Cranberries

My friend Laurel just returned from a trip to New England, where she had occasion to visit a cranberry farm. She brought me a big Ziploc bag full of gorgeous fresh berries, and — upon learning that I’d never made my own cranberry sauce before — e-mailed me a basic recipe. She told me the recipe lends itself well to improvisation, so of course I had to riff on it a little bit with homegrown blackberries, honey from our hive, and a couple of small organic apples left from a salad project last week. I think it turned out really well. Here’s the recipe:

Cranberry-blackberry sauce

1 c. turbinado sugar
1 c. water
About 4 c. cranberries
Two small apples
About 2 c. blackberries
3/4 c. honey

Stir sugar into water and bring to a boil, stirring frequently as sugar dissolves. Add fruit and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in honey. Sauce will thicken as it cools. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

On an unrelated note, I built my first fire of the season tonight. It wasn’t terribly cold, but I’d had kind of an annoying day at work, so I decided to vent my frustrations on a couple of hapless hardwood logs. It was nice. It made the air smell warm, if that makes any sense.

I’d had an idea I might make myself a cup of Red Zinger tea on the stove, but when I took the lid off the teakettle to rinse it out, I found a dead moth and a ridiculous amount of sediment inside. It was truly disgusting. I scrubbed it out with Comet and put it in the dishwasher. Hopefully it will emerge in a usable condition.

In the meantime, I had a pretty productive evening: In addition to making cranberry sauce and building a fire, I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen, read the Monitor, and am now getting ready to run the sweeper, dust the living room, and throw together a couple of fliers for the solar open house before I go to bed.

Hope your Friday evening was good.

Emily