Santa Surprises the Cook!

Having cranberries left over from my floral displays, I decided to make a cranberry sorbet for our Christmas meals. Bringing a simple syrup of half water and half sugar to a boil, I added the fresh cranberries to the pot and cooked them until they popped. After cooling for about 15 minutes, an immersion blender was used to puree the cranberries and then they were strained through a mesh sieve and put in the refrigerator to completely cool. Fresh Market has this wonderful product in their bulk area, a sweetened dried orange slice- they are to die for- scrumptiously good! I chopped about 3/4ths of a cup into smaller pieces and added them to the cranberry mixture and froze the mixture in my ice cream maker. The color was vivid red and the taste and texture was delicious- a little tart, then a little sweet- the perfect dessert or palette cleanser for a heavy holiday meal. As one of the biggest surprises of the year, my husband gave me the set of beautiful compotes from a local antique mall. He and I were shopping together for presents for Christmas ( a rare occurrence) and spotted these exquisite sherbets. Being way out of my price range, I passed them up. He, however, made sure Santa went back to get them for me- I am a lucky girl! I love the way the sorbet and kumquats glisten in the cream bowl - making a festive holiday treat!