The color makes them festive, but it's their flavor that makes the meal.

I freely admit that the question of my favorite Thanksgiving dish has taken me a few days to answer and commit to one dish. “All” is not an option for this post. I finally settled on Cranberry Sauce because it’s one of the unsung heroes of the Thanksgiving table (and someone else already claimed stuffing).

I’m not sure why, but as a kid I just couldn’t get enough of the canned jellied cranberry sauce. It was always a dish that was a last minute thought and pretty much always came out of the can. Since then, my family has graduated to making cranberries from scratch and I still love them. In fact, I think I love them even more!

There are so many ways to eat cranberries and the flavor pairs so well with all of the other dishes. I’m pretty sure half the reason my mom even served cranberry sauce was to put it on a turkey sandwich the next day. Yum!

Flavor aside, cranberries are one of the healthiest foods you can eat—especially on a day filled with butter-smothered indulgence. Cranberries are an excellent source of vitamin C and dietary fiber. They help prevent inflammation and support the immune system. You can read more about the amazing health benefits of cranberries here.

Most recipes call for copious amounts of sugar to balance the tartness of the cranberries, so I’m not sure what the net benefit of eating cranberry sauce might be beyond the pure gastronomical pleasure.

Here is the simple recipe for basic cranberry sauce from Simply Recipes.com that I’m going to try this year: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/cranberry_sauce/

Do you make your cranberry sauce from scratch?

This pot of oats is almost done- give it another 5 minutes and it will be perfect.

In the three years that we’ve been serving oats at the Portland Cross Crusade, the number one question we get at EVERY race is how to make the oats.

“They never taste as good as they do here” is a phrase we hear over and over again. To truly make oats the way we do at the race, you need to make a huge pot of oats outside in the cold rain, then make sure your eaters are freezing, soaked, muddy and starving…

But here’s how to make the World’s Best Oats at home. Truly, something I tell my house guests who always ask the same thing is that you just have to be patient. Patience is the real key—cook it long enough, use salt, and let it stand for a few minutes after you take it off the stove. We never serve it straight from the stove at the races, the oats always need to sit and thicken a bit.

Start with 3 cups water in a medium size pot. Add 1/4 tsp of salt and bring to a boil. Stir in 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats and reduce heat to low. Simmer for a minimum of 20 minutes. Stir regularly to keep the oats from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

If, after 20 minutes, it’s still runny and not thick and creamy looking, keep cooking it. It’s much easier to go back and add liquid than to hope it will thicken enough on its own. When the oats are thick and a creamy whitish-brown, remove from heat and let sit 3-5 minutes. They’ll be perfect after that.

My favorite topping is peanut butter with a touch of brown sugar and flaxseed meal.

What is yours?

Wow! We got a whopping 140+ entries to win 100 Best Gluten Free Recipes and some sweet baking ingredients. I just love when we get so many people involved in these contests! I wish I had a prize to give all of the people who entered, but I only have three books. So without further ado, our winners are:

1. Joanne Kuchiniski

2. Linda Dahl Nelsen

3. Fire-Eyes Roth

Congrats to you three! I will contact each of you to get your shipping address. Thank you to everyone who vied for a chance to win this amazing cookbook. For those of you who didn’t win, you can purchase this book on our website, here. We’ve got some more contests planned, so keep checking back to see what we’re giving away next!

Cyclocross- You'll be happy when it begins...

When I was asked to write a little about what it’s like to try out cyclocross for the first time, I was a little intimidated by the idea. After competing in exactly 4 races so far, I feel like I’m still trying to figure out what cyclocross is all about. Is it a bike race? Yes. Is it about falling down, or not falling down? Yes.

All I am sure of is that I am slowly improving at cyclocross, and that fact keeps me excited to keep trying. So far I tend to place in or just above the bottom third of finishers. I like to think of this as third place.

Cyclocross- You'll be even more happy when it's over.

If you’re curious about trying cyclocross for the first time, and have no idea where to begin, I thought I share everything I’ve learned so far to help you get started.

Tips for beginners: (aka all I know so far)

1) Stay on the course. As long as you are seeing red on the right and yellow on the left, you’re going in the right direction.

2) Listen to the announcers as you go around and around the track, they will let you know how many more laps there are to go. In my first race at the Alpenrose Dairy, I accidently left the course somewhere in the middle because I was following the winners who had already finished the race. When you’re actually done, you’ll know it.

3) Mud is slippery. Look out for other people falling over. Try not to fall in anyone else’s way.

4) Listen for delighted cheering, bells, and cymbals. This will tell you when you are coming to a dangerous section. If you hear people encouraging you to ride as fast as you can into a section where everyone is eagerly watching, you should probably ignore them.

5) Some of the other riders have knowledgeable friends and coach-type folks yelling tips at them from the sidelines. You can follow these directions too, and sometimes they are very helpful. You can distinguish friendly yellers from ordinary hecklers because usually they are shouting someone’s name with the instructions.

6) Keep pedaling. No really, just keep pedaling. People will be yelling at you and ringing bells to help you remember this. There is no good place to coast, and you can’t stop, but you only have to try as hard as you can for about 45 minutes.

7) At the Halloween race in Astoria I ate a big serving of Frites with the spicy fry sauce right before the race. This was a terrible idea. I know I’m often the one serving the oatmeal so my opinion is biased, but heed my warning: Eat the oatmeal before the race- save the spicy French Fries for afterwards.

So show up sometime and give it a try! Once you do cyclocross, it makes every other form of exercise seem much much easier. I guarantee your bike commute to work will seem like a snap!

Teff Gingerbread is a delicious way to entertain all your holiday guests.

We just checked our Whole Grains Council Calendar, and it looks like both Teff and Millet are the Grains of the Month for November. We’re big fans of both these tiny gluten-free grains, so this week we decided to focus on the amazing Teff Grain.

Teff is the smallest grain that we mill into flour here at Bob’s Red Mill. The tiny size of this grain means that you get an amazing amount of nutrients from the bran and germ whether you eat the seeds whole, or after we have stone ground it into flour for you.

Now, when most people think of Teff, they automatically think of Injera, the delicious flat bread that is served with Ethiopian food. The simple recipe for Injera makes it an easy starting point for using teff, and will get you accustomed to its rich flavor. But there are so many more ways to enjoy this versatile grain!

When you’re ready for an adventurous treat, we’d like to recommend this fabulous recipe for Teff Gingerbread that was created by our own Lori Sobelson. We know you’ll enjoy eating it as much as you enjoy the way this recipe fills your home with the comforting smells of gingerbread spices as it bakes. It is also a great treat to share with all your holiday guests since it is gluten free, dairy free, and a snap to make vegan.

Teff Gingerbread

Using a combination of flours in this recipe makes the gingerbread light and almost the texture of a cake. Be sure to allow the noted time for baking as it will take time to cook through the batter. Yields: 9 servings

Teff Flour is the smallest grain that we make into flour here at the Mill.

¼ cup teff flour
¾ cup brown rice flour
½ cup sorghum flour
¼ cup arrowroot
¼ cup potato starch
1 tsp xantham gum
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp ground cloves
4 tbsp oil (vegetable or canola)
1 cup rice milk
½ cup molasses
1 egg (or 1 tbsp flaxseed meal + 3 tbsp warm water)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8×8 baking pan.

Sift all dry ingredients together and set aside.

Blend wet ingredients thoroughly using a mixer. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to wet ingredients blending well before adding second amount. When all ingredients are well blended pour batter into greased pan. Use a wet spatula to smooth batter out.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until gingerbread bounces back when touched.

A recipe by Lori Sobelson

Pan de los Muertos: Bread of the Dead

Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a holiday that I find absolutely fascinating. Coinciding with All Souls Day in the Catholic religion, the Mexican holiday on November 2nd celebrates all those we love who we have lost. Across Mexico and parts of the US and Canada, families build altars in memory of their loved ones using bright marigolds, sugar skulls and favorite foods of the deceased.

What I love about this holiday is the idea that we’re never very far from those we’ve loved and lost. I love that death is an extension of life and nothing to be feared. We spend so much time hiding from the inevitable, why not embrace it? In my opinion, November 2nd is as good a day to remember loved ones as any other. I like the idea of remembering people I’ve loved by foods they loved.

My grandmother used to make Taco Soup whenever there was a big family gathering. It’s not fancy, but whenever I make this soup I inevitably think of her and remember things she used to do…  how she would wash, dry and iron dollar bills to be perfectly crisp, then tape them together, end on end for your birthday. We always got one extra dollar than our age for good luck. I remember going to do laundry at her house one of the last times I visited and finding dollars in the washing machine. I had long since become too old for this birthday gift, but she was still washing and ironing for my younger cousins.

Pan de Muerto is an essential part of Dia de los Muertos. It is a sweet, yeasty bread that is baked into a variety of shapes- from skulls to favorite animals- and serves as a part of the sustenance provided to the deceased on their journey. I could not find a gluten free version of this treat, but here are some conventional recipes to try. Enjoy!

Pan de Muertos from AllRecipes.com
Pan de Muerto from Global Gourmet

» What dish reminds you of your loved ones?

See, even I can do it! This was taken with my phone, surely you can do better!

Now that we have your attention, I want to remind all of you who love to cook and bake that we’re still running a photo contest for our website. We have gotten precious few submissions and we want your photos! We want to have photos for all of our recipes and we can’t do it alone. Wouldn’t it be great if your photo represented one of our many delicious recipes?

It’s easy! You can read the rules here, but the basics are as follows:

1. Pick a recipe from our website at www.bobsredmill.com/recipes. Preferably one that does not already have a photo.

OR

1. Pick a recipe from your own collection.

2. Make the dish and snap a digital photo.

3. Send us the photo at chelsea at bobsredmill.com. Please include the recipe if it’s your own creation, otherwise we can’t post it

4. Wait to find out if you made it to the first round of judging. We’ll take submissions up until midnight of November 30th.

5. We’ll post the top 10 photos and let you, our readers, vote on the winners.

Prizes:

The eight runners up will receive a gift box from Bob’s Red Mill valued at $50. Boxes will contain conventional or gluten free Bob’s Red Mill products. The grand prize winners will receive a $100 gift card redeemable at bobsredmill.com or the Bob’s Red Mill Whole Grain Store in Milwaukie, Oregon.

It’s just that easy. What have you got to lose?

Come on, we dare you!

Look, we even found you some sites that have awesome food photography tips:

10 Food Photography Tips to Make It Look Tasty!

The Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips