Some people genuinely like it, people I know and whose opinions I otherwise respect, but I believe gelatinous logs of cranberry sauce shaped like tin cans are just wrong.
Do you know how they get canned cranberry sauce to hold its shape? Me neither, but I do know this: Cranberry sauce shouldn’t quiver like Jello. You should see some cranberries.
Usually, I make cranberry chutney for Thanksgiving and Christmas from a recipe I found in The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, which was my textbook when I took gourmet cooking in college. I know, it doesn’t sound like a gourmet cookbook, even by the 1980s standards, but my instructor said gourmet simply means good food prepared well and served attractively, so there.
If you’re too intimidated (or lazy) to make chutney, try this. It’s a recipe I saw in the paper over the weekend:
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel, core and slice 6-8 Granny Smith apples. Place the apples in a casserole dish along with a bag of fresh cranberries and 1 cup of sugar. Bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
That’s it: baked cranberries and apples.
I’d add one-half teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg, one-quarter teaspoon of ground cloves, one-half cup of chopped walnuts and maybe 3 tablespoons of floor and one-half cup of milk, but still, you’d have something a lot more interesting and possibly a lot healthier than the stuff that comes from a can.
Happy Thanksgiving.
While it may be nostalgic, there’s something disturbing about eating something that looks like a tin can, but giggles like Jello. I remember my mom would always ask me to cut the cranberry sauce and told me to use the indentation of the can lines as “serving markers.” Haha!
As they say here in the South, that ain’t right.
The cranberries and apples sounds interesting, and most importantly, easier.
Someone was telling me about mixing cranberries with drained crushed pineapple. Have you ever heard of that?
I haven’t heard of that, but cranberries are something you’d never eat by themselves, but they’re great with other things.
If you’ll eat cranberries, that is.
Well, yeah, I kind of made an assumption there.
I know the cranberry sauce in a can is awful, but it’s all about nostalgia for me.
Couldn’t you just watch “Miracle on 34th Street”?
They do make “whole cranberry sauce” in a can… which apparently has cranberries inside. I wouldn’t know as I detest the flavor of anything containing the abominable fruit.
Having worked as a grocery manager in my past life, I can tell you that it’s suicidal to stand between someone and that LAST CAN of cranberry sauce.
The shelves are usually wiped out 2 days prior to Thanksgiving, and woe to any employee found wandering the aisle, once customers realize there are NO MORE CANS of cranberry sauce in stock.
You might find yourself gelatinized and stuffed into a can! O_o
Happy Thanksgiving!
I am a fan of the can, but this sounds good!
I think there’s a big nostalgia thing when it comes to the can, but a friend of mine on Facebook pointed out once he finally had fresh cranberries, he never looked back.
I just don’t do cranberry in almost any form. My family never even had it while I was growing up as far as I remember. Although I do like some juices and stuff like that.
You’re not missing much. Cranberries alone are pretty awful, but they’re good with other things.
I guess a lot of my comfort foods from childhood are of the instant variety (even though as an adult I mainly cook “real”–unpackaged– foods). One of my carry-overs is cranberry sauce in the shape of a can. I just love it, no matter how gross and wrong it seems to be.
For Thanksgiving we had 25 people over, mostly international graduate students from places like Nepal, Colombia, China, Germany, Peru, and Cambodia. I thought the canned cranberry sauce would freak them out so I bought the canned variety and the berry variety… and the can variety was completely eaten (with compliments!) whereas the berries were largely untouched.
I posted a snarky little comment on Facebook before Thanksgiving saying something like, “Your family deserves better than cranberry sauce from a can,” and I was greeted by some ferocious comments from people who basically think I’m Scrooge. The lesson, I guess, is that there’s no arguing with people over comfort food!