fresh cranberries – Ali Does It Herself

Apple-Citrus Cranberry Sauce

Oh hey, do you have a recipe for cranberry sauce for this weekend yet? I’ve been resting on the laurels of my chipotle cranberry mix but this year I wanted something a bit different and now this is my new favourite. This one is easier, too, which makes life better around the holidays.

Start with 2 12oz packages fresh cranberries, 2 large apples, and 2 large oranges. If you’d like a bit of extra zip, replace the oranges with grapefruit and go from there.

Wash the cranberries and set them aside to drain.

Peel the apples and cut them into small pieces (whatever size you would like to find dropped across your turkey).

Zest and juice the oranges into a medium saucepan.

Tip in 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar and give it a good stir.

Tip in the apples and cranberries and heat over medium, stirring often.

The liquid will simmer up and the cranberries will make very satisfying soft pops as they break open.

Once you’re happy with your ratio of broken cranberries, remove the sauce from the heat and allow it to chill.

This makes about 2 quarts, so plenty of sauce for dealing with leftovers!

Cranberry White Chocolate Scones

I meant to make these back when I made the Savoury Sunday Scones but I ran out of time. So I just had a package of defrosted cranberries sitting in my fridge for AGES. I felt bad about those poor cranberries, so last weekend I whipped up a couple batches of this recipe from Chew Out Loud, one to eat right away, and the other to freeze unbaked as a giftie for Cait.

First, make sure you have 1 cup butter sitting in your fridge (or better yet, freezer).

Preheat your oven to 400°F and start with 4 cups flour (if you think that’s a lot of flour, imagine how much I had when I doubled the recipe. Okay, you don’t have to imagine: you can just do the math, I know). Whisk that together with 2/3 cup granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1 teaspoon salt.

The original recipe calls for 1 cup sour cream, but I only had a very little bit. So I thought I’d add in some yogurt, but I only had lemon meringue flavoured yogurt (still, citrus and cranberry are a great combination). But I didn’t even have enough of that. So I added in some dregs of whipping cream I had lying around.

I ended up cleaning out all three containers.

So. In a bowl, mix together 1 cup sour cream (or your dairy Frankenstein equivalent), 2 large eggs, and 4 teaspoons vanilla. Set that aside for a minute or two.

Grab your super cold 1 cup butter and grate it into your flour mixture. Yes, grate it. It’s oddly satisfying to grate butter. I always enjoy it, though I hate grating cheese.

Use a spoon to stir it into the flour. I went ahead and used a pastry cutter on it as well just to ensure I didn’t have huge clumps of grated butter in places where they shouldn’t be.

Stir in half a package of white chocolate chips (I used a whole one because I doubled the recipe).

Now tip in your liquids and stir them until just combined.

Add in half a package of fresh cranberries (again, I used a whole one because of doubling the recipe). Stir those into the mix.

I tipped the whole thing out onto a work surface to squish and kind of knead gently into a cohesive mass.

I split it into four balls (two if you’re not doubling).

I flattened the balls into disks, which I cut into 8 equal wedges.

Whisk an egg in a small cup with a tablespoon of water and brush the egg wash over the scone wedges. Sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

Bake those suckers on parchment-lined baking sheets for 14-17 minutes, until they’re a nice pale brown all over. Serve warm!

Citrus Chipotle Cranberry Sauce? Believe it.

I made a fancy cranberry sauce for Christmas last year but for some reason I didn’t blog it. This year for Thanksgiving (13 October in Canada) I wanted something a little spicier (but not much spicier) than the traditional sauce, so I thought that this would be a good bloggable opportunity, and I modified this recipe I found on Epicurious (originally of Bon Appétit) to do it. The result is a delightfully rich cranberry sauce with a hint of savoury and garlic and a smoky after taste. It’s truly amazeballs (yes, that is the technical term).

Start with 2 dried chipotle chillies. Super dried. Gross.

Plop those in a medium saucepan filled with water and bring it to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and let those chillies soak up the hot water for an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how dried out they are. You want to be able to mince them in the end. Your house will smell like chipotle for like forever, just a warning. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Grab yourself an orange and a lemon and zest them.

I used a small rasp to get most of the zest but I used one of the fancy kinds for cocktails to get a bit of rind for colour.

Juice the lemon while you’re at it and save the juice. Eat the orange because it’s good for you. DO IT.

When the chillies are soft, drain them and then plop them in another pot with 24oz fresh cranberries (that’s two of the standard bags you get at the grocery store), the lemon and orange zest and lemon juice, 3/4 cup dried diced apricots (optional but worth it), and about 2 cups sugar. I actually saved a splash of the chipotle water and added it in as well, probably about 2-3 tablespoons.

Heat that over medium, stirring, until the sugar is all dissolved.

Now, you’re supposed to keep the chillies in there until the end and then take them out, stem and deseed them, and then plop them back in. But my chillies were so soft they started falling apart almost immediately.

So I took out the bits of chipotle earlier, minced them (which was easier than I thought it would be, considering how hard they used to be), and added them back in. A few stray seeds made it in as well but there’s no harm in that.

Keep cooking the berries, stirring occasionally now, until they start to softly POP open (it’s a delightful noise, I promise). Stir in 2 teaspoons minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin.

Keep stirring that until the sauce starts to thicken a bit and you can tell that the flavours have all gotten to know each other. Then you can remove it from the heat and let it cool.