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This Ginger Pear Cranberry Sauce gets its sweetness from the honey, pears, and apples and its tart kick from ginger and cranberries. Jump to Recipe
I first created this Ginger Pear Cranberry Sauce when I didn’t have that many cranberries. As a filler, I added some apples and pears. Along with the ginger and honey, I ended up really liking the combo.
You can also try this Cranberry Pomegranate Sauce with Apple Cider a try.
Unproductive Blues
I’ve been extremely unproductive lately and I’m disappointed in myself. One of the aspects of freelance life that I’m struggling with is hustling to get jobs. I’m good at hustling once I have a job. But I suck at devoting up to 4 hours a day to search and send out proposals to land more jobs. Practice makes perfect so I need to keep practicing.
I also fell off the Instagram wagon again. Trying to post every day is hard and I did really well for a while. But when I get off my schedule or don’t have any new images or anything to say, I tend to disappear until inspiration strikes.
There are a lot of small factors contributing to my unproductive phase. I have some stuff stuck in my mind. Hopefully, the ulcerative colitis confession I’m writing will help.
But I’m also thinking about:
- Picking a photography portfolio theme
- Getting another website up and running
- Opening a business bank account
- Getting a business credit card
- Choosing an accounting software to help me keep track of everything.
I don’t think I’ll truly be peaceful until I get all of that done, so it needs to happen soon.
Trying to create a schedule that works the best for me is also upsetting my productivity levels. I have very contradictory day and night rhythms.
My natural bedtime has always been 11:30 PM. But I work extremely well from 5:30 AM to 12:30 PM. Around two in the afternoon, no matter what time I go to bed, I get exhausted and my brain feels like mush.
I get a second wind around 6-11, where my mind is once again sharp and it won’t shut up, which makes it hard to fall asleep sometimes.
Busy Weekends
This weekend I need a big break. I’ve been busy for a couple of weekends in a row and it’s caught up with me.
I went to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass the first weekend of October and the next weekend I stayed home but did some serious work in the kitchen.
Last Friday I worked all day on a cake and then left really early the next day to go to a Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation conference in Berkeley. After, I hopped over to Alameda to do a zombie pub-crawl. My car had to be jump started to get to Berkeley and then again in order to get to my friend’s house in Alameda.
I’m hoping I can stop any urges I have to get in the kitchen because I legitimately need a weekend where I do nothing.
How do you get your groove back?
Ginger Pear Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/3 cups white wine
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 cups cranberries
- 1/3 cup finely diced pear peeled
- 1/3 cup finely diced apple peeled
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Combine white wine, honey, cranberries, pear, apple, ginger and cinnamon in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 to 22 minutes or until the cranberries have burst.
More Thanksgiving Recipes
Snacks
One of my favorite snacks to include on a Thanksgiving cheese board is caramel corn.
Frozen cherries work just as well as fresh in this Roasted Cherry Crostini with Goat Cheese and Smoked Turkey. It’s a beautiful, delicious, and simple appetizer. Or just make the Roasted Cherry Caper Sauce for your Thanksgiving cheese board.
Sides
This Creamy Garlic Cauliflower Potato Mash is a staple at Thanksgiving now. I always make it.
It’s always good to have vegetarian options at Thanksgiving, like this Vegetarian Mushroom Gravy.
Thanksgiving is not complete without cornbread, so make sure vegetarians get some Cornbread and Cranberry Vegetarian Stuffing!
Thanksgiving Leftovers
Use your leftover turkey in this Mushroom Medley Chicken and Parsnip Noodle Soup.
Leftover sweet potato casserole or roasted squash would be great in this Acorn Squash, Bacon, and Blue Cheese Sandwich.
Turkey Enchilada Stuffed Poblano Peppers are one of my favorite things to make with leftover turkey.
If you have leftover cranberry sauce, you have to make this Cranberry and Cream Cheese Monkey Bread!
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What a gorgeous and elegant cranberry sauce, Megan! I am crazy for pears this time of year (heading to the market to buy some today, actually), so this sauce is something I would absolutely love. The honey, white wine, and ginger are such beautiful additions here. My Thanksgiving guests would devour this, and I would end up using any leftovers (if there even were leftovers) on a turkey and brie sandwich the next day. Definitely making this!
I absolutely love this jazzed up cranberry sauce! The pear and ginger are an awesome addition. I often try to play around with cranberry sauce and I’ve done the orange thing, and the bourbon thing, but this blew those variations out of the water. And I love how good it is on crackers with cheese or smothered over baked brie! So many options 🙂
Yum, smothered over baked brie! I like the way you think!
I love the idea of adding extra fruit to a cranberry sauce- I bet it adds a little pop of sweetness without adding more refined sugar. And you sound exhausted! You need a spa day 😀
I do need a spa day, desperately!
I concur, Meg. It is hard to get a schedule going and hustling for the side jobs when you’re an entrepreneur. Not to mention coming up with new content, writing for SEO, the photography and editing (yours is gorgeous, by the way) and constantly thinking ahead about how to improve your business. I get it. But you know how you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I would also like to eat your cranberry sauce one bite at a time… and a lot of it. The pears and apples sound like they would really enhance the cranberries.
Thank you, Lisa, you’re so right! Little steps, little portions, and little bites!