Name: Fresh Cranberry Bars
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 55 min
Yield: 12
Ingredients: 1 C (2 sticks) butter, room temperature; 2/3 C plus 3 tsp. granulated sugar; 1/2 tsp salt; 1 tbsp vanilla extract; 1/4 tsp almond extract; 2 C cake flour; 1 1/4 C fresh cranberries

A couple of weeks ago I made Cranberry Sour Cream Pound Cake, baking with fresh cranberries for the first time. It’s a terrific cake, but now I have half a bag of fresh cranberries left over.

I think about all of those workers slogging around in the cranberry bog, picking up those very cranberries just for me and I can’t bring myself to waste them!

These nice Fresh Cranberry Bars use those leftover cranberries beautifully.

They’re super easy to put together – basically a buttery dough sprinkled with fresh, sugared cranberries and then finished off by dotting the dough on top of the bars.

The cranberries peek through the crumbly topping and are a tangy/tart contrast to the sweet dough.

I really like these Fresh Cranberry bars and can see using blueberries, chopped peaches, strawberries, or even sweet cherries.

Use whatever fruit you want, but for me – I’ll use the cranberries for now to make sure those cranberry workers aren’t wasting their time! **

(**And yes, I know machines scoop up the cranberries these days, but it’s more fun thinking about people slogging in the bog.)

If you think these cranberry bars sound good, you want to try America’s Test Kitchen’s Cranberry Sour Cream Pound Cake or the absolutely amazing One-Bowl Cranberry Sauce Cake.

Fresh Cranberry Bars

Yield: 12

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Great little bars bursting with fresh, tart cranberries. Sweet/tangy combination.

Ingredients

1 C (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2/3 C plus 3 tsp. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
2 C cake flour
1 1/4 C fresh cranberries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a 8x8" square pan with a long piece of aluminum foil that overhangs the edges (to lift them out easier) and spray the foil lightly with non-stick spray.
Cream the butter and 2/3rds cup of sugar together until creamy. Add the salt, vanilla, and almond extract and mix until blended. Turn mixer to low and add the flour, blending until just combined.
Put two teaspoons of sugar into a medium bowl. Wash the cranberries and pat until barely damp. Add them to the sugar and stir to lightly coat.
Pat 2/3rds of the dough into the prepared pan, spreading evenly with your fingertips. The dough is soft and a little sticky, so lightly flour your fingers if needed.
Sprinkle the cranberries evenly onto the dough base, pressing down slightly to keep them from rolling around. Sprinkle the remaining 1 teaspoon of sugar evenly over the cranberries.
Pull the remaining dough into little 1/2 inch pieces and sprinkle evenly over the top. All of the cranberries won't be covered, but that's OK.
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the top is golden brown (don't under bake). Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully lift out by the aluminum foil handles and cool on a rack.

Notes

If you don't have cake flour, go ahead and use all purpose flour. Cake flour makes for a more tender crumb, but they're good with all purpose flour also.

Make sure the cranberries are just slightly damp so the sugar will stick to them.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1 bar
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 95Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 98mgCarbohydrates: 20gFiber: 1gSugar: 2gProtein: 2g

There are a ton of celebrity cookbooks out there – Trisha Yearwood, Chrissy Tiegen, Valerie Bertinelli, Tiffani Thiessen, etc. – and although I start out skeptical, I’ve actually been pretty impressed with most of them.

Country singer Martina McBride has a new cookbook called Martina’s Kitchen Mix that came out at the end of October 2018 and I was lucky enough to get a pre-release copy of it to review.

I’m pleasantly surprised at the mix of recipes in the book, and one that especially caught my eye is this Quick-and-Easy White Bean and Baby Greens Stew (almost sounds like a song title, right?). Of course, the quick-and-easy part is the most eye catching, but beans, crushed tomatoes, ham, and baby greens sound so homey, comforting and delicious.

Martina isn’t kidding when she named this recipe. It takes about 15 minutes to gather the ingredients, open the cans, and chop the garlic and ham. After sauteing the garlic you throw all of the ingredients in the pot except for the greens.

It’s amazing how letting it simmer for just five minutes releases so much flavor. (I halved the recipe and the flavors are still great.)

Even though the beans are rinsed, they soften and bring a slight creaminess to the soup. In every bite you get a touch of chopped tomato, a rich broth, and nice chunks of ham. I found a bag of mixed greens at the store – all of the ones she mentions trying – baby spinach, baby arugula, and baby kale (Dole). They’re stirred into the finished soup and allowed to barely wilt. Yum.

We really like this simple soup recipe immensely! There aren’t any fancy spices, but the flavors meld to make a soup that will be made again and again when the weather cools a bit. Next time I’m going to substitute about a half-pound of ground mild Italian sausage for the ham and it’ll taste a bit like the Zuppa Toscana at Olive Garden.

You’ll enjoy this Quick-and-Easy White Bean Baby Greens Stew. A few of the recipes in Martina’s cookbook are basics that I already have in my recipe file (Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, Fresh Apple Cake with Homemade Caramel Sauce, Hoppin’ John and even the old standby Velveeta cheese dip), but there are few others I’m really looking forward to trying.

I’ve tagged Smoked Gouda Pimiento Cheese, Very Green Broccoli Soup, Pumpkin Cornbread with Cinnamon-Honey Butter, and County Fair Orange Cake. This will be one celebrity cookbook worth having on my shelf!

See my changes in the Tips and Stuff section of the recipe. Thanks to Time Inc., Books for the preview:

Excerpted from Martina’s Kitchen Mix by Martina McBride. Copyright © 2018 Oxmoor House. Reprinted with permission from Time Inc. Books, a division of Meredith Corporation. New York, NY. All rights reserved.