipe, we’ll see later.  The other ingredients (pear, raisins, jalapeno) are mixed in after simmering the cranberries in water with the brown sugar.  They are pear, jalapeno, and white raisins.

Its kind of interesting – REDS and GREENS.  Just like Christmas!

I’m the type of cooker that likes to chop all and put them into bowls before I toss them into my recipe.  Not sure why, but here is the photo I took of those 3 ingredients above (pear, jalapeno, raisins) all chopped and ready for the pan.

The bowl I used when done is a …oh gosh, what do they call these?  Well, I like it is raised up cause it helps on a table to have it elevated, so it doesn’t take up a lot of space with all the other Thanksgiving Day dishes on the table.  Put this in the fridge over night, and chilled it is wonderful with roasted turkey as a side-dressing served cold, and on left overs – yummy on left over turkey for sandwiches!

For the SAUTEED MUSHROOMS WITH GARLIC RECIPE:

Sno-White and Baby Bella are the types I typically use.  I used a total of 6 packages (3 of each) this year, but in the past, I’ve used up to 8 or even 15 to make a huge batch for large groups at Thanksgiving.

As noted on the recipe posted this week, I also use lots of garlic – 6 cloves chopped up, and olive oil to get them started.  Then add the mushrooms in batches, later add fresh-squeezed lemon juice to moisten it if it looks dry.  This is the MIL secret, the lemon juice keeps it just right as it simmers slowly.

I forgot to take a photo of the final image of the mushrooms all cooked up…, but you get the idea.  Oh – also, I forgot to mention in the prior post of the recipes, I toss this often as it simmers slowly, moving the juices and garlic around. until it is done.

Enjoy – let me know what you think if you decided to give these recipes a try – they are both Make Ahead types which can be refrigerated and warmed up for your Thanksgiving Meal.

CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE

Cathy Testa