Holiday Cranberry Recipes
This is the season to be merry! The November – December holiday season brings an explosion of color — Christmas lights and decorations. One of my favorite culinary ingredients for cooking during the holidays is cranberries. This colorful and festive ingredient adds a tart “punch” to recipes including sauces, chutney, drinks, baked cookies, cakes and pies, granola and even barbecue sauce. Cranberries pair well with other fruits such as apples and citrus fruits and with other ingredients — even jalapenos — making it possible to conjure up many creative recipes with cranberries.
The cranberry is a native American shrub which matures and is picked between September and November. So, there are only a few short months where fresh cranberries are available. Early New England colonists used cranberries in recipes and for dyes. The first documentation of cranberries dates to 1550 by colonist who remarked about Indians using this berry. The cranberry bushes can grow up to seven feet long and eight inches in height. Grown in boggy areas, cranberries are usually picked by flooding the vines with water, then the fruit is floated and scooped up. Wisconsin is the highest state in terms of production followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington. Cranberries are also grown in Canada and Chile.
Nutritionally, cranberries are often considered to be one of the “superfoods.” They are full of vitamins such as Vitamins C, A, K and B-complex vitamins. Plus, cranberries are among the fruits with the highest levels of antioxidants including phenols and anthocyanins which provide protection from several chronic diseases.
Here are some of my favorite dishes which I’ve prepared with cranberries. All the recipes are found on my companion blog, beyondgumbo.com.
The first is a simple fruit salad made by combining cranberries with other fruits such as bananas, oranges and apples. Add nuts for texture and flavor and orange juice and sugar to sweeten the dish. Garnish with fresh mint.
Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish is a unique way to use cranberries. It is Pepto-Bismol pink and is made with only five ingredients which are fresh cranberries, onion, sour cream, sugar and horseradish. Although this seems like an odd combination of ingredients, the resulting partially frozen relish is delicious. The recipe was first featured on National Public Radio. Susan Stamberg served as co-host of the evening news broadcast, “All Things Considered,” on NPR beginning in 1972. She was the first female to anchor a national nightly news broadcast — hosting the show for 14 years — and won many awards for her reporting. Every year at Thanksgiving she would recount this recipe on her radio show. I contacted her and she graciously gave me permission to reproduce the recipe.
Chutneys originated in India and Southeast Asia. They are a spicy, fruity condiment which accompanies all meals. The British also make chutney’s — undoubtedly these recipe ideas were brought to Great Britain by trading companies in the 1600’s. The British folk used apples from their own orchards in their chutney’s. My “Spicy Christmas Chutney with Satsumas, Cranberries and Apples” is adapted from a Scottish internet site.
I processed the chutney in a canner and gave the little jars as Christmas presents.
The recipe uses spices as well as cranberries, oranges and apples. Sugar and vinegar add a sweet and sour component to the recipe.
I love to add cranberries to baked cakes and cookies. They add a colorful, tart “pop” to the baked desserts. These mini-cake loaves are adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe. In addition to cranberries, I used Meyer lemons which grow on my backyard citrus tree. The mini-loaves also make great holiday gifts for family and friends. Who doesn’t appreciate a homemade gift item.
And,
Here’s a rich and delicious dessert bar. Starbucks featured “Cranberry Oatmeal Bliss Bars” on their menu one year.
Of course, you can’t find the exact recipe for the Starbucks bar on the internet. So, I used an old family cookbook for the oatmeal bar recipe and added a cream cheese topping. The recipe uses dried cranberries rather than fresh ones so it can be made at any time of the year. However, the festive bars were available at Starbucks only during the holiday season. But, I can make my own bliss bars!
And,
Here are the bars.
One of my favorite cranberry recipes is the cranberry, satsuma and apple tart which I made this year. I used a rich, shortbread-type cookie for the tart crust. The sweet crust balances the tart flavor of the cranberries. Delicious!
It makes a striking dessert and is a welcome change from pumpkin pie!
Granola makes a healthy, hearty breakfast food. I have tweaked a recipe for making granola in an Air Fryer. It is fast and easy, using old-fashioned oatmeal. Although my instructions don’t call for adding dried cranberries, this dried fruit would make a great addition to the granola after it is baked in the air fryer.
One of my more unique recipes using cranberries is a “Cranberry BBQ Sauce.” The pungent cranberries balance with the sweet and sour ingredients which include cocktail sauce and spicy mustard. I served these with appetizer-sized meatballs. Although I don’t have this recipe published yet on my cuisine blog, I can safely say that this BBQ sauce is quite tasty.
And last, no holiday event or party would complete without a festive cocktail drink. I made “Holiday Moscow Mules” using cranberries and satsumas in the mixed drink. And I used Louisiana produced, Yellow-Fin vodka in my recipe.
These drinks were originally made with Russian vodka and were served in copper mugs. The drink was “invented” by an entrepreneur and bartender where were selling over-stocked Smirnoff vodka and copper mugs. The men mixed the vodka with ginger beer and found that the resulting cocktail was quite tasty. As the vodka distributor traveled across the country, he stopped and took a Polaroid photo of each bartender holding a copper mug of the cocktail at each bar. Hence, the drinks became known across the country. Copper mugs become very cold when the ice and beverage mixture is added to the mug. This imparts an interesting “buzz” and mouthfeel. In other words, no reason to chill the mugs!
I added cranberry juice and garnished the cocktails with fresh cranberries and rosemary.
This year, I hope you will try some of my cranberry recipes and will enjoy this festive and interesting culinary ingredient in your cooking adventures. I love cooking with cranberries and look forward to the holiday season when fresh cranberries become available in grocery stores. Enjoy!
Find these recipes on my cuisine blog, beyondgumbo.com.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry
https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/health-benefits-cranberries
