Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Tuesday, November 24. 2009

Cranberry Harvest

It's the time of year when I stock up on bags of Ocean Spray Cranberries and throw them in the freezer.


The canned cranberry "sauce" pictured is garbage. It's just congealed sweetened cranberry juice.


The recipe on the Ocean Spray bags is pretty good, but I cut the sugar they recommend. It's nothing but water, fresh or frozen berries, and sugar.


Better yet for Thanksgiving, game, and even chicken, is Cranberry-Orange Relish. Raw berries and an orange. Thanks to the mother-in-law for introducing me to this tangy thing years ago.


A great food, the Cranberry. I love to put them in pancakes (the combination of the sweetness of the maple syrup and the tartness of the cranberries is perfect).


Here's our old post on Cranberry Season and the Heart.


Funny thing about Cranberries: not many animals or birds like to eat them. Maybe bears? I've seen Box Turtles take a bite out of one, but I've never seen anything else eat them. I love Cranberries, as long as they aren't cooked too sweet. Here's a tiny Massachusetts Cranberry bog, flooded for harvest:



 Here's how it's done:


Posted by Bird Dog in Food and Drink, Natural History and Conservation, Our Essays at 14:39 | Comments (16) | Trackbacks (0)
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Anyone have any favorite recipes for cranberry sauce? I've only used the canned kind and am not too crazy about it.
#1 Toad on 2008-11-16 08:28 (Reply)
Yes. Use the recipe on the bag of fresh cranberries. Sugar and water - that's it.

Although orange-cranberry relish is realy great too. Look it up.
#2 Bird Dog on 2008-11-16 08:31 (Reply)
Bird Dog ... We like orange-cranberry relish at our house, and it's amazingly simple to make. Happy thanksgiving in advance, everyone.

Marianne
#3 Marianne Matthews on 2008-11-16 11:22 (Reply)
There's a dyed-in-the-wool maggie's Farmer!
#3.1 Bird Dog on 2008-11-16 11:38 (Reply)
Amazing how well the flavors of cranberry and turkey complement each other!
#4 Gringo on 2008-11-16 12:28 (Reply)
And chicken and grouse and duck and goose....
#4.1 bd on 2008-11-16 13:09 (Reply)
Load yall's bird stuffin' with cranberries.

And a shot of Beam.

I'm gonna roast a duck for Ma this year after it's neck and head and feet ar removed and thrown in a pot for to make a mock turtle soup for Pa.
#5 Leag on 2009-11-24 16:28 (Reply)
BD,

We use the orange cranberry relish recipe in our house too but we add walnuts and celery to it as well. It comes out very similar to the relish my mother made many years ago.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone on The Farm!
#6 Country Squire (Link) on 2009-11-24 17:26 (Reply)
A little off topic. Readers might like to try Crasins (a brand name). I toss them into cereals and other foods.

They apparently are crushed and dried cranberries and resemble red raisins. They are much less sweet.

I don't know the details of their processing and don't care to know. They taste good and are safe enough to market and that is enough for me.
#7 K on 2009-11-24 17:41 (Reply)
Years ago I took little bags of cranberries to high school for snacking. One officious teacher accosted me and accused me of popping pills, ha! So I generously offered her a share of my favorite snack. She tried one, but wasn't a fan of tart berries, apparently. Her expression was priceless and memorable, as was her shriek. Ha! End of harrassment.
#8 Seppo on 2009-11-24 19:35 (Reply)
That reminds me of a story told me by someone who had grown up in the international oil field, as his father was an expat hand. He picked up the habit of drinking/sipping yerba mate from childhood time in Argentina. One time he got stopped by a cop out in West TX for speeding, who was sure that he had caught someone drinking marijuana tea. Fortunately, he was able to persuade the cop that the only drug in yerba mate was caffeine.
#8.1 Gringo on 2009-11-24 22:27 (Reply)
Had never seen a bog or how the berries are harvested (live way down south), but once I made homemade cranberry (or orange-cran, either is great!) relish as a young adult, I could never go back. My kids have never had the other. :) I enjoyed the video of the harvest....
#9 g on 2009-11-24 22:42 (Reply)
My Brit mother-in-law uses the recipe on the package but replaces water with oange juice, adds the orange rind, cuts the sugar and add 1/4 cup of brandy just before serving. So much for recipes Her comment,"Taste it"
#10 jma on 2009-11-24 23:53 (Reply)
For some reason nobody has put the Bob and Ray cranberry-grower interview on YouTube.

The grower was surprised to hear that cranberries could be used for sauce; he'd been trying to push cranberry shortcake, and business was terrible.

Can they be used to make glass? He now wonders outside the box, with this new revelation.
#11 rhhardin (Link) on 2009-11-25 05:42 (Reply)
I've got four bags of Ocean Spray cranberries in my freezer. And I'll continue to stock up throughout the holiday season, because I use cranberries throughout the year. I add cranberries to apple pie and blueberry pie, and we eat a lot of pie in my house...mostly for breakfast.
#12 Debbie on 2009-11-25 15:21 (Reply)
I think the jellied, canned stuff is OK for little kids, especially the kind with raspberries. When I was little, even the canned whole berry sauce was too assertive for me. Cut the ugly log in half, then slice to to make half-rounds, or cut further into wedges. Easy for kids to maneuver to their plates.

I can't stand the canned stuff now, though.

Try adding 1/4 tsp salt (or even less) to the whole berry recipe on the Ocean Spray bag of fresh berries. Changes the flavor more than you would think. I usually like my cranberry sauce "straight", but in those years when the berries are harvested before they are ripe, the salt is a good idea.
#13 CRT on 2009-11-26 02:41 (Reply)

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