cooking

The Best Cranberry Sauce Evah…….

Yeah, I know. It takes a lot to declare something “Best Evah”. ‘Cause usually it isn’t. I try to not shout this too often for that reason, but yeah, this cranberry sauce will slap you in the face and demand to be eaten. Not to be ignored and found moldy in the frig on the second week of January…..this you will want a big serving of, even better spread on sammies later…if you have leftovers that is.

Cran2

And the best part? It is made from Dried Cranberries. I have had an issue with a certain large company for many years, and out of spite I refuse to buy their products (see below for why, if you want to read my blowhard ramblings…..). This makes it very hard to find fresh or frozen cranberries that are not by them, they own the market frankly. And if by chance I do find another brand they are often twice the price. Ack.

Better is not having to pay $2.50 for a 12 ounce bag of fresh berries that smell slightly alcoholic, because they are starting to ferment, and then having toss part of the bag.

Cran1

The berries stay together as well, unlike when making traditional sauce, where they fall apart. I kept thinking how awesome this sauce would have been over a bowl of vanilla ice cream….Happy Holidays everyone, and enjoy your Tuesday Dinner!

Dried Cranberry Maple Sauce

Ingredients:

  • 1½ cups Dried Cranberries
  • ¾ cup orange juice, preferably with pulp
  • 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
  • ¼ tsp dried orange peel
  • ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp fine sea salt
  • ¼ cup orange juice
  • 2 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder

Directions:

Add the cranberries, orange juice, maple syrup, orange peel, cinnamon and salt to a medium saucepan. Heat over medium until simmering. Simmer gently for 5 or so minutes, until the cranberries are soft.

Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch into the remaining orange juice. Add to the cranberries, whisking in, till thickened.

Remove from heat, chill until cold.

Serves 4 large portions or 6 to 8 small ones.

~ Sarah

So what is my beef with said cranberry mega-company?

Years ago, when I was first starting out developing recipes for my outdoor website, TrailCooking, I made the mistake of leaving off one © or ® symbol after using the brand name of a certain dried cranberry product, although every time I had referenced said product there was always a hyper-link to the company’s webpage, as well as using the symbols on the rest. One time I forgot to add it to a recipe. I got the nastiest email from a house lawyer threatening me and my website.

It was overkill. A simple “Hey, we noticed you like our products and use them a lot but you forgot to add a copyright symbol on one of your recipes, can you fix it?” would have gotten them immediate action. Instead they used heavy-handed cease and desist tactics. I was dumbstruck. And severely peeved. So I removed every reference to the company then and there. No more links to their company, and when I was using dried cranberries in a recipe I never, ever used the commercially successful trademarked name that most Americans associate with dried cranberries after that.

The thing about it is that over the years I have recommended many companies products because I liked them , on my blogs and websites. And a number of times I have had those companies contact me and thank me for using/liking their products. Many have added my recipes to their websites even or shared my recipes. Pretty cool, really! But out of all of this only one company has ever complained. One. And yes, it was a certain cranberry overlord o_O All because out of 50 or more references, I simply forgot to add a copyright symbol to one of them. Sheesh. To companies out there – this wasn’t the way to approach a life-long customer!

10 thoughts on “The Best Cranberry Sauce Evah…….

  1. Those ocean spray losers! I can’t believe they did that to you. It makes me not want to purchase their product anymore either. (SUE ME) 😉 This sauce looks simply amazing. I can eat cranberry sauce on sandwiches year round. I’ll bet this freezes well too.

      1. I would have reacted the same way. It’s easy to forgive people that make mistakes, but corporations who are rotten don’t deserve your time or money.

Leave a Reply to SarahCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.