Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:27 — 40.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

With the holidays and their related feasts fast approaching here in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s time we talk about one of the foods widely associated with those meals:  Nope, I’m not talking turkey.  Today, we are going to learn all about canning cranberries.

In today’s show we are going to start with the basics of what it takes to make a great, traditional cranberry sauce.  I then talk about the other things I tried this year – a cranberry/apple relish, and something called a cranberry conserve.

I’ll walk you through the recipes, the differences among them, and I’ll tell you what to expect as you try preparing them yourself.  As always, I’ll also give you some tips and pointers from my own experience.

I first tried my hand at making & canning a cranberry sauce only two years ago.  It was so easy, and l loved it so much, that I was hooked.  I also love cranberry sauce throughout the year with a nice roast – or fried – chicken dinner.  Now I have a good supply to look forward to!

Fun with cranberries!  That’s today’s show.

Recipes for today’s show come from the Blue Book Guide to Preserving (affiliate link).

Here’s what I learned through my own efforts with cranberries –

• Making homemade cranberry sauce is easy!
• It doesn’t take much time.
• It can be messy as the cranberries pop and splatter a bit.
• Creative variants can make the house smell really nice.
• The immersion blender will give you a phenomenal sauce-like product (that’s my personal favorite).

Here’s some other things to consider as you give this a try –

• There’s a lot of room for creativity in making your cranberry sauces and relishes.
• 4 oz jars make for wonderful gifts on your more creative stuff.
• Cranberry relishes or conserves go great with cream cheese on an English muffin or bagel.
• They also make for good replacements for sugar in your oatmeal or in a plain yogurt.
• Cranberry sauces & relishes are ideal for small-batch processing.

Before you go ...

If you haven’t done it already please take a moment to give me a rating on iTunes (hopefully positive if you think I’ve earned it!).

Thanks for listening and all your wonderful support!