Cranberry Chicken Meatballs with Cranberry Gravy

Cranberries, sage, and red onion flavor ground chicken in meatballs served with cranberry gravy

My spouse used to buy CDs and books based on the covers (you know, in the days pre-online shopping, when you'd physically scan the shelves and pick up what caught your eye).  He discovered Willy Porter's Dog Eared Dream (Amazon affiliate link) that way (cute dog on the cover).  He also found a cooking with fruit cookbook (which, sadly, has been lost in the many moves).  I always intended to use that book to add more fruit to savory dishes, but it never really caught on with me.

I have a taste memory of a wonderful chicken schnitzel melba (chicken, peaches, brown gravy) from Restaurant Paltzer in Spangdahlem, Germany that is my Gold Standard for a savory, fruit-and-meat entree.  I'm still working on the recipe for that (though my German coworker is helping!), but since it's getting on to cranberry season and I'm all about eating with the seasons (or putting up produce while it is in season to eat later) I'll share these cranberry chicken meatballs.

Even though I tend to stock a lot of local ground beef in my freezer, I am not immune to a good deal on ground chicken at the grocery store.  I had chopped cranberries (from these muffins) and some red onions and sage from the farm share.  The family was pretty pleased at the thought of chicken and noodles for dinner.  Perhaps they were happy about a pink meal that didn't contain beets. Even though I had 2 burners and the oven going, this meal wasn't that much plate-spinning effort.  I threw the meatballs together and chucked them into the oven, freeing up my hands to make the gravy while the noodles and meatballs were doing their own thing.

Mini Cranberry Yogurt Oatmeal Muffins

A pretty little lightly sweet muffin with cranberries, Greek yogurt-soaked oats, and a candy topper.

Note:  I am so glad to have the seasons change--I've been sitting like a swan* a bunch of recipes (because, you know, our family likes to eat each day) that were not really seasonal for posting on the blog at the time I made them.  I mean, who wants to read about cranberries in March?  I'm glad to share them now, and to give you ideas for what to do with your cranberries.  And yes, currently I'm cooking stuff that uses the last of the summer produce so I'll be sharing it next summer.  I'm starting my own personal NaBloWriMo where I plan to write up blog posts as many days as possible in order to deal with the pile of recipes and head notes that clutter my work space.  With breaks for eating muffins, pizza, and beets, of course.  Yes, I am nesting. ;)

I buy cranberries when they are in season and inexpensive, then I store them in my fruit and veg freezer (not to be confused with the meat freezer) until I'm wanting some fruit for a muffin and open the freezer up, scan the contents, and think 'well, why not cranberry muffins?'  That was an entirely run on sentence.  I see where my son gets it from.  I was thinking about my usual Soaked Oat muffins, but was out of buttermilk--though I did have a bucket of plain Greek yogurt.

A quick check of my muffin bible, Muffins: A Cookbook (Amazon affiliate link) reassured me that it was possible to use yogurt in muffin batter, and in fact their recipe for Cranberry Yogurt muffins is very slightly adapted here.  I didn't use the entire bag of cranberries in this recipe, but don't go on a rant about it like I did, instead come on back next time, because I will share the Cranberry Chicken Meatballs with Cranberry Gravy I made using the rest of the cranberries I'd chopped.

Another Note:  I made these to serve as an after school snack to a bunch of girls (who came over to unplug my fruit and veg freezer work on a school project).  I was concerned that the cranberries would be too tart, so I added a candy melt for a hit of sweetness when you popped the muffin in your mouth, and made them mini because they looked cuter (sort of like wee Oliver, our new-to-us wiener dog).  If you don't have or don't want to use candy melts, please feel free to bump up the brown sugar to 1/2 or 3/4 cup if you're concerned about the tart vs sweet level.

Beef and Cheddar on Pumpkin Pizza Dough

A hearty pizza of roast beef, mixed with barbecue sauce and topped with cheddar, on a roasted pumpkin pizza crust

I realized that despite the large amount of cow in the freezer, I rarely share very meaty pizzas.

I think it stems from a desire to Use All The Vegetables from the farm share, plus a desire to decrease the amount of meat per serving, but regardless of the desire, the end result is that we rarely eat a (homemade, at least) very meaty pizza.

This is a very meaty pizza.  I had leftover shredded beef (Sarah at Imperfect Kitchen's Perfect Pot Roast sounds like a good way to have some leftover shredded beef) as well as a pumpkin pizza crust, and I wanted the opposite of the Pumpkin and Black Bean pizza I shared last week.

It worked--this is nothing like that pizza, though if you gave me a slice of each I'd eat them both real fast.  I'd finish with this one, though, because the BBQ beef and cheddar flavors want to linger on my tongue.  [I like my last bites of a plate of food to be my favorite ones.  Strange, I know.]