Friday, November 14, 2008

quince and red pepper jelly

With the holidays quickly approaching I've been in the mood to cook and to try baking again. I've been feeling pretty down lately - jobs, local layoffs, the economy, Richmond - but have decided that cooking might cheer me up. Sooo...tonight, I plan to start with some bread (how could bread not make one cheery on a cold day?). It's the hubby's birthday and I'm looking to make Apple-Cheddar Beer Bread. The bread will accompany a spicy Posole, recipe courtesy of Kristen.

This weekend I also want to make good use of some of the lovely gifts of red pepper and quince jelly recently given to me by Anne, Kristen and Leslie. While my all-time favorite way to eat red pepper jelly is with crackers and cream cheese, I was looking around online for other less fattening and innovative uses. Cooking Light recently posted a recipe for Red Pepper Vinagrette to top a spinach salad with Gorgonzola and Pistachios. Yum. Their November holiday issue also contains a Fire and Spice Ham recipe that looks fabulous.

Recipes using quince jelly are more difficult to find. I could always just throw some Manchego on a plate, rub the top with quince jelly and chow down; however I wanted to come up with something a little more involved. After a pretty exhaustive search on recipe sites, I came across a recipe for Braised Pork Shoulder that calls for fresh quince (which is almost impossible to find if you don't have a quince bush) and red currant jelly. I'm wondering if quince jelly would be a good substitute.

Either way, it's going to be a good cooking weekend :)

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