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Cranberries


msphoebe

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Am I the only one who still has a couple of bags of cranberries in the freezer from last season? I always buy a few bags when they go on sale and stash them for use throughout the year. These two must have gotten buried.

Am looking for some suggestions to use these up. They've been wrapped well and look just fine.

TIA

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I just uncovered a couple of leftover bags as well.

We really like this recipe for Cranberry Ketchup from Gourmet.

Additionally, I'll toss cranberries into bread pudding or into an apple crisp.

I also make something called cranberry smush. Basically, I cook down the cranberries in liquid. It could be apple cider or orange juice or even water with about a cup of sugar. Once all the berries are popped I add in a diced apple, pineapple and (if I'm the mood) mandarin orange segments. Then I keep cooking down until it's very thick. It makes a nice side dish, although I'm happy eating directly out of the bowl as a snack.

"Some people see a sheet of seaweed and want to be wrapped in it. I want to see it around a piece of fish."-- William Grimes

"People are bastard-coated bastards, with bastard filling." - Dr. Cox on Scrubs

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Now this I am more than familiar with! When I got my new refrigerator two months ago, I had to empty out the freezer of the old one for it to be moved to be disposed of.

Of course, I have had a 10 year habit of freezing bags of cranberries ... and, from November to February, I hoard the fruit zealously! And use it in any number of dishes, most notably, my stuffed acorn squash. Back to the old refrigerator: there were tons of frozen, dried out cranberries. In a fit of despair, I picked over the fruit, only to discover that they were too dry to be salvaged ...

Resolved anew: this year I will save only what I need and stop hoarding the cranberries.... but am watching my produce shelves for the new crop to arrive! :wink:

a must read article with many ideas on cranberries! :biggrin:

Melissa Goodman aka "Gifted Gourmet"

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I found a couple of bags of frozen cranberries in my freezer last weekend. Good thing, too, because I was meeting with some people and we needed fuel, which cranberry-nut muffins provided very nicely. :rolleyes: Still have a bag left over, I think I'm going to try the cranberry ketchup. They will not go to waste, and I suspect that next year around this time I'll find some bags of frozen cranberries in my freezer all over again.

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Cranberries are one of the few fruits that survive well in the freezer, even if you just bung the bag in. Years ago, when I was doing pastry at a restaurant, I found some in the freezer from who-knew-when. Turned them into a coulis (sugared, spiced, stewed, and strained) for decorating plates with individual apple strudels.

At home, I just dump some into muffins, or mix them into instant couscous as it sits absorbing.

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Here's a great way to use your cranberries. This is a fantastic coffee cake. Moist and delicious with just the right balance of tartness and sweetness.

CRANBERRY SWIRL COFFEECAKE

Makes 1 - 9 or 10 inch tube pan (12 servings).

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sour cream (I use nonfat plain yogurt)

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup of fresh cranberry sauce (to make the sauce, follow the directions on any package of fresh cranberries)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). (*Decrease the temperature by 25 degrees if using dark pan.). Grease and flour one 9 or 10 inch tube pan.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs just until well blended.

3. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. With mixer running, (lower the mixer speed), add the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream or yogurt to the butter mixture until just blended. Do not overmix! Stir in the almond extract and mix only until just combined. Pour 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan. Swirl 1/2 of the cranberry sauce into the batter. Repeat, ending with the batter on top.

4. Bake about 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

5. Let cool in pan on wire rack about 10 minutes. Cut around edge of the cake to loosen, then turn out and let cool completely on wire rack.

Adapted from Allrecipes

There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE.
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infuse vodka with them... you'd normally need to pierce them with a needle before packing them in a jar and covering them with vodka for a couple of months, but as they're frozen you shouldn't need to pierce them...

drink ice-cold... goes very well with oily fish.

Allan Brown

"If you're a chef on a salary, there's usually a very good reason. Never, ever, work out your hourly rate."

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Several times we have found a bag of frozen cranberries in our freezer over the years. We have used it the same as we would fresh cranberries. It has had no adverse effect on muffins, bread, salad, etc. - whatever we have chosen to make.

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  • 4 years later...

Resurrecting this thread:

Cranberries were selling for less than a dollar per pound today at my grocery store. I love cranberries and got carried away... I bought around ten pounds.

I do plan to freeze some to use in muffins, sweets and sauces but I am starting to think that it might be the time to try new things. Any suggestion?

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Cran-cello!! I made a batch of this for Thanksgiving last year and it was a big hit.

Crush the cranberries with a rolling pin and place them in the bottom of a large wide mouthed jar. Cover with a bottle of 100-proof Smirnoff vodka and allow to sit for at least two weeks (preferably 3-4 weeks) with an occasional shaking. Strain carefully and add approximately one half volume of simple syrup (or even better a spiced simple syrup made with cinnamon, cloves, star anise, cardamom and red pepper flakes) and allow to rest in the bottle for a week or so. This is delicious simply chilled in the freezer or as the base for cranberry mimosas before a big festive dinner.

Katie M. Loeb
Booze Muse, Spiritual Advisor

Author: Shake, Stir, Pour:Fresh Homegrown Cocktails

Cheers!
Bartendrix,Intoxicologist, Beverage Consultant, Philadelphia, PA
Captain Liberty of the Good Varietals, Aphrodite of Alcohol

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The upside down cranberry cake (not the official title, I think) from Dorie Greenspan's Baking:  From My Home to Yours is absolutely fantastic.  And it uses a lot of cranberries!

I was thinking the same thing, Rona! Also, there is a cranberry pistacio galette, I think. I usually make cranberry orange muffins or cranberry bread.

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  • 8 years later...

While grocery shopping today in my local Harris Teeter, I picked up some North Carolina frozen blueberries for pancakes from the Seal the Seasons Company out of Hillsborough, NC. They were $3.99 a pound, which is much cheaper than fresh are right now.

 

While searching for what I wanted, I saw, for the very first time in my life: commercially frozen cranberries! I didn't buy any, because I have some that I froze from fresh from last season. But I'm not the only one who has said somewhere on eG that they have never seen any commercially frozen. So there were even two different brands. One was Cape Cod Select that offered a 16 oz. package for $3.99 and I can't remember the other brand, but the package was $5.99 for only 10 oz.

 

Don't despair if you don't have a nearby Harris Teeter, though. Just buy fresh in season and pop them into a freezer bag in their original packaging and they keep well even in my crappy fridge freezers. Wash before using. Still nice to know that someone finally wised up and started offering the frozen product commercially.

 

One use of fresh or frozen cranberries kind of out of the norm is to use them to garnish drinks. They float and look so pretty especially in seltzer drinks.

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> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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7 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

 

Don't despair if you don't have a nearby Harris Teeter, though. Just buy fresh in season and pop them into a freezer bag in their original packaging and they keep well even in my crappy fridge freezers. Wash before using. Still nice to know that someone finally wised up and started offering the frozen product commercially.

 

 

 

I have also learned the hard way that in the Fall when I first start looking for cranberries to make my cranberry bar recipe, I find it's too early and they're not yet in the stores.  So now I have several bags in the freezer just for that.  But it is nice to know that there's now a commercially frozen product.  Thanks!

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47 minutes ago, lindag said:

 

I have also learned the hard way that in the Fall when I first start looking for cranberries to make my cranberry bar recipe, I find it's too early and they're not yet in the stores.  So now I have several bags in the freezer just for that.  But it is nice to know that there's now a commercially frozen product.  Thanks!

Did someone say cranberry bar recipe? With real cranberries (not dried)? Can you share it here? It will be much appreciated! I love cranberries, and I'm also in the camp that buys many bags when they appear in October/November. I still have a bag or two in the freezer from last year. A couple of weeks ago I made cranberry jam and cranberry chutney. I'm also one of those who mentioned I've never seen commercially frozen cranberries. Nice to see that someone's getting wise. (But I'll still buy at least ten bags come November.) I never realized that freezing them for too long could ruin them. I guess I use them up too fast. 

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15 hours ago, lindag said:

 

My pleasure.  These are super easy to make.

cranberry nut bars

 

That linked picture is pretty, but I'm skeptical that it could be produced from the recipe that follows. There's no leavening except eggs and no liquid except what little comes from the butter. Popovers work with only eggs for leavening, but they have milk to make that happen. Plus popovers and Yorkshire pudding cook initially in a much hotter oven than called for here. 

 

Do you use self-rising flour when you make this recipe? I don't mean to be confrontational, I'm just curious if the recipe as written works. :) I might learn something here.

 

Also, the very first comment mentions adding orange zest. I make muffins with cranberries and orange zest, an idea I got from Betty Crocker, and that combination is more than the sum of the parts.

> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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The recipe is not unlike Laurie Colwin's Nantucket Cranberry Pie: http://cooking-books.blogspot.com/2009/02/nantucket-cranberry-pie.html  The first time I made this, I also looked at the recipe and thought -what? no leavening? how can that be? I made it anyway, and it's very good. But you're right that the photo looks too "cakey" and smooth to have come from that recipe, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect there. 

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