Creamy Cranberry Relish Spread

 

Every holiday needs a good appetizer.

I love to munch and I'm sure you all do to.  So there is no doubt that I love to serve a good appetizer for friends and family to eat while the dinner is be prepared.  It wets the appetite.

So today I wanted to share with you a new unique appetizer that I made the other day with my friends along with our desert marathon.  

They had wanted a fresh cranberry sauce.  So we made a relish, but I'm not really into tart cranberries all that much.  By themselves they are just too tart and all I do is pucker!

So we made the relish and yes, it was too tart for my liking.  So I decided to turn this into a spread and add something creamy to cut the tartness.  I used goat cheese which also has tang but enough creaminess to create a foil for the tart cranberries.  Perfect for a spread.

It was a winner!  Creamy, yet tart...perfect with crostini.

This relish would equally be good mixed with marscapone or ricotta, or even cream cheese.  Choose what you like, I'm sure they would all be delishh!

So a new appetizer was born and everyone loved it.  Try it this Thanksgiving and let me know how it turns out.

Creamy Cranberry Relish Spread

serves 12-15

1 orange, unpeeled and preferably
organic, scrubbed
2 bags (12 oz. each) fresh cranberries
1 1⁄2 cups sugar
1⁄3 cup peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger
2 logs of goat cheese

Cut the orange (with its peel on) into 16 chunks and discard any seeds. Working in batches, combine the orange chunks, cranberries, sugar and ginger in a food processor. Pulse to chop fine, stopping once or twice
with each batch to scrape down the sides of the work bowl.

Place in a bowl, cover and refrigerate for 4 hours.  Remove from the refrigerator and add back to the food processor along with the goat cheese.  Pulse until well incorporated.  Serve with crostini.