Cranberry sauce is regarded an indispensable part of traditional American and Canadian Thanksgiving menus and European winter festivals.
Food Uses: Usually cranberries as fruit are cooked into a compote or jelly, known as cranberry sauce. Such preparations are traditionally served with roast turkey, as a staple of English Christmas dinners, and the Canadian and US holiday Thanksgiving.
Less commonly, innovative cooks use cranberries to add tartness to savory dishes such as soups and stews.
Create a cranberry glaze
A glaze would be suitable for a baked ham or a ham steak. One good recipe is to blend a mixture of cinnamon, allspice, coriander and mustard with cranberry sauce.
Cranberries are considered too sharp to be eaten plain & raw, as they are not only sour but bitter.
A cosmopolitan is a cocktail made with vodka, Triple Sec, cranberry juice, and fresh-squeezed lime juice or sweetened lime juice. Informally, it is referred to as a Cosmo.
Tip: Take advantage of cranberries during the holiday season and make a cranberry berry smoothie!
Frozen cranberry juice, frozen citrus juices and Sprite are mixed together to make this sparkling festive holiday punch.
Foods that go great with cranberries!
Storage: Store fresh cranberries in a tightly-sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator. As with all berries, if one starts getting soft and decaying, the others will quickly soften and decay also. Be sure to sort out the soft ones if you plan to store them for more than a few days. Fresh cranberries may last up to 2 months in the refrigerator. Cooked cranberries can last up to a month in a covered container in the refrigerator. Washed cranberries may be frozen for up to 1 year in airtight bags.
Frozen Cranberries: Fresh cranberries can be frozen at home, and will keep up to nine months; they can be used directly in recipes without thawing.
Native Americans may have introduced cranberries to starving English settlers in Massachusetts who incorporated the berries into traditional Thanksgiving feasts.
In North America, Native Americans were the first to use cranberries as food. Native Americans used cranberries in a variety of foods, especially for pemmican, wound medicine and dye. Calling the red berries Sassamanash,
Trail mix usually consists of a mixture of nuts & dried fruits such as raisins or cranberries. Other ingredients such as chocolate chips may also be included.
Trail Mix Recipe - Trail Mix Cookies are simply cookies made from trail mix. While prepackaged commercial variants of trail mix are readily available, mixing up a homemade batch is...
Cranberry vinegar goes well on salads and is a perfect addition at Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.
Roasted Chicken Recipe • Fruits and dried fruits like cranberries are often added to stuffings that fill the cavity of poultry. including apples, dried prunes, apricots, & raisins.
The traditional meat to eat with cranberry sauce. Not only can you eat it along-side the turkey but you can even make a sauce for the turkey made from can cranbberry jelly.
Turducken Recipe • A turducken is a dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken - It's fast becoming a popular recipe for Thanksgiving.
How To Cook Long Island Roast Duck • Long Island roast duckling is part of the regional cuisine of eastern Long Island, New York stemming from Long Island's thriving duck-farming industry which began in the late 19th century.
No matter what preparation method you choose, cook cranberries only until they pop; overcooking gives them a bitter taste. Since cranberries are almost 90% water, do not thaw frozen cranberries before cooking them. Thawing will cause the fruit to break down, resulting in soft berries. Cranberries may be baked with a sweetener to make a topping or sauce. They are also good chopped with oranges to make a relish.
For baked goods, first slice the cranberries open. Add all sugar from the recipe, and probably quite a bit more. Let this mixture soak in the refrigerator so that the sugar gets into the cranberries.
A great trick to making foods more festive is by using crushed & dried cranberries.
sprinckle on food right before serving,add to chocolate bark candy, imix in stuffing, sprinckle on salads, add to your favorite Trail Mix recipe, add to make the best cranberry cookies, string dried cranberries & popcorn for Christmas garland.
Cranberry juice is a major use of cranberries; it is usually either sweetened to make "cranberry juice cocktail" or blended with other fruit juices to reduce its natural severe tartness. Many cocktails, including the Cosmopolitan, are made with cranberry juice.
Tip: You know how martini's are garnished with olives right- so do the same by skewering frozen cranberries and put them in your cosmopolitans.
Facts: There is potential benefit of cranberry juice consumption against bacterial infections in the urinary system. Research shows that an effect occurs from a component of the juice inhibiting bacterial attachment to the bladder and urethra.
Cranberries are a source of polyphenol antioxidants, phytochemicals under active research for possible benefits to the cardiovascular system and immune system, and as anti-cancer agents.
