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23 November 2012

cranberry sauce triumph →[More:]

I pulled this super-simple recipe together yesterday on a whim, as part of a "Primal" Thanksgiving feast, and thought it was tasty, so I'd like to share it. Full disclosure: I never have cared for "traditional" canned / pre-packaged cranberry sauces anyway, and now that we've been grain-free / sugar-free for almost a year, it's all much too sweet for either of our tastes.

12 oz (1 typical package) whole (fresh) cranberries
2-3 standard clementines (aka mandarins, the seedless kind that peel easily), peeled and sectioned.
1 cup water
1/2 cup raw / unfiltered local honey (or just any honey you've got, but our local is really good)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch allspice

tip: prior to measuring out the honey, rub a thin layer of ghee/butter/coconut oil on your measuring scoop, else it'll require another spoon and some invective to get it all out into the pot.

Pour all your ingredients into a medium saucepan, bring to a simmer (medium temp i.e. gas or induction 6), then reduce heat and let go on low (gas/induction 3 to 4) until the berries burst and everything turns a lovely rosy color and becomes "saucy".

Pour over turkey, yams/potatoes, or just eat with a spoon. Even the mister who "hates" cranberry sauce under normal conditions has been scooping this one up.

post by: lonefrontranger at: 17:52 | 7 comments

That sounds really awesome. My usually cranberry sauce is just whole cranberries, sugar, and orange juice.

I can imagine that adding the honey and cinnamon would make it super awesome. I will have to try this sometime.

posted by youngergirl44 23 November | 19:37

I'm like you in not favoring the stuff in the can. I make a version of your recipe for myself since everyone else likes the canned stuff. I've even gone so far as adding in a bit of orange liquor.

posted by mightshould 23 November | 20:26

I like the idea of using honey instead of sugar. I add grated fresh ginger to mine, too, which I really like. I don't use orange juice but I do use the zest of 1 orange.

posted by Miko 23 November | 22:25

I had a fresh cranberry relish with orange yesterday to which the chef had added a bit of Wild Turkey. OH MY.

posted by dorgla 23 November | 23:27

Looks like we need cranberry sauce for tomorrow's friends' dinner. Yay!

posted by youngergirl44 23 November | 23:33

have fun with it youngergirl! Miko, I like the idea of grated fresh ginger as well; sadly ginger is one of the few spices the mister is adamantly opposed to (no, I don't exactly understand it, but I suspect it maybe thanks to their parents who apparently used it heavily in various home remedies and thus cemented a lifelong aversion to it in both he and my brother-in-law).

I used the clementines / mandarins since we had a bag of them handy. I quit buying orange juice after reading an article (I think on MeFi) about how frighteningly "fake" and highly processed even the "100% fresh-squeezed" brands of OJ are; due to the demands of high volume shipping, storage and pasteurization, commercial OJ is essentially rendered into a tasteless industrial slurry then a bunch of sugar and artificial flavoring and color is re-introduced when it's packaged to make it taste appealing... which is also (now, I realize) why the fresh squeezed stuff we make daily at the grandparents' house in LA from fruit off their backyard trees tastes absolutely nothing like commercial OJ (and I mean that in a good way).

dorgla, you've given me the desire to try this recipe again with perhaps a small tot of rum in it. I doubt the Balvenie Doublewood I have would do it justice.

and yeah, they freight the berries and mandarins and whatnot, but at least they are in essentially the same form as they were when removed from the plant, anyhow.

posted by lonefrontranger 24 November | 01:02

All true about orange juice; I never saw the post but did read this book Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice

posted by Miko 24 November | 19:07

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