"The Kowalski's [grocery store] 30th Anniversary Cookbook" - Cranberry Blondies - Holiday party food

Date I made this recipe:  December 3, 2017 – Party food!

The Kowalski’s 30^th Anniversary Cookbook (Kowalski’s Markets is a local, family-owned grocery store chain) – A collection of Kowalski’s best recipes edited by Rachael Perron

Published by Kowalski’s Corporation

ISBN:  978-1-4675-7717-5; © 2013

Purchased at Kowalski’s

Recipe:  Cranberry Blondies – p. 301 (These bars come close to Starbuck’s famous Cranberry Bliss bars which is to say, yum!)

I must admit that I’ve been rather late to the Kowalski’s “party,” possibly because I didn’t believe they could compete with another local, family-owned grocery store, Byerly’s, but I was wrong.  Very wrong.  (PS, a few years ago, Byerly’s merged with yet another family-owned store, Lunds, to become Lunds & Byerlys.)

Whereas most of the Lunds and Byerly’s stores are behemoth, Kowalski’s is practically a bodega. Shelf space in most stores is limited, but no matter because what they lack in shelf space, they make up for in carefully curated products lines, many of which are local.  In fact, one of my business clients’ products is sold in Kowalski’s (Safesha—a moisturizing hand sanitizer made with natural ingredients.  It comes in Sweet Orange, Lavender, and Unscented.  I love this product.  For the record, L&B carries it also.)

Items I shop for frequently at my local Kowalski’s are deli salads, the salad bar, fruit, veggies, yogurt (They carry my favorite brand) and meat.  Although Whole Foods still ranks as my #1 in the meat department, Kowalski’s is no slouch.  I’ve found the meat department staff to be incredibly knowledgeable and helpful, and a couple of month’s ago, they did me a solid when the package of chicken I purchased was questionable.  In fact, let me just give a shout out to Kowalski’s in general because while I think Whole Foods edges them out in the meat department, they are #1 for takeoff in the Customer Service department.

Like other grocery stores, Kowalski’s developed its own line of grocery products, products that they sample frequently in-store on the weekends.  Many of these items, like their Kalbi Sauce (Korean sauce) become recipe ingredients.  We made their recipe for “Kalbi Meatballs” at our annual party a few years back and they were a hit.  We don’t always like using jarred sauce, but this sauce is pretty tasty, and the recipe was easy.

Most of the recipes in this cookbook are uncomplicated and easy to make.  If a recipe ingredient isn’t to your liking, the staff will help you find a substitute as it did when I made their “Date & Blue Cheese Spread” (p. 99).  We love blue cheese, but many of our guests don’t and so I asked what I could use instead.  The answer was either feta or a cheese called Quark which is also like feta but with less tang.  We used Quark and it was delicious.

The cookbook’s Table of Contents is comprehensive:

• Breakfast & Brunch
• Beverages
• Starters (Hot & Cold)
• Soups
• Salads
• Meat
• Poultry
• Fish & Seafood
• Pasta & Grains
• Vegetables & Sides
• Cookies
• Desserts

 Nothing amiss there!

Since I was on the quest for party food, I bypassed most of these categories and landed on these contenders:

• Crab, Spinach & Artichoke Dip – p. 76
• Make-Your-Own Baked Cheese Dip – p. 77
• Bacon-Wrapped Parmesan Dates – p. 82
• Date & Blue Cheese Spread – p. 99
• Mascarpone-Stuffed Dried Apricots – p. 102
• Cranberry Blondies – p. 301

 As we are wont to do, my husband and I make a huge list of possible party food and then start eliminating things, sometimes because we have too many other “like” recipes in the hopper, and sometimes just because on second glance, we just aren’t as enamored.  This time around though, our rationale was slightly different as follows:

“Crab, Spinach & Artichoke Dip” – We liked this one a lot, but felt that while some guests might not like the crab portion of this recipe, and so we made another spinach and artichoke recipe.

“Make-Your-Own Baked Cheese Dip” – The list of “add-in’s” became overwhelming and so we nixed this one. 

“Bacon-Wrapped Parmesan Dates” -  This was a strong possibility, but we would have had to make them on the day of the party and we hate doing that so this one was out.

As mentioned above, we made the “Date & Blue Cheese Spread,” substituting Quark cheese for Blue Cheese, and it was good, but not as good as the “Cranberry Blondies.” 

The “Mascarpone-Stuffed Dried Apricots” sounded good, and I could have made them a day before the party, so I liked that, but by the time we got to reviewing this recipe, we just bagged it in favor of…I can’t even recall!

This then brings us to today’s recipe for Cranberry Blondies, or as our guests called them “The citrus bars!”  This recipe comes close to Starbucks' Cranberry Bliss Bars, a bar I so love that I ate them by the pound the last few Christmases before coming to my senses!  Starbucks' bars are topped by drizzled white chocolate, but these bars incorporate white chocolate into the batter – po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.  I think we could have drizzled also some more of the white chocolate onto these bars, but we didn’t.  Maybe next time?

These were easy to make and easy to frost and even better, they freeze well!  We stored them, un-frosted, in our freezer for about two weeks and then finished them up the day before the party.  If anything, I would double the frosting because I love frosting and I especially like a cream cheese frosting so there you go!

Cranberry Blondies – Makes 24

¾ cup butter, melted

2 eggs

4 tsp. vanilla

1 ½ cups flour

1 ½ cups brown sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 cup white chocolate chips

½ cup chopped pecans

Cream Cheese Frosting

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 tbsp. room temperature butter

1 tsp. milk

½ tsp. vanilla

2 c. confectioner’s sugar

Topping

½ cup dried cranberries, chopped

1 tbsp. chopped orange zest

Line a 13 x 9” baking pan with parchment paper, extending up over the ends of the pan.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together butter, eggs and vanilla until thoroughly combined; set aside.  In a small mixing bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt; stir into butter mixture until thoroughly combined.  Add chips and pecans; stir to combine.

Spread evenly into the prepared pan; bake in a preheated 350F oven until top is shiny, cracked and light golden-brown (25-30 minutes).  Cool completely in pan; lift bars out of pan with ends of parchment paper. 

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter, milk, and vanilla extract with an electric mixer on low speed until creamy.  Gradually beat in the confectioner’s sugar on law speed until frosting is smooth and spreadable.

Frost the blondies with the frosting, garnish with the cranberries and orange zest, and cut into bars.