Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Here's a quick pic of Peanut rockin' a wifebeater. Isn't he just adorable?? I fall more and more in love with him everyday. He'll be THREE months old this weekend. Wow... I'm speechless. Okay, not really. Like that would EVER happen.

I'm normally a pretty adventurous cook, but when it comes to Turkey Day, I don't experiment much. I made that mistake once and the results were so disasterous I have blocked the details out completely. All I remember was the horrified look on my husband's face when he tasted the gravy and the silence that continued for the remainder of the meal. After the shock wore off and he was able to speak again, he asked if I could just do traditional Thanksgiving every year.

A large part of my husband's job is talking to farmers all over the country. A great perk is that he often comes home with large amounts of free fruits and vegetables. When he showed up with TEN pounds of cranberries a few weeks ago, I knew right away what I would use part of the cranberries for--Cranberry Sauce! And no, not the kind that goes sssllluuuurrrrrp when it comes out of the can and keeps the can shape, although I totally dig that stuff too.

When I posted to my blog a few years ago about fresh cranberries, I was surprised to see how many people hadn't made anything with fresh cranberries or even eaten anything made with fresh cranberries! We always had fresh cranberry sauce with our Thanksgiving dinners. But I grew up in Montana and everyone knows Montanans are weird...except me. I am blissfully normal. Yeah, that was a lie.

Once you see how fast and easy it is, you'll wonder why you've never made it before. But the real payoff will come when you taste it! Homemade Cranberry Sauce has a fresher and tangier taste and a MUCH better texture than that gelatinous cranberry goop from the can! Plus, when you make your own, you control the sugar. You can make it as sweet or as tart as you want!

Lots of people like to fancy up their cranberry sauce with oranges or pecans or crazy spices, but I am a purist. Well, not really, I just like cranberry sauce to taste like cranberries. I've made Cranberry Chutney before and that was AMAZING, but it just didn't have the zing and bite of plain old cranberry sauce.

There are three ingredients to make this folks! THREE!! How much easier can a recipe get? I'll tell you--not much!! Take a look at this stuff and tell me it doesn't look 100 times better than the canned stuff!


Homemade Cranberry Sauce

1 cup water
12 oz (3 cups) fresh cranberries (most bags sold in the store are 12 oz--look for them in the produce section)
1/2 - 3/4 c sugar or sugar substitute (I used Splenda, but you could also use frozen grape juice concentrate)

Rinse and pick through your cranberries. Most bags are fairly clean, with just the occasional leaf or stem. Be sure to look for soft or mushy berries. Your cranberries should be firm and smooth, just like my abs. *snort* Set them aside.

In a pot with tall sides, bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat. Dump in the cranberries. Be sure to take a cool picture.

You'll begin to hear popping, but don't worry, your kids aren't stepping on the bubble wrap from their Christmas presents you ordered online and stashed in the closet. It's just the cranberries exploding as they cook. Stir occasionally and cook for 10 minutes or until the berries get to the point where a spoon pulled through leaves a line that doesn't fill itself in.


Turn off the heat and immediately add 1/2 cup of your sweetener.

Stir to combine and add more sweetener if you desire. Be careful tasting the sauce--it is HOT! Although, if you need me to tell you that, maybe you shouldn't be using a stove...

VOILA! You are done! Now you can chortle at all your city friends when they say they've never had fresh cranberries! If your friends tell you you've suddenly become snobby, you can blame it on me. Go ahead! I can take it!

This recipe will make approximately 1 pint. I doubled it and canned the remainder. Well, I actually quadrupled it because I did two double batches. Remember--I had ten pounds of those little suckers! I also made Cranberry Breakfast Bread, which is deeee-licious and you MUST make it! Unless you want to weigh less than 689,114,285 pounds like me. You could also try my Cranberry Salsa.

To can the sauce, process pint jars for 15 minutes and quarts for 20. For altitudes above 3,000 feet, process 20 for pints and 30 for quarts. Above 6,000 feet (Hello Rocky Mountain-ers--I was TOTALLY kidding about that Montana thing--sort of), 25 for pints and 35 for quarts.

Hubby, Midget, Peanut, the Wieners, my sexy pants with the extra elastic, and I will be heading to my Sister-in-law's house for Thanksgiving and several pints of cranberry sauce will be making the trip also. I don't expect any of it to return with us, except maybe on a shirt of mine...

See You in a Bit...

I'll be back next week!
Watch for my guest post this week on

I wish you all a most sincere...

Cranberry Salsa

Here's another thing I did with those cranberries--Cranberry Salsa. I used the recipe found here. It has an interesting taste, but is not hot enough for my taste. If I made this again, I would increase the number of peppers. For those of you who don't like much heat in your salsa, you'd probably like it. I think the cranberries were much better used in the Cranberry Breakfast Bread.

Tomato Preserves--Updated

Sweet Mother Mary, do I love this website--Pick Your Own. I have used it so much this year!

I used their recipe for Tomato Preserves. I only had about half the amount of tomatoes their recipe called for, so I halved everything. Next time, I would put the entire box of pectin in, as I felt the texture was a bit runny. Aren't the little half-pint jars adorable??

"Preserves" is just a fancy way of saying "jam." Preserves just refers to the use of pectin as a gelling agent. These preserves are sweet and can be eaten just like jam.

I also had tomato juice left after using the solids for the preserves, so I strained and canned some of that as well. I'm not a big fan of tomato juice, but my husband loves a good tomato beer, so he was happy!

Low Sugar Pumpkin Butter

This is what I did with Ginormous Pumpkin Number One, or GPN1 for short. GPN2 and GPN3 will be dealt with early next week. Thank goodness they don't spoil quickly!

I found a recipe here that looked easy because it was all done in the crockpot. It worked out great, but here's some advice: start this early in the morning or right before you go to bed, like the recipe says. I couldn't get my proverbial "stuff" together to get it done in the morning and I knew I was going to be tired at night, so I started it at about 4 p.m. I had to turn off the crockpot, let it cool a bit, and complete the final steps the following day. I'm sure my refrigerator didn't like cranking out all the extra juice to cool down the crockpot! I'll notice it on my bill next month, I'm sure.

The directions for cooking the pumpkin before beginning the pumpkin butter appear here at my Day 6 guest post on HappyToBeAtHome.net. After I scooped out the flesh, I pureed it with a hand blender.

This turned out AMAZING! My hubby said, and I quote, "It's like pumpkin pie FOR BREAKFAST." Trust me, you will want to use a spoon to put this on your toast, biscuit, or crumpet (I've never actually eaten a crumpet, but I imagine the pumpkin butter would be bloody smashing on it, and yes, I was British in a former life, so I'm sure I ate a lot of crumpets then).

I froze the remainder of my pumpkin butter because I do not have a pressure cooker. Canning pumpkin is not recommended unless you have a pressure cooker because pumpkin is a low-acid fruit.











Low Sugar Pumpkin Butter
modified from pumpkinpatchesandmore.org

6-7 quarts of pumpkin puree
2 T ground cinnamon
1 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground allspice
3 c sugar, divided
3 c Splenda, divided

With towels, cover the areas your crockpot will be near to avoid spatter. Fill the crockpot up with pumpkin puree, leaving two inches of room at the top. Add 2 c sugar, 2 c Splenda, and stir to combine. Set crockpot on Low heat and cover loosely with lid to vent and leave to cook for 6-9 hours or until puree has reduced volume by half. I'd suggest you leave it overnight. It is not necessary to stir.

Add remaining pumpkin, sugar, and Splenda. Stir to combine. Cook until it reaches desired consistency. If it is too thin, remove lid and leave to cook until desired thickness is reached.

Puree with hand blender until pumpkin butter is smooth. I froze my pumpkin butter in disposable plastic containers, like Gladware (because I don't expect it to be around for long), but any freezer-safe container will work. Enjoy!!

Blueberry Jam

Have you entered the GIVEAWAY yet?

This was so much easier than I thought it would be! I do have the few necessities from a previous canning experience. I used my canner, jar lifter, and wide-mouth funnel. I use metal tongs to remove the lids and bands and not one of those fancy magnetic lid lifters. The tongs work perfectly. Be sure to get your water up to a simmering boil and boil your jars, lids, and bands for ten minutes previous to starting the jam. Start the jam immediately after pulling your jars, lids, and bands out of the canner. Your jars will stay hot long enough to fill.















Blueberry Jam
modified from Ball Pectin recipe insert

4 cups mashed blueberries (approx 6-7 cups whole)
1 box Ball Fruit Pectin
2 cups white sugar
2 cups Granulated Splenda or Sucralose generic
1/2 t butter (if necessary to reduce foaming)

Place whole berries in food processor and process on low until berries begin to mash. Measure out the sugar and Splenda and set them close to the stove.

Measure out the 4 cups of mashed blueberries into a pan with high sides to avoid splatter. Turn the heat on high and add the pectin in slowly, stirring continuously.

When mixture has reached a full boil that can not be stirred down, dump in your sugar mixture and stir until sugar is dissolved. Bring mixture to a full boil. You may add in the butter if your fruit foams. Boil the mixture hard for one full minute, then remove from heat.

Pour the hot jam into hot sterilized jars. Seal with lids and bands (do not over-tighten your bands) and process (be sure the water in your canner covers the tops of your jars by at least an inch) for ten minutes. Remove from water and let sit undisturbed for 24 hours. If any of your jars haven't sealed (just poke the top and if it makes a noise, it hasn't sealed properly), refrigerate and use within three weeks.