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I thought I broke the cranberry sauce. When cooking, I don't usually work from memory or make things up as I go along. And certainly not when there is a holiday meal at stake. I wanted to make the cranberry sauce today and I couldn't find the magazine with the idea I had read. So I risked spoiling the sauce and struck out on my own, using the recipe on the bag of cranberries as a guide. To the bag of Ocean Spray cranberries, I added 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water, per the directions. But then I wanted to add 2 cups of frozen mixed berries I had. And I felt like the sauce needed orange juice and cinnamon. So in went 1/2 cup OJ and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon. I set it to boiling on the stove. It looked like a lot of really runny liquid. I worried for many minutes and tried to calm my fears with the mantra "It'll cook down. It'll cook down." It cooked down. When I poured it out into a bowl to cool, my husband tasted it and pronounced it good. Whew! So it is ch...

Bacon makes everything better. Seriously, bacon is not the only thing that makes this Brussels sprouts dish palatable. Use the "petite" Brussels sprouts that are sweeter and more tender. The cranberries are very "Christmas-y" against the green dish and add more sweetness and nutrition. Lauren Graham of Morgantown brought this as her covered dish today to a scrapbooking crop held at Mountain Mamas Retreats . This is very good and I will serve it to my family soon -- maybe as a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner side dish. BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH CRANBERRIES & BACON 5 slices bacon 1 14-ounce bag Hanover Steam-in-Bag Petite Brussels Sprouts 1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken broth 1/4 cup dried cranberries Chop and fry bacon. Steam Brussels sprouts according to package directions. Add to bacon. Add cranberries and broth. Cook until the cranberries plump and the broth evaporates/absorbs.

Chef Harv died before I got to make his acquaintance. Harvey Christie could've gone quite far, but was just getting companies and concepts off the ground when he crashed his van in December 2006 and died. He had founded a gourmet company in the Eastern Panhandle that served The Greenbrier Resort among others. But his most intriguing concept was a company that handled the overhead for people who wanted to make and package their own products to sell. For example, let's say I had what I thought was a great recipe for Granny's apple butter but opening a commercial kitchen and getting the proper permits was too overwhelming. I could call Harvey Christie's Gourmet Central, take my apples and spices to their kitchen and use their equipment to prepare, package and even label my product before marketing it. Harv's wife and partner are still running it last I heard. What got me thinking about Chef Harv? I caught a 15-minute cooking show he hosted on our local public televisio...