A Sassamanesh, Ibimi, Atoqua, Crane berry, a what?

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, now that it's November, I wanted to make something with cranberry in it, an ingredient that is essential to one of the biggest dinners of the year. The names in the title of this post are some of the original names for cranberries, the first three being Native American, and the last comes from early settlers, due to the cranberry plant's flower appearing like a crane. Learned something huh?

Photo courtesy of Google Images

Since we always have copious amounts of chicken in the house, this was the obvious choice on which to experiment. A quick search of Pinterest yielded many recipe results so I picked something that was going to take me the least amount of time.

 

You will need:

 

3-4 chicken breasts

1 14oz can of whole cranberry sauce

1 small bottle of Catalina dressing

1 package of dry onion soup mix (I used Lipton)

1 package of chopped pecans

Salt and pepper to taste

To start, preheat your oven to 350 and spray a baking dish with cooking spray. Place your chicken breasts in the dish and season with salt and pepper. Spread the cranberry sauce over the chicken, then the onion soup mix and chopped pecans. Top with the Catalina dressing. **The recipe says to use the whole bottle, I thought that was a bit excessive so I drizzled on what I thought was appropriate**

Bake covered with foil for 45 minutes, then uncovered for 15 minutes. Remove and serve.

 

As I side I made asparagus. There are many different ways you can jazz up this veggie. This recipe for Roasted Garlic Asparagus with Feta was a nice twist on a classic. I also really, really like feta cheese. I mix it in with my scrambled eggs all. the. time.

 

You will need:

 

2 pounds of trimmed asparagus

1/4 cup of EVOO

4-6 cloves of minced garlic

1 teaspoon of fresh lemon zest

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup of crumbled feta cheese

1 lemon

 

In a saucepan heat the EVOO, garlic, lemon zest, oregano, and red pepper flakes over low heat until fragrant and garlic begins to brown. Remove from heat to cool.

Preheat oven to 425. Once EVOO has cooled, pour over asparagus and toss to coat. Place asparagus in a single layer on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with feta cheese. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Once done season with lemon juice and fresh parsley. I have this awesome white dish from Kohl's that is designed with what else, asparagus! I have been dying to use it so I busted it out for this dish. So cute!