Don’t you hate when you find a recipe online or otherwise, only to find that the recipe sharer has also shared a seemingly never-ending backstory that’s sorta connected to said recipe?

Yeah, about that…

I tried two new recipes at Thanksgiving: cranberry sauce and vanilla pie.

Here’s the backstory on the cranberry sauce. I had tried the Thanksgiving staple twice during my lifetime. I’ll be nice and say I wasn’t a fan. But I had cranberries leftover from cranberry balsamic chicken – it was pretty good – so I thought I’d whip up some cranberry sauce for the person at the table who enjoys the dish.

When I searched for a recipe, I found a lot of backstories as well as recipes containing orange zest. I don’t do orange zest. I don’t like the taste and the process of extracting the zest makes my knuckles bleed. Thankfully, I stumbled across a paleo recipe on cookeatpaleo.com that features three ingredients – cranberries, orange juice, and honey.

Now, if you’re like me, you might be saying to yourself, “Self, what the expletive is paleo?”

According to our friends at the Wikipedia, “The Paleolithic diet, paleo diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era.”

Wikipedia further notes that adherents of the paleo diet avoid processed foods. This recipe (see below) calls for fresh orange juice but I’m not the type of gal who’s going to squeeze her own orange juice. Regardless, as promised, the cranberry sauce was super easy to make. It also tasted wonderful. I ate it warm, straight from the bowl.

I also ate the vanilla pudding, which filled the pie, warm and straight from the bowl. My bestie supplied that recipe. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered making a vanilla pie before this point of my lifetime. After all, I love the homemade vanilla pudding that goes in banana pudding. I love it so much that sometimes I make it without the benefit of nanners and wafers.

The vanilla pie recipe calls for a meringue, but I’m not the type of gal who makes meringue – or her own pie shells – so you’re on your own there. You should also know that I don’t think the vanilla pie qualifies for inclusion in the paleo diet.

Cranberry sauce

12 ounces fresh cranberries

¾ cup (fresh) orange juice

½ cup honey (or maple syrup)

Combine cranberries, orange juice, and honey in a saucepan. Simmer over medium heat, until berries pop and sauce thickens, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Cool completely and refrigerate. Serve at room temperature.

Vanilla pie filling

4 egg yolks

¾ cup sugar

¼ cup cornstarch or ½ cup all purpose flour

3 cups milk

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

1 tablespoon butter

Combine sugar and cornstarch, gradually stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir two more minutes. Remove from heat. Slightly beat egg yolks. Gradually stir egg yolks into one cup of filling. Pour mixture back into hot filling. Bring to gentle boil. Cook and stir for two more minutes. Remove from heat and add in vanilla and butter. Pour into pie shell.

This post originally appeared in the Appalachian News-Express.

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