Thanksgiving will be comin’ round the mountain in just a few days now you know, folks. I just can’t wait. It’s always such an enjoyable day. I love enjoyable days. Days spent eating delicious food, and visiting with wonderful family members. Looking forward to it!
Today for me, was one of “those” days. You know about them, don’t you? Not the really enjoyable kind. The kind you just try and plow through while you wonder how many things are going to go wrong!
A few months ago my cute TeenNephewJayDee told me, “Aunt Jamie, everything you cook is like perfect, and everybody like LOVES everything you make because it is like ALWAYS so good.”
Wow. What a cute and thoughtful boy. I wonder what he would think if he were to have witnessed the “like” perfection going on in my kitchen this morning.
This morning my goal was to make and photo this fabulous Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip….just for you all.
Ten minutes into the project, I had burned both of my hands on some hot and fiery jalapeno pepper seeds.
Then….I filled my blender up with cranberries. (While running to the sink every 30 seconds to pour water over my burned hands) Trying to get the cranberries to break up in the bottom of the blender, I stuck a wooden spoon down into the cranberries and chopped the thing to bits. At this point I spent a good 5 minutes contemplating the pros and cons of inflicting wood poisoning on my family. My blender can grind things up pretty fine you know.
Then…. I poured the CranberryWoodChipDelight down the disposal.
My sink wasn’t that impressed with the concoction and chose to get all clogged, and plunger needy. Nice.
Right at that same moment….
another form of plumbing….
in a separate room…..(white porcelain piece of work with a lid)
got all plunger needy.
Don’t hold that picture in your mind for too long…this is a food blog you know.
It was a plunger happy, hands on fire, wood chips in my teeth kind of morning. And right on a day I was going to not drink any Diet Coke, too. Let me just say, Diet Coke doesn’t taste that great if you’ve got wood chips in your teeth. Perfect. Just perfect.
But lucky for us….this Cranberry Cream Cheese Dip is super fabulous! My TeenNephewJayDee would give it the “like” perfect thumbs up. It’s got a little bit of a spicy kick to it. If spicy-kick isn’t your cup of tea, no worries. Just leave the jalapeno out. Then you would also most definitely not burn your hands with it’s venomous seeds. Double bonus!
1. Put your cranberries in a food processor. I used my mini chopper (one batch of CranberryWoodChipDelight was enough for me. The blender and I aren’t speaking to each other at this point….) You could also, just chop them up.
2. Chop up your green onion, cilantro, and jalapeno pepper into small pieces. Careful of the seeds now. Throw on a pair of rubber gloves or something, please. The seeds are the hot part of the pepper. If you don’t like a lot of heat on the old pallet, just leave the jalapeno out.
3. Add all ingredients (but the cream cheese and the wheat thins) into a bowl. Mix them all together, cover and store in the fridge for at least 4 hours. The sugar needs some time to soak in to the cranberries and break up their bitter taste.
4. When you are ready to serve, place your cream cheese bricks on a plate.
5. Spread the cream cheese out as evenly as you can.
6. Pour your cranberry mixture over the cream cheese.
7. Spread it all around.
8. Serve immediately with Wheat Thins, Ritz Crackers or Tortilla Chips.
Ingredients
- 1ย 12 oz package fresh cranberries
- 1/4 C green onion, chopped
- 1/4 C cilantro, chopped
- 1 small jalapeno pepper
- 1 1/4 C sugar
- 1/4 t cumin
- 2 T lemon juice
- dash salt
- 2ย 8 oz packages cream cheese
- ย
Instructions
1. Put your cranberries in a food processor. I used my mini chopper. You could also, just chop them up.
2. Chop up your green onion, cilantro, and jalapeno pepper into small pieces. Careful of the seeds now. Throw on a pair of rubber gloves or something, please. The seeds are the hot part of the pepper. If you don't like a lot of heat on the old pallet, just leave the jalapeno out.
3. Add all ingredients (but the cream cheese and the wheat thins) into a bowl. Mix them all together, cover and store in the fridge for at least 4 hours. The sugar needs some time to soak in to the cranberries and break up their bitter taste.ย ย
4. When you are ready to serve, place your cream cheese bricks on a plate.
5. Spread the cream cheese out as evenly as you can.
6. Pour your cranberry mixture over the cream cheese.
7. Spread it all around.
8. Serve immediately with Wheat Thins, Ritz Crackers or Tortilla Chips.
Recipe from Heather Peterson
Intriguing!
how far in advance do you think you could make the cranberry dip part? Could I make this Tuesday to spread on the cream cheese and serve Thursday?
Absolutely! Two notes though: 1) you might need to drain off the excess liquid from the cranberries before spreading them over the cream cheese.
2) don’t spread the cranberries over the cream cheeses until just prior to serving. (Although if you happen to have leftovers, which is unlikely, you can mix them all together to make a spread.)
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!! I have been making it for two years now and it is a huge hit. My husband shared some at work one year and now it gets requested at his work functions as well as any family or friend functions too! I have started trying to direct people to your blog when they ask for the recipe.
BTW, We serve this with Stacy’s brand Naked Pita Chips.We’ve found it to be THE perfect cracker for this dip.
I made this last week for my in-laws’ Thanksgiving gathering, except I HAAATE cilantro, and Google told me that Italian parsley was a good substitute. Let the record show that (at least in this recipe), it’s not such a good substitute. The whole thing pretty much tasted like grass with a little cranberry kick. (Still got eaten, though!)
So I’m trying it again for a potluck tomorrow, but this time I am just leaving out the cilantro/parsley and adding a second jalapeno and maybe some fresh chives. We’ll see how it turns out!
Around my house we call this stuff “cranberry crack.” All of my family and friends are addicted. It makes us cry in January when the stores stop selling bags of cranberries.
Just a note…you can freeze bags of cranberries and still use them to make this dip!
I made this for a Thanksgiving appetizer, and it was a huge it. Everyone loved it. I was a little unsure with the jalapeno and cumin but we ate it for days afterward and wasted none of it. Thanks..
Ps. Made the artichoke dip as well and it was a huge hit too. Thanks for making my Thanksgiving wonderful.
This is to die for and leftovers of the cranberry relish are fabulous with black eyed peas. Yum