Cranberry Relish Emergency

For the first time in many, many years I have not made my own cranberry relish or corn relish for that matter...and I'm feeling very guilty. Any ideas of what I can do to "doctor" up the canned stuff!!!

I'm with the "how hard is it to make one if you have access to a bag of the fresh berries" camp.

The fast, no-cook relish I like is the one involving about a cup of white sugar, a bag of cranberries, and a quartered orange with peel. Put all ingredients into the cuisinart and pulse.

Diners at our table seem to be about equally divided as to whether they prefer that one over the homemade cooked spiced one. (Cranberries simmered with brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, cardamon, and cloves).

I still have memories of my mother, who will probably deny it vehemently, serving cranberry sauce from the can, with the little ridges from the can still visible on the jiggly mound.

Most of us have that "in the can...ridges and all" memories. In fact, the company designed a can without ridges and there were so many protests, they went back to the old can. Ahhh, traditions.

In far less time than it takes to doctor up the canned stuff, you could take a small bag of raw cranberries, a package of fresh raspberries, and some sugar and throw them in the blender. Maybe add a little lemon juice. Makes great relish.

A tip o' the chowhound hat to Paula Deen of foodnetwork.com. This is the BEST of the super-easy recipes: to each can of whole berry c. sauce mix in one can drained mandarin oranges and about 1/3 - 1/2
cup chopped walnuts. When I brought it to a formal (potluck - contradiction in terms?) dinner it got universal raves and one woman said she wanted to eat it with a spoon. It's not weird, which is one thing I don't like about many of these jazzed up cranberry ideas, and it's pretty colors, and it really goes well with turkey.

Ah, that's where the recipe came from. Thanks! And btw, I did eat mine with a spoon. (see my other post on this thread)

:-)

try one of these: grated orange peel, chopped candied ginger, red pepper flakes

After reading the 'recipe' on a previous post, I decided to mix up a can of whole cranberry sauce with a can of mandarin orange slices and some chopped walnuts. Very few people in my family like cranberry sauce and I decided I'd pour my energy into other things this year. If your family is the same, don't feel guilty about going the canned route.

I have to say that I had a very stressful morning yesterday (husband trying to fly our small plane down to FL from Toronto and avoid icing conditions) and 'tasted' the cranberry sauce combo. It was quite delicious and I ate most of it -- I now have to make another batch! So I can vouch for that previous recipe, and a big 'thank you' to the recipe poster.

Interesting.. that is an old recipe.. and if I remember right they added cranberry or rasberry jello making a mold... Yesl it's from the 1950's..

My mom has made this for years, and it will last a long time after Thurs, if you care. Also she chops whole berries, sugar and orange peel in processor. The first our family calls the "good", probably because it's sweet and everybody (who eats cranberries) likes it; the second is the "bad", because it's tarter and more cranberrier. So, the good and the bad are now traditions, and can be made in 15 minutes max.

Stonewall Kitchen makes several really good jarred cranberry relishes, which I've used and gotten great response to. They are carried in many supermarkets near me, so I imagine there must be someplace by you which stocks them too. They have a website, perhaps they list resources there.

My mom used to used the canned whole cranberry sauce and doctor it up with mandarin oranges and chopped up walnuts. Personally, I never liked this but everyone else seemed to think it was fine.

Laurie

If it's available where you live, try a jar of Wisconsin Wilderness cranberry chutney. It has a nice spicy flavor, much better than trying to doctor the canned stuff.

i've never had the canned stuff. it looks like jello. is it loose enough to mix up, or will it just look ugly then? if so, you could add toasted pecans/walnuts, candied orange peel/orange marmalade, dried cranberries to make it more toothsome and add some flavor dimension. horseradish is wonderful with cranberry sauce/relish, but it does impart a pepto-like hue.

They make a canned version of whole cranberry sauce that does not come out in one big chunk like everyone is familiar with. I would think you could doctor that up pretty easily... maybe some orange zest and some grand marnier, and toasted pecans? Or maybe some jalapenos for a spicy kick?

All is not lost...will mix up a batch with the oranges, zest and nuts...adding Grand Marnier... thank you...