Ode to the Cranberry

Cranberries are one of those foods that I see and I just want to grab a handful and start eating. Big mistake. On their own, these little buggers are bitter as hell and not very tasty. I used to spend a great deal of time looking for farm real estate (our dream is to move out to a more rural area and grow our own food and give a safe home to some animals who need it). It’s a fun procrastination tool looking at farm real estate and, a few years ago, I saw a cranberry farm for sale southwest of Seattle. My mind immediately started working… cranberries! I remember a children’s book we read about some kids who had to pick cranberries every day and it was hard work. Cranberries grow in bogs and at least in the storybook, the kids had to wade through the bogs to pick the cranberries. There was something about a special stove in this book, too…It might have been called The Nickle-Plated Beauty. Of course, that might also be a totally different book.  

Anyway, while I’m not going to become a cranberry farmer any time soon, I do love to enjoy eating fresh cranberries. Every fall/winter, I get determined to make up new recipes with the cranberry as the star of the show. This year, I made this cranberry applesauce from Monday’s post.

Last year, I made up the raw cranberry orange relish just in time for Thanksgiving, though a great relish to have on hand.

Yesterday, I went to our class’s vegan potluck and brought cranberry orange bread from last year’s cranberry experiments and, you know, that is really a pretty good recipe, if I do say so myself. I didn’t have any whole wheat pastry flour, so I ended up using all unbleached white flour, which made it awfully light and fluffy. The slight sweetness of the bread and tartness of the cranberries. I love the stuff. If you missed the cranberry orange bread recipe last year, give it a whirl this fall and let me know how you like it.

What recipes do you know and love that use fresh cranberries? Any new ideas for how to use cranberries?

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