November 19, 2007

Do you love cranberries?

Man, I do. I am always a sucker for a cranberry orange muffin. Always. I even like the canned cranberry cocktail stuff. However, Average Jane and her easy, smeasy, peasy Fresh Cranberry Sauce has me hooked. None of it goes wasted because I eat the leftovers on toast. It is so easy to make - I dump the ingredients into a saucepan and then I let it simmer while I run around getting everything else ready.

Also, one of my very favorite things that I look forward to every Thanksgiving and Christmas is my Great Aunt's weird, whipped cream cranberry salad that includes pecans and grapes. It is an odd confection, but it is so yummy.

Great Aunt Joan's Weird, Whipped Cream Cranberry Salad
  • 12 oz fresh cranberries
  • 2 cups red grapes (halved)
  • 1 1/2 cups mini-marshmallows
  • 2 cups pecans pieces (not chopped)
  • 1 pint heavy whipping cream
  • 1 cup white sugar (divided into 1/2 cup portions)

Preparation
  1. Wash cranberries and drain. Then, grind cranberries in food chopper until finely chopped.
  2. Place ground cranberries into a bowl, cover with 1/2 cup of sugar and let sit. (Optional: you can add another 1/4 cup of sugar in this step if you prefer sweeter cranberries.)Whip the cream with 1/2 cup of sugar until you get firm peaks.
  3. In a large bowl, add the sugared cranberries, grapes, marshmallows, pecans and whipped cream together. Stir by hand with a spatula and let it sit overnight.
  4. Before serving, you can add more pecan pieces for garnish and display (my great-aunt would arrange them in a circle in the center of the bowl.)

8 comments:

stephanie said...

I loooove cranberries! Can you believe I was at a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner this past weekend and there was NO cranberry sauce or jelly? (There were cranberries in the stuffing, but still...) After I got home, I drank some cranberry apple zinger tea and ate some craisins in an attempt to make the experience complete.

I've never actually made homemade cranberry sauce, but I'm definitely going to have to try that recipe.

Monkey McWearingChaps said...

The fact that you love cranberries just proves you're a Bostonian at heart, cagey :P

Erin said...

I love cranberries and I love bourbon, so I make this recipe and it absolutely rocks. So easy, too! The bourbon totally doesn't cook off, so it's not really child-friendly, unless you're like European or whatever. Hic.

Goofy Girl said...

I'm chuckling that you put an recipe with "Weird" in the title on your blog. LOL.

Mamma Sarah said...

Mmmm... sounds almost a good as my family cranberry salad... mmmmm... can you tell it's lunch time?

Moderndayhermit said...

Mmmm, cranberries, pecans AND whipped cream...yum!

-qir said...

Does the acid in the berries curdle the cream? What's the runniness factor?

Enquiring minds on a severe budget want to know.

MLE said...

Cranberries are perhaps my favorite part of a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We do the whole berry sauce (just berries, sugar, water with maybe a little orange peel) but this year at Dan's parents house I'm doing a cranberry chutney with some other fruit and maybe some booze. In fact, EEK's recipe looks great.