Dear friends,
I stopped at the new Aldi grocery store today to pick up milk and decided to grab a few extras for Thanksgiving. They had fresh cranberries for only 99 cents per 12 ounce bag. The instructions for making sauce seemed simple enough, so I decided to give it a try. Basically, rinse the berries and then dump them into a boiling mixture of 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar. Soon the skins will split open. I mashed mine a little but that isn't necessary. Now you can take them off the burner and let them cool. You can keep them on the heat a little longer if you think they need to thicken up more, but they will also set into a decent gel the referigerator.
About this time, Naomi was making a cherry pie with canned filling and frozen pie crusts. I realized that I had purchased deep dish crusts and that there weren't enough cherries to fill it. So Lydia had the great idea of adding some of my cranberry concoction. I mixed in some honey before spooning it over the cherry layer. Then Lydia and Naomi cut the extra crust into strips and made a lattice top. I'll try to take a picture of our fully baked CranCherry pie tomorrow.I blended the remaining cranberry sauce with more honey, a lot of ginger, and a can of jellied cranberry sauce. It looks lovely and tastes quite zesty!
I've always been intimidated by fresh cranberries, but they're pretty "user friendly" after all. I guess this will be a standard on our holiday table from now on!
Hi Virginia,
ReplyDeleteA standard at our Thanksgiving table is my homemade cranberry compote. Basically same recipe as cranberry sauce, but add in some peeled/cored/chopped red delicious apples, orange segments, a handful of raisins and finish it off with some spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and ground clove. It's yummy and definitely better (and healthier) than canned sauce (although my father-in-law prefers the jellied stuff, so we keep that on hand as well). Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Cousin Deb