CIC: Gingerbread Spice & Onion

This month Jutta challenged us with combining gingerbread spice and onion into one dish.

I found myself more stumped than I thought I’d be. I considered going in a sweet direction by caramelizing the onions and putting them in a muffin. But I wasn’t sure how the texture would work out. I considered making a warm and hearty soup or stew. And then I decided on a savory bread pudding and mixing in the spice with the custard. But I was really hesitant – I’ve never had bread pudding before and for some reason I fear I won’t like the texture. Maybe I’ll get over this someday and give it a try. So, bread pudding without the eggy custard is essentially a dressing (or stuffing). That would be a perfect fit with Thanksgiving fast approaching.

I procrastinated on making my dish for weeks, blaming allergies that turned into a head cold that turned into a cough. (Which also explains the lack of posts lately) Turns out procrastination isn’t all bad. I was then handed a beautiful, perfect solution to November’s Crazy Ingredient Challenge.

Sunday morning after church I turned on Food Network and caught the end of Southern at Heart, Food Network’s newest star Damaris Phillips’ beautiful show. She was making an onion jam with ginger and coriander. Perfect! I substituted the spices for Gingerbread Spice and used red onion instead of Vidalia to add a beautiful holiday color. This jam is perfectly sweet and an excellent accompaniment to your holiday cheese platter. You could even add it to a grilled cheese sandwich or any sandwich for that matter!

Red Onion Jam

Ingredients:

• 1/2 tbsp butter
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 C brown sugar, divided
• 1/4 tsp gingerbread spice

Steps:

1. Saute onions in butter with salt and lemon zest until onions are translucent. Stir in gingerbread spice. Add 1/8 C brown sugar and lemon juice. Cook 10 minutes until liquid has evaporated. Stirring occasionally.
2. Add a little less than 1/4 C water to onions and cook another 10 minutes. Stirring occasionally.
3. Repeat step 2 three more times. (A total of 40 minutes)
4. Stir in remaining 1/8 C brown sugar until melted.

To see the other blogs that participated in this month’s challenge click the link below: