Cranberry Fruit Conserve, Pumpkin Dinner Rolls & A Prayer Request

Apparently this is now Laura's recipe blog since that's what I seem to be posting right now. With Thanksgiving on Thursday, I guess food is big on my mind these days (not to mention that I seem to be eternally hungry thanks to a growing baby!). Today I made Cranberry Fruit Conserve. I don't really know what a conserve is in the food sense, but I use this recipe as cranberry sauce. I'd never made cranberry sauce until I hosted Thanksgiving dinner two years ago, was on the hunt for recipes and saw this on Barefoot Contessa. It looked simple enough and tasty so I decided to give it a try and I loved it! It's definitely tart but has sweetness in the background that makes it so good. Now I make it every year whether I'm hosting Thanksgiving or not.


Cranberry Fruit Conserve

Ingredients
* 1 (12-ounce) bag of fresh cranberries, rinsed in cold water
* 1 3/4 cups sugar
* 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
* 1 orange, zest grated and juiced
* 1 lemon, zest grated and juiced
* 3/4 cup raisins, optional (I omit these)
* 3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, optional (I omit these, too)

Directions
Cook the cranberries, sugar, and 1 cup of water in a saucepan over medium-low heat until the skins pop open. Add the apple, zests, and juices and cook for 15 more minutes. Remove from the heat and add the raisins and nuts, if desired. Let cool, and serve chilled. (photo compliments of foodnetwork.com)

My mother-in-law is hosting Thanksgiving this year and I am taking rolls and an apple pie. I already have the apple pie ready to bake off which I'll do tomorrow and I'm going to try a new recipe for the rolls. I seem to really be in the mood for pumpkin and I found a recipe that incorporates pumpkin into homemade rolls...


Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
2 cup warm milk
¼ cup butter, softened or melted
2 cup mashed cooked pumpkin (or one can of pumpkin.)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup wheat germ (can omit and use flour instead)
10-12 cup all-purpose flour (could also use a mixture of whole-wheat and white flours)
7 teaspoons dry yeast

In large mixing bowl, combine sugar, water, milk, butter, pumpkin, and salt. Mix well. Add wheat germ, 7-8 cups of the flour, and yeast. Mix, and then continue adding flour and kneading until dough is elastic and not sticky.

Place dough in greased bowl; grease top of dough, cover with a towel, and set in a warm place until doubled (about 1 hour). Punch dough down and divide into thirds. Divide each third into 16 pieces and shape into balls.

Place on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise until almost doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes, until tops are golden. Brush with melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven. (Note: These rolls usually look somewhat dry when first coming out of the oven. Wait about 15 minutes and they will look and taste beautiful.)

Yield: 4 dozen rolls
(photo and recipe courtesy of moneysavingmom.com)

I'm going to halve the recipe, since we're not having a large crowd for Thanksgiving and I've heard that these rolls are best when fresh.

And finally, I am having an ultrasound tomorrow morning to look at our baby's heart. The doctors don't think there is anything wrong with it but because of the baby's position during our last ultrasound they couldn't get as detailed of a look at it as they'd like (we did get to see the 4 chambers and see the heart beating so we know that much is fine). So it'll be a short ultrasound but I'd appreciate your prayers for it. Please pray that the heart is strong and healthy and that baby cooperates for the ultrasound...thanks so much!