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This year, I made homemade cranberry sauce, stuffing, everything. We had Thanksgiving early so our children could visit with in-laws. I have made and canned my cranberry sauce for a while now. So much better than the store stuff, and you can add whatever spices you like. I put up enough jars to last until the next year's cranberries come out at the roadside produce markets here in SE Mass.
I make many bar cookies and desserts with cranberries, too, not to mention cranberry bread, and you will always find cranberries in my freezer.
Did you know that cranberries also grow in Lithuania. My husband's and my ancestors are from this tiny Baltic country and my grandfather would talk about picking them in the wild.
Great article. Loved it. Will now try adding orange peel to my canned sauce.
Lithuania? Hunh. I had heard of them in Finland...so I guess the far Northern habitable parts of Europe. And to me, they taste close to those Ikea Lingon berries, or at least, the Lingonberry products they sell remind me of cranberry juice, over-sweetened but tart. Yes, you will enjoy the orange added flavor.
Just yesterday we made the annual trek to the grocery store to stock up on fresh berries, even here in Texas! Also, this year I am planning to make cran-orange-nut bread, but I have to go back for the orange and the nut. Made me think again of the history of canned fruit I learned when I originally wrote this article. I'm glad to see it still has fans. Thanks for your comment--I learn from each person.
Oh no, you've moved to TEXAS? If I ever got back to Massachusetts, I'd never leave again, my years in Boston/Cambridge were the best in my life!
But cranberries go with me wherever I go. I can get packaged ones year-round at one grocery or another but back when they were available mostly in November, I'd buy & freeze several pounds. One time, I said to my daughter, "Oh, we can put cranberries in this -- whatver we were making -- I've got some in the freezer." She said, "Mom, you ALWAYS have cranberries in your freezer." True enough!
I make my grandma's Thanksgiving sauce year-round, too: one package cranberries, two (or 1 1/2) fresh whole oranges, sugar, chopped medium in my food processor. Grandma used an old meat-grinder clamped to the table edge but foolishly I gave it away years ago. My brother insists it doesn't taste as good made in the processor & I think he's right but I eat it year-round as a side dish, on peanut butter sandwiches, on hot oatmeal or instead of syrup on pancakes.
Grandma always put 2 oranges to a package of cranberries but they were 16-oz packages. Now they are only 12-oz, like so much else. So I usually use 1 1/2.
I use chopped frozen or dried cranberries in cookies, breads, cakes, anything I can think of. You can never have too many cranberries!
Oh, they can't keep me here forever. It's a cultural experiment. Fear not.
Yes, I put cranberries in everything too, to the point where my family finally rebelled. And when the freezer broke, one August, I won't tell you how many packages of frozen cranberries were tucked behind the leftover ice packs and the chicken breasts of no known age.
I hope you're using unsweetened dried cranberries. MY grandmother (b. 1901) had one of those grinders too. Thanks for your comment!
