Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Cranberry Apple Orange Sauce

Today, I am going to feature one of my infrequent efforts at cooking.  As my regular readers know, my spouse (who loves to cook) does 99% of the cooking at our house.

But, particularly at holiday time, I feel I have to share in some of the burden.

For Thanksgiving, that means I make the cranberry sauce and any desserts.

We are only going to be a group of four this Thanksgiving, so I decided to concentrate on a new cranberry sauce.  I love cranberry sauce, but it is not the most Weight Watchers friendly because you need so much sweetener.

I saw this recipe on a blog.  I made cranberry relish one year, and it tasted so bitter to me.  But the answer was obvious - don't use the orange rind (one of the author's suggestions for a variation).

But then, spouse told me "not sure I want to eat raw cranberries".

So we decided on a compromise.  Cook the cranberries until they pop, like I was making whole berry cranberry sauce.  Use chopped raw apples.  Use the canned oranges we had bought the day before.

Ingredients
7 ounces of frozen cranberries (because that's what we had left over from last year).
1/3 cup stevia/sugar blend
1/3 cup water
1/2 can mandarin oranges in light syrup (because we were shopping at Aldi, and they didn't have any other kind).  Coarsely chop the oranges.
1/2 Cortland apple and one Gala apple (that's what we had), no skins, cored, chopped coarsely by my spouse, who couldn't help helping.

Method
Combine water and stevia/sugar blend, bring to boil.
Add cranberries, bring back to boil, then lower heat.  Tasted, decided needed a bit more sweetness, added some of the light syrup from the oranges.
I cooked for about seven minutes, as most all the cranberries had popped by then.

I added the apples and let them sit in the hot cranberry sauce.  After it had mostly cooled, spouse added the chopped oranges.  Decided still not sweet enough, so added about a tablespoon of honey.

Success! (Hopefully).

The recipe is supposed to freeze, and I will freeze the leftovers, if they are any.

Do you make your own cranberry sauce?

5 comments:

  1. Interesting concoction.
    I used to buy cranberry sauce all the time- and then forget to put it on the table. Maybe if I made my own, I'd remember....

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  2. This sounds delicious and I love the use of other fruits besides cranberry. I've used orange juice with cranberries before but never orange segments, and I never would have thought of apple, but it sounds perfect.

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  3. Glad you found something that works. I've never developed a taste for cranberries, so I wouldn't know. One year I did make a cranberry sauce. I did not partake of it, so I can't tell you if it was good or not.

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