Have you ever been to a holiday dinner where there is cranberry sauce served, that is plopped in a bowl and retaining the shape of the tin can that it came out of?
Well, I’m here to tell you that making your own cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries is dead easy. All you do is wash the cranberries and boil them for 5 minutes in water, sugar and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Then you are done. It’s that simple, and so delicious, adding just the right amount of sweet to a savory meal.
How to make Cranberry Sauce with Fresh Cranberries : For the sauce that we made for our Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks ago (the holiday comes early here in Canada), we slightly modified the recipe printed on the back of the bag, by adding less sugar than called for, and the aforementioned lemon juice. So, we brought 1 cup of water and 3/4 cups of sugar to a boil. Then added 12 oz (340g) of fresh cranberries and just let it boil for 5 minutes. Stirred in a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and removed it from heat. It can be served warm or chilled.
If made before your big dinner it will keep in the fridge for a few days, or do what we did with the portion of sauce we had leftover … just spoon it into a clean jar, leaving a good inch of space at the top. Put the lid on and pop it into the freezer, where it will keep well until your next celebratory meal or you make turkey pot pies with the leftover turkey you also have stored in the freezer!
The berries we used were from a supplier called Johnston’s in Muskoka (about a two hour drive north of Toronto). There’s a charming testimonial on the bag, written by M & B Johnston : Our dad Orville and his brother, Melville, started in 1952. We’re proud to carry on the family tradition. As our brother in law, Bill says, “Our cranberries are so fresh, they’ll make your turkey blush.”
How about the fact that a couple of brothers were named Orville and Melville? Love it!
Oh, and I like to experiment with cocktail making and I think this one I made using a dallop of the homemade cranberry sauce is really quite good. They look very pretty and would be perfect to serve at a holiday gathering. You can be sure that some of that spare sauce we have in the freezer is being reserved to make more of these drinks.
Rum Cocktail with Homemade Cranberry Sauce
1/4 cup cranberry sauce
3/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup soda water
2 oz rum
lemon or orange rind
In a blender or Magic Bullet (which is what I used) blend cranberry sauce and orange juice together. Pour into a glass and stir in rum and soda water. Add ice and garnish with fruit rind, squeezing it a bit so the essence flavours the drink.
Makes one large drink or two small ones like the one pictured.
Thank you kindly for dropping by.
xo loulou
(Thrift store item included in this post – The white bowl seen here. The blue bowl seen here.)
