23 November 2009

cranberry perfection

for the first time ever, tonight i made my mother's cranberry orange relish precisely right, with just the right amount of orange and sugar to balance the tartness and the sweetness. it filled exactly the special container i use every year. perfectly - and without the recipe, which i, after following it all these years, have now lost.


4 comments:

misty e ball said...

I just found your blog today and began reading...you wrote about so many things I think about, do or care about all in one place. How wonderful to not feel alone in appreciating lifes serendipitous nature. Could you share your Grams recipe for this cranberry perfection? My Grams also had a great cranberry salad(whole orange,walnuts,jello,pineapple) recipe. Thank you for sharing your life. mb

chris said...

misty e ball: i lost the original recipe :-( but all this is is whole cranberries, oranges and sugar - nothing elegant like pineapple or walnuts! :-) it's the ratio of cranberries to oranges that i could never quite get right, even when i did have the recipe. maybe it had to do with tartness or number of berries, sweetness or size of orange. the sugar amount was "to taste". but i could never quite make it taste the way my mom's did. and i always had too much or too little of it! glad you're enjoying the blog - thank you for the kind words! ~chris

misty e ball said...

Chris~
My Grams recipe:
Cranberry Salad
1/2 lb ground washed & stemmed cranberries
1 orange, ground (rind and all) wash thoroughly
1 c. Crushed pineapple
1 cup sugar
Mix and let set. Mix 2 packages (3 oz.) of any Jell-O's you choose such as lemon, cranberry, black or regular cherry, raspberry, orange et al or a combination of two, as directed on the box. Let set to medium (set) or expedite the process by replacing part of the boiling water with ice cubes. Add a cup of pecans or walnuts, chopped if desired. I have also added black cherrys in this recipe also.
celery, carrots, lemon juice, apples,currents, crasins, pine nuts and lots of other foods can be used to suit ones taste. My Grams, Mary Jones, preference was to make all of the ingredients roughly the same size, so she would put the cranberrys (frozen or fresh) in the blender or food processor at the same time. I found using them frozen helped the jell-o solidify quicker. This keeps very well and is also easily frozen.
Thank you for responding.
Praise, gratitude and love, Misty

chris said...

wow! it sounds delicious! thanks for the recipe, misty!