Food

No, this is not about what to do with too many holiday cookies. These cookies are made with leftovers. Yes, cookies made from leftovers. Friday night I finally remembered to plan ahead and put together the batter for yeast waffles. Saturday morning I realized we didn't have any syrup, and I didn't feel like making any, so I opened a can of crushed pineapple. We didn't use all the pineapple on our waffles, so I started to think of how to use the rest. Yes, it's delicious in smoothies, but 'tis the season to bake cookies so I pulled out a great Fannie Farmer recipe for Pineapple Cookies. Alas, I only had 1/2 cup of pineapple, not the requisite 1 cup. Bummer. Or not. There has been a jar of cooked cranberries (the beginning of cranberry sauce) in our fridge for quite some time and I needed to do something with them. So I filled out the rest of the cup with the cranberries and a little honey, altered the spices in the cookie (inspired by Dorie Greenspan) and came up with quite a delicious concoction. As the Fannie Farmer says, these cookies are “thick, soft, cakelike.”
Cranberry Cookies (approx. 40)

1 stick room temp butter
1 c loosely packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 t vanilla extract
1/4 t almond extract (or an additional 1/2 t of vanilla)
1 c cranberry relish
2 c flour
3/4 t baking soda
1/2 t powdered ginger
1/2 t chinese five spice
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 c pecans or walnuts, chopped
If you really want a cranberry cookie try adding 1/2 c dried cranberries.

Preheat oven to 350, grease cookie sheets. Whisk the dry ingredients together. Cream butter and sugar. Scrape down and add egg and extracts, beat until light and fluffy. Add dry mixture to the cranberry mixture. Stir in nuts and optional dried cranberries (or maybe some chopped crystalized ginger?). Drop by spoonfuls into prepared cookie sheets, about 1 inch apart. Bake about 12 min until matte. Transfer to racks to cool.