thanksgiving

Cooked Cranberry Sauce

pot with cranberry sauce bubbling on stove with wooden spoon on top
~ mary_m ~ 2 Comments

I grew up on store-bought, canned cranberry sauce, the kind you sorta plunk out onto a plate and serve in slices. I love that stuff.

At some point, I decided to see how easy it was to make cranberry sauce myself. Turns out? It’s really easy. I’m certain there are many ways you can make it smoother, more nuanced, fancier, etc., but the basic recipe is: cook some cranberries with some sugar. More specifically, here’s what I just did:

Spiced Cranberry Sauce

  • 4 cups fresh cranberries, picked over and rinsed
  • 2 cups sugar*
  • zest of 3 tangerines (or 1 orange, or…)
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 3 cloves

Put everything in a sauce pan with a bit (1/2 cup or maybe less) of water and cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat until boiling. Reduce the heat and simmer until the cranberries mostly burst (or a bit longer if you like your cranberry sauce extra thick). Done.

Store in the refrigerator or can** like other fruit jams.

This yielded 3 and 1/2 cups. Would have been 4 if I’d cooked it down less.

 

*That’s 2 parts fruit, 1 part sugar, which just happens to be my standard jam ratio.

**I can mine, because I tend to travel for Thanksgiving and having it sealed makes that easier. This stuff will keep almost forever, though, so it’s not necessary unless you’ll be away from a refrigerator for a while or want a good seal.

Pie Advice, Pie Dough

~ mary_m ~ Leave a comment

I’m a little bit in love with this Thanksgiving pie advice from Marian Bull on Food52. (Summary: If pie making makes you nervous, don’t do it for Thanksgiving. Do, however, bake pie some other time.)

I love pie. I love Thanksgiving pies. I love when people try new things. And I love when people don’t fret too much about baking. So Marian, thank you for your voice of sanity here. The only thing I would add is, if possible, when you’re learning how to make pie crust, learn with a friend. A good friend who’s already suffered life’s fair share of utter pie crust defeats can be the best cure for wanting to throw your lump of mangled pie dough across the room. (Not that that will happen! But… it might, and that’s totally OK.)

A brief round up of pie dough recipes:

  • Never Fail PieCrust is more-or-less the one my mom taught me, decades ago, although we always divided the recipe into five. Mom still uses this recipe, and it’s still great. I use it less often, because I don’t generally have shortening in the house.
  • This vodka trick one is great if you’re looking for a relatively foolproof, yet delicious crust.
  • 3-2-1 pie dough is what I generally make, because I love a good, easy formula.

I don’t generally make pie on Thanksgiving. My father-in-law has dibs on pie baking for in-law Thanksgiving, and my mom and sister tend to handle the traditional pies when we gather with my side of the family. This year, however, I’ll be going to a second Thanksgiving and I’m thinking of making Cranberry Walnut Pie, which is one of my favs.