Category Archives: Recipes

Simple Cranberry Sauce Variations

The traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey with all the trimmings is now past for 2012. Your trimmings may have included the cranberry sauce just as they do for so many families. Cranberries are still in season, and provide a note of tart combined with sweet to compliment many foods as well as turkey and dressing. These weeks between our fall and winter holidays make a good time to still use cranberries. You can can a delightfully simple sauce to use with your holiday meals or for a homemade gift to show others you care. Especially good for beginning home canners, our cranberry sauce is very easy. Whether you prefer whole, crushed, or jelly-style, this cranberry sauce recipe has variations that will be a delightful trimming on the holiday menu and perfect for those delicious sandwiches made from leftover turkey.

Find the full recipe on the National Center for Home Food Preservation website, or view an abbreviated version below.

Here you’ll find three variations of a basic cranberry sauce recipe: whole, crushed, or sieved berries. Have no fear, each of these variations have been tested for safety, appearance, and deliciousness.

If this happens to be your first time canning, it’s recommended that you read Principles of Home Canning. Even if you’ve canned before, please refresh your memory and get up to date on the latest recommendations from USDA by reading Using Boiling Water Canners before beginning.

Cranberry Sauce

Yield:  About 4 half-pint jars (recipe may be doubled)

  • 4 cups cranberries
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 tsp butter (opt.)

Make a Hot Pack – Wash cranberries. Cook berries in water until soft. To reduce foaming, add ½ teaspoon of butter (optional). Now here’s your choice: gently stir whole berries, crush with a potato masher or the back of a cooking spoon until desired consistency, or press through a fine sieve. Whichever you choose, add sugar and boil 3 minutes. Pour boiling hot sauce into hot jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean paper towel; adjust two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a Boiling Water Canner; refer to the table below to determine processing time.

Table 1. Recommended process time for Cranberry Sauce in a boiling-water canner.
Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack Jar Size 0 – 1,000 ft 1,001 – 3,000 ft 3,001 – 6,000 ft Above 6,000 ft
Hot

Half-pints

Pints

 15 min

15 min

20 min

20 min

20 min

20 min

25 min

25 min

For original article, go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation website.

Apples are Peaking! Choose the Best Preservation Method

Did you know that once an apple tree begins to bear fruit, it will do so for a century? Today, there are over 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States. Fall weather brings the best fresh apples in bushels.

While we are in a season of peak apple production in many states, you might consider preserving some specialties that will add variety to menus throughout the year.  Apples can be dried, made into applesauce or apple butter, or even made into a delicious apple pear jam. Apples do not make the highest quality canned or frozen slices, but they can be preserved by those methods, also.

Whether you are buying apples by visiting the nearby orchard, the grocery store or market, or even picking apples from your own backyard, choose the preservation method that is best for your apple variety. Varieties that are good for freezing include: Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, Stayman, Jonathan and Granny Smith. Varieties that are good for making applesauce and apple butter include: Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, Stayman, Jonathan, Gravenstein and McIntosh. Red Delicious apples are best eaten fresh. They do not freeze or cook well.

When selecting your apples, remember that their flavor is best when they are at the peak of maturity.

Here are some options to prepare for and choose from in preserving your apples:

Making and canning a flavorful applesauce: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_02/applesauce.html

Making and canning a tasty, robust apple butter: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_02/apple_butter.html

For those who want a no-sugar added apple butter: (ours was developed  for sucralose as a sweetener) http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_02/apple_butter_reduced.html

Drying apple slices or rings: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/uga/uga_dry_fruit.pdf

Combining the best of fall fruits in tasty pear-apple jam: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_07/pear_apple_jam.html

Making old-fashioned, pretty crabapple jelly: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_07/crabapple_jelly.html

Canning fun, cinnamon-flavored spiced apple rings: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_02/apple_rings_spiced.html

Canning a special, spicy gift quality apple chutney: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_06/apple_chutney.html

And, for all those extra apple slices to save for pies and desserts later in the year, freezing: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/freeze/apple.html

Additional ideas and preservation methods are available from the National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia, www.homefoodpreservation.com.

For original article, go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation website.