The Scarcity Principle and Cranberries
The Scarcity Principle is a marketing principle that describes the urge to purchase, gather, or obtain something that a person feels that they may not be able to get in the future.
What does that have to do with cranberries?
Well, the scarcity principle has apparently been working with me, because I have way more cranberries than I need to carry me through until next cranberry season....I own not one, not two, not three, but SIX bags of cranberries.
Oh, and a partial bag too.
Now, that might not seem terribly excessive, but clearly I'm buying more than I need in a year.
How do I know that?
Well, some of these bags aren't from last cranberry season...they're from the season before that and the season before that.
That's because in November and December, I'm all, "What if I NEED to bake some cranberry bread in April and I don't have some cranberries and then the world will come to an ennnnnd!!"
And I throw a few more bags of berries into my cart, not realizing that the urge to bake cranberry bread doesn't really hit me in April.
Or any months of the year other than November and December, really.
Fortunately, cranberries keep pretty darn well in my chest freezer, so these are all in good, edible shape. I just need to, you know, use them before they become inedible.
So, I'm a woman on a mission. I WILL use up these cranberries before next cranberry season.
Cranberry bread, cranberry muffins, cranberry bars, and cranberry sauce, here I come!
And when bags of cranberries once again grace the grocery store shelves this fall, I will exercise a bit more self-control.
At least, I think I will.
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Ok, people. Tell me I'm not the only one who does this!
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Today's 365 post: And that's why her highchair was outside.
Joshua's 365 post: Starbuck (I think I linked to this one before, but I hadn't published it. Whoops.)
I have cranberries in the freezer too. Not 6 bags, but a couple of quarts that are a couple of years old. They're on my list to use up too.
Cranberries are great in smoothies! I bought several bags at Aldi when they were $0.50 each and used them up in no time! They're great with peaches and bananas.
They don't make it super sour??
No they really don't, just tart, kind of like raspberries. I pair it with a sweeter fruit (like I mentioned). Plus you can always add a little honey if it's too tart, but I rarely have to do that.
Welcome to the club! I usually have anywhere between 4-6 bags in my freezer also. I use them in making apple/cranberry sauce along with throwing them in with an apple pie. I was thinking about making a jam with them... like with blueberries, strawberries, etc... but haven't quite got around to it yet. And as you stated, they do stay fine in the freezer. Look at this way, if there is a great cranberry crash of 2012 or 2013, you will be prepared! 🙂
I have 3 in my freezer (and a couple cans of organic pumpkin puree in the pantry). I had planned to make loaves and loaves of bread... didn't make one (first year ever I haven't).
Mine is canned pumpkin. I *think* it was scarce a few years ago (and I didn't even NEED it that year - it was before I did much serious baking/cooking) but since then, I feel the need to have extra cans *just in case* I need it. I do use pumpkin in the fall , but I get nervous if I don't have a couple back-ups. And the more I think about it, the only reason it probably was scarce was because it was the fall and everyone was buying it to bake pumpkin goodies, not because of some pumpkin famine. Oh well. Better to be safe than sorry?
It really was scarce a few years back. The pumpkin harvest had been negatively impacted by some bad weather at the wrong time, not just because the demand was there. I know because the pumpkin patch I usually got my Halloween pumpkins from didn't have the "pick your own" section, and the already-picked selection was tiny. I asked why, and they explained about the weather (I think it was a freeze that caught a lot of not-quite-ripe pumpkins out in the patches).
Hello 17 cans of coconut milk. I like thai, but that's a bit nuts! Everytime I go to make curry I need a can, but I seem to think its a good idea to buy 2 or 3. Apparently I enjoy repeating this behaviour over and over and over...
Whoa. That is a LOT of coconut milk!
I don't have cranberries..... but there are several cans of pumpkin puree in my pantry!
Mine, too. I keep it down to one or two cans, but they can hang around for ... er ... quite some time.
Do you remember when there was that pumpkin shortage a couple of falls ago? I went a little crazy, thinking I might not be able to get pumpkin puree, so for about two months, every time I was in a store that had some, I'd buy three or four cans. I think I had about 18 cans in my pantry at one point.
I did use them all up, though. I made pumpkin bread, pumpkin soups, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie. We love us some pumpkin. 😉
I have a whole case of canned pumpkin that I purchased last fall, after the big shortage the previous year. I have not used any of them. I don't use pumpkin as often as I think I will (or should).
Hi there,
I just recently found your blog and am really enjoying it! Here is one delicious way to use up some of those cranberries - make some extra sauce and save it for this coffee cake. I made it at Christmas and it was fantastic.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/100-whole-wheat-cranberry-sour-cream-coffeecake-recipe
-Christine
I do that with several seasonal items. I think it is a securtiy/provide for others issue for me. If my freezer and pantry are full, I feel more "comfy". But in my defense, I live 20 miles from the nearest decent grocery. And every couple of months I check what I have and do what you are doing, menu plan accordingly. As much as I tend to buy too many of some things, I also abhor waste.
I have at least two bags in my freezer, and that's only because I actually used some this winter to make sorbet. I REALLY need to use the other bags -- they take up a lot of space in the "fruit" area of the freezer!
non in my freezer.... hummmm.
would love some reciepe's for the muffins, and bars...... 🙂
Hahahaha! This is me all the way, except with pumpkin puree. After that shortage a couple years ago where I couldn't buy any pumpkin until late November, I wasn't taking any chances. I'm pretty sure I have about 10 cans of pumpkin in my pantry right now (and to make things worse, I buy a new can just about every time I use one up!) It's a sickness.
Sadly, I've already used both bags of cranberries I bought this year.
I do this less with food (but did stock up on pumpkin), but I am terrible at this with quilting fabric (one 13x13 shelf's worth) I don't have too too much, but more than I can use on just my current project. The fabric manufacturers do limited runs and good, popular prints are very hard to find sometimes because of this, but I try and remember that even though I may pass up something I might regret one day, there will always be more fabric (and I might like the next line even better). I'm still working on it, though.
The year after the great pumpkin scare, I was getting into canning and freezing. I saw pie pumpkins on a huge cart at a farmhouse and stopped to see how much they were. The lady was selling them for her daughter and they obviously weren't moving fast enough. I told her I'd take 5 and she came with me to my car and loaded 10 in for $5 - all I had on me - and I had to keep her from giving me more. Not one to waste food, I cooked and pureed all 10 pumpkins. Let me just say that I ended up wasting the puree - frozen pumpkin doesn't keep that well and I don't use much pumpkin at all - but that pumpkin scare sure had me worried! LOL!
I understand about pumpkin puree not staying as pretty in the freezer, but did you know you can cheat and can the pumpkin in 'chunks'. Then when you want a pie, etc you open the jar, drain, mush and away you go. Less work up front, and they stay fine in the pantry. (Canning the puree is not 'recommended' anymore due to the density of the puree in the jar.) Also, to thicken the puree, I let mine drain thru a coffee filter, then squeeze... just like the store, but better.
I freeze pumpkin and squash every year and have never had a negative change in color or flavor after being in the fridge. I freeze it in quart bags with all the air removed. Sometimes they last over a year before I use them up, but I rarely have any longer than that.
me too! i want to start prepping my own this season, but i stockpile it year round now.
I hoard butter. I'm not entirely sure why, but every time butter (stick butter that is) is on sale, I buy a pound, usually two. If I find a coupon, I buy some. If I have a coupon AND it's on sale, then I'll buy something like 4 pounds. Luckily I bake a lot, but anyone who opens my freezer and sees 8 pounds of butter in there has to wonder what's wrong with me.
I have 13 lbs of Land o' Lakes in my freezer now - all from sale + coupon since Xmas. Surely you're not saying that's excessive? ;-}
N E V E R.
LOL! I did the same thing last year! I bought 10 bags of cranberries, because they were $.98 each. I ended up canning them in pint jars with light syrup. They make the BEST muffins and pancakes. As a bonus I thicken the syrup they are packed in to make yummy topping for ice cream or pancakes. My hubby just rolls his eyes whenever I come home with a stashes of can't pass up items. This year I am the proud owner of a dozen cans of whole berry cranberry sauce (bought for $.25 a can). He does appreciate my efforts to save money, and he hasn't turned down a crannberry baked good, yet. 😀
Another blog I read recently had an entire post on cranberries... 5 recipes! Looks like mostly cranberry sauce/juice in these recipes, but some may be adaptable to your cranberry situation? 😉 Good luck! http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2012/05/i-had-cranberry-party.html
LOL I was gonna mention this - just saw it last night!
I"m still using up the single back I got last fall for a cranberry raisin 'bread' - I've been adding mine to oatmeal every so often.
hadn't thought of smoothies as someone mentioned - don't drink many smoothies but that could change!
Had to laugh at all the pumpkin admissions -- I, too, have a couple of cans and I hardly ever bake! I tend to do this with toiletries, too, if they're on sale with a coupon -- shampoo and toothpaste. I know they don't go bad but it's the same mentality. Currently working on 6 or 7 bottles that are cramping things in the bathroom.
Oh -- spaghetti sauce and pasta and canned tomatoes! If a brand I know goes on sale, I keep picking up jars. This has worked for us, though, as a quick go-to for dinner. But they DO have expiry dates and we've come perilously close to missing some 🙂
Commercially canned food doesn't actually expire.
A properly executed "expiry" date on a can, is to tell you that the can is getting old and the food might not taste as good/have the best texture.
A typically executed "expiry" date on a can is the manufacturer's attempt to convince us to buy more.
Either way, unless your can is bulging or cracked open the food is safe to eat. Might as well open it to see if it's good (meaning tasty and the right texture) enough to use.
Totally -- thanks for that reminder! I use the date to decide order of use but you are so right -- check the darn stuff -- it's probably good!
If I let my husband loose on COSTCO he comes home, without fail, laden with MORE maple syrup and shelled walnuts and pecans "I didn't know if we had any" Oh yes, we do--4 large bottles syrup and over 8lbs nuts on today's freezer check. All this for our once a week treat breakfast of waffles/pancakes with nuts and syrup...
I, too, have cranberries in the freezer, which I bought after Thanksgiving because they were on an awesome sale...... In fact, just yesterday as I was going through my freezer, I saw them and thought, "I really need to use those up!"
I love cranberry muffins, and one other way we love them is in pie. A few years ago I was making a blueberry pie, and had a few leftover cranberries in the fridge that I tossed in. Now I never make a blueberry pie without adding cranberries. It seems that every pie needs a "sour" fruit in it for best flavor. I use about 2 cups of cranberries and 3 cups of blueberries in each pie.
Kristen, you are certainly not alone (although you didn't need me to tell you that, of course!)
Living in Portugal, there are certain items that I consider "every day" which are very difficult (or expensive) to find here. Particularly baking supplies (the Portuguese bake different stuff to me!) So, when Aldi have these items in their promotions, I stock up.
It's funny you should mention cranberries actually because over the past couple of weeks, Aldi Portugal have had Trader Joes cranberries (not fresh but not completely dried) in store and I've stocked up, knowing that they won't be around for long.
So yeh, you're far from alone 🙂
This is not something that bothers me at all. I've got eight or ten bags of cranberries and half a dozen jars of homecanned cranberry sauce. And I have about 2 dozen pounds of butter in the freezer next to a few bags of pumpkin puree. We absolutely will use it all. The butter will be at least a dollar a pound more over summer and into fall, cranberries won't be found anywhere and we use the cranberry sauce instead of mustard in poultry sandwiches. It is also a great ingredient in date squares (we call them matrimonial bars here) as a replacement for the date filling. Pumpkin goes into pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for lunches too.
We have a lot of tourists here starting in about two weeks, and it gets very hot in summer. That combination means I don't like to go shopping in summer. With the freezer and pantry full, I can go a long time between trips and still have almost limitless choices, especially including the veg and berries from the garden. Come fall, I stock up on what I will need over winter and don't have to be out on icy roads. DH can pick up milk and some fresh produce on his way home from work to save a special trip if that's all we need, so we consider it a win/win situation.
I do that with canned pumpkin. Because, you know, there may not be any canned pumpkin next year. At all. Anywhere.
It's that Aldi "seasonal item" sign that gets me every time. Marshmallow fluff, slivered almonds, walnuts, pecans, baking powder (my hubby bought 5 cans. really. 5 cans???), men's body wash, things in the random end aisle... nope, not alone.
I am soooo prone to the same problem. I am in the process of charting how long a pantry/freezer item goes on sale and the frequency I use them up. Hopefully next time Miracle Whip is on sale I'll know that I only need two jars before it will be $2.49 again.
Oh that's funny 🙂 🙂 🙂 I have to laugh because in our freezer is four bags of those same brand of cranberries. I think my aunt must have purchased them awhile back. Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂
I found that stocking up is a big waste of time and money. Your 6 bags of cranberries equals at least $6.00 of cash that might have been better used on something else. Realistically, I wouldn't want to eat a cranberry muffin that contains two-year old cranberries, regardless of how well they were frozen.
When I looked at my food pantry, I saw hundreds of dollars tied up in food waiting to be eaten. It was exhausting. Since I switched to a buy-as-you-need food purchasing program (let the supermarkets store the food!) my cash flow has greatly improved. Plus, I eat less! Freeing up cash allows me to save more money (in a bank) and do more things (entertainment, concerts, family outings, restaurants etc.) that I enjoy.
I think we need to re-think the stock up and save scenario. Once you learn the theme of supermarket sales, you purchase accordingly.
I believe in stocking up. When I was in college in the 70's, there was a toilet paper shortage, and you weren't allowed to buy more than one four-pack a week, which didn't go far in a 6 girl apartment. Then when I was first married, you couldn't buy canning lids anywhere. I had to buy new jars to get the lids. Various other things have had shortages over the years, or poor crops that greatly increased the prices. For example, pumpkin a couple of years ago, currently peanutbutter. Having a good stock in my pantry evens out those crises for me. Besides, all it takes is a truck strike or a major disaster to disrupt delivery to the stores, and they only have a 2-3 day supply of what they normally sell. If the trucks can't come in and make deliveries, the shelves empty out pretty quick. For example, if a hurricane is expected, the shelves are wiped out fast! So I keep a good stock of food and other supplies, and I find it saves me a lot of money. I do try to keep it rotated well, but I am not a fanatic about expiration dates, I think they tend to be super conservative so we will buy more faster. As long as the product is in good shape, ie no bulging cans or leaking, product smells, looks and tastes good, it is good. I am currently eating peanut butter I bought for $1 a jar, when they have shrunk the jars and it is on sale for $2.50 now. Makes me happy, and it really helps my budget.
I have to agree with Vicki. Often you have to have experienced grocery store shortages and empty shelves in order to learn the lesson. For me, it's extremely cold temperatures where trucks can't get the food in. I think being prepared is very important, but it's also just as important to rotate and use up what you have otherwise it can be a big waste of money.
i don't understand how it is a waste of time to have more food in your house. it takes WAY more time to go to the store every couple days, than to go every few weeks. you spend much less time in the store overall, and driving back and forth (gas, etc), plus being more prone to picking up things you don't need - than if you just go occassionally.
Too funny...my daughter was just (like, 5 minutes ago) commenting on a radio commercial that said "Quantities are limited!"
This is SUCH an important principle for kids to learn! Marketing agencies know that you can sell anything to people by telling them they can't have it. Or that there isn't enough to go around. I want my kids to understand how they're being manipulated, so they won't be caught by it.
(The other important principle for kids to learn is that the purpose of commercials is to cause discontent.)
Whether it's cranberries, or ipods, or Nikes...it's all the same thing going on in our brains!
Well, I have about 15 pounds of butter in my freezer that I was fortunate to find for less than $2 a pound. But since we go thru about 4 pounds a week, I'm wishing we had more at that excellent price, not less....
Mary
My personal opinion is that you can NEVER have too much butter. 🙂
Cranberry/Cherry pie is delicious and I'm waiting for July to roll around so I can try a Raspberry/ cranberry jam recipe I found.
(garden raspberries ripen in July)
This post had me laughing! I'm glad to know that even you, *The Frugal Girl*, sometimes buys more than you need. I try really hard not to fall into that trap, especially when I find a product I really like and want to buy all of it up from the store. I read a great book (from the library of course) called "Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy" by Martin Lindstrom. It's all about the "tricks" that companies use to try to get us to buy more. It's really helped me in my awareness.
I vote for cranberry cake! Just substitute cranberries in a rhubarb cake recipe and you'll be all set. We just had rhubarb cake over the weekend and it didn't even last 24 hours... 🙂
PS Kristen....I had no idea you had so many readers in Oregon but I suppose we're all just a bunch of frugal girls!!
I have a ton of cranberries in my freezer (I used them at our September wedding as a table decoration, so when I could find them 2/$1, I'd buy bags of them. At one point I had 56 bags in my freezer). Talk about hoarding 😉 Now I have 3!
Also--the link for you 365 profile? Goes to Joshua's page instead!
Oh, rats! Thanks for letting me know...it should be fixed now.
You may not be the only one, but I can't concur I'm afraid! I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to my cupboards and fridge/freezer. In fact I was reprimanded on one blog and described as irresponsible! But I live in a really predictable weather-wise country - the UK (and I'm in the middle of the UK - so even more predictable). We tend to have rain, rain oh and a bit more rain. Then we have about a week of sun (aka summer) and sometimes a week of snow (aka winter), then back to rain 😉
Typically anyone who sees my fridge/freezer comments - how do you feed a family from that?
The weather reference, I didn't explain sorry! It's incredibly unlikely that I won't be able to get food locally due to adverse weather conditions or a force majeure...
Labor strikes, on the other hand...
You've got me there! 😉
No you are definitely not the only one LOL. Last year I found fresh Oceanspray cranberries on sale at Aldi's and couldn't resist from loading up on 5 bags. Later I discovered that I am really the only one in my household who truly loves cranberries. I have finally used up my stash. Like you I made cranberry nut bread (which also freezes nicely), cranberry muffins, and my favorite was a made up recipe for cranberry crisp. I put cranberries and a little sugar in baking dish (or individual oven safe dish) and put crisp on top (flour, sugar, and butter). Delicious, especially if you have some summer ice cream to go on top. Good Luck!
Actually, my husband is the cranberry stasher in our family! This is gonna sound like a weird meal ... but we like it ... turkey meatballs on a bed of egg noodles with cranberry sauce on top (put a tablespoon of Dijon mustard in the sauce if you want to give depth to the flavor). Sorta like a Thanksgiving dinner without all the time spent in the kitchen.
I stash both canned pumpkin (yup, pumpkin was scarce a few years ago) and last fall when the peanut scare was on, I bought a ton of peanut butter. We do eventually eat it up and I'm pretty sure my household is held together by peanut butter so I do NOT feel bad about it!
A 15 oz. can of pumpkin can make a quick, low-fat cake. Take 1 cake mix (spice cake is our favorite but also works with yellow or even chocolate), add the pumpkin and a half cup of water, beat together and bake as per the cake mix directions. Our kids love it, and, bonus, they are getting a bite or two of veggies with their cake. Yes, I know, it's not from scratch . . . and I DO love to bake . . . but sometimes I need to cut some corners, time-wise.
For anyone really desperate with too many cranberries: we returned to the US after some years overseas and it took a while for our household possessions to catch up with us--there was a shipping strike in Europe and other complications! So come Christmas we ( 2 adults 2 children) were camping in our lovely new old house in rural Texas with the bare bones of 1 chair each, 1 table, 1 bed apiece and a couple of bean bags and a ratty old sofa. Cooking stuff and linens and towels courtesy of trips to Goodwill, and Salvation Army and loans from new neighbors and new colleagues.
We decorated a huge Christmas tree in true old style--cranberry and popcorn chains, paper doves and home made gingerbread cookies threaded on red ribbon. We had a big party for this and every one pitched in to help decorate. Later my boss said "One of the best Christmases I ever had!" (He was alone--wife and children busy selling a house in Germany.
I think of my stash of food as partly about cost efficiency and partly as emergency supplies.
1) By buying ahead, when there are sales & coupons and seasonal dips in prices, I spend less than if I buy just in time. For example: at the Big Lot sale a dozen 12 oz boxes of generic Honey Nut Cheerios* were $0.0833/oz. Sale + coupon on real Honey Nut Cheerios that very day was $0.125/oz. Standard good price is over $0.20/oz. Buying ahead led to savings of 60%.
2) Having a stash means I'm prepared to shelter in place in case of emergency. I live in an area that is subject to natural disasters so this matters.
3) For some, having a stash is like having a savings account: you know the food is there if money gets tight later. If one has the misfortune to live with a spendthrift (or worse) this matters even more, because while someone can empty out the bank account to buy booze, it's much harder to do that with 100 lbs of flour.
* Blind taste tests confirmed no one I live with can tell the difference.
I think I have a bag in my freezer, too. I'm traveling right now, but wish I were home so I could turn it into cranberry jalepeno jam, which is pretty fabulous.
I'm greatly amused by the comments today. I thought I was alone, but apparently the pumpkin shortage of 2010 shook many of us right to our core.
Okay, while we are confessing, my obsession is not food but toilet paper. We actually have over 21 cases of toilet paper sitting in my house. My father used to talk about running out of toilet paper when he lived in Russia (he and my mother are immigrants) and not only would he rapsodize about how freely one could get toilet paper in the US, but how soft it was...Now I have this morbid fear of not enough toilet paper to make it through a catastrophe. Luckily, my husband thinks it is funny and built me a special TP holding area in the basement. Once day I overheard my young son taking his new friend to see our "Toilet Paper Store."
I'm glad to know I'm not alone in the toilet paper hoarding. I mean, I figure..... I don't plan on me or hubby not needing it any time in the near future and prices only go up.....
For those who still have lots of canned pumpkin I discovered you can just heat it and serve it as a vegetable with butter, salt & pepper. Tasty. I'm now down to two cans.
Send some my way! We make a meat pie that calls for cranberries, and we can never find them, sometimes even at Christmas time they aren't in the store.
All. The. Time. I had 4 boxes of stuffing at one point. I currently have 3 each of salt and pepper grinders. And 3 containers of oregano. Seriously. I started adding a section to my grocery list entitled "What I DON'T need."
Kristen, maybe you should start reading and following directions. Maybe when it says "Buy 2, freeze 1" that that is what you should do. Or make cranberry garland for your tree this year!
Cranberry chocolate chip cookies are great, too. Just add 1/2 cup when you add the chocolate chips. Yummt!
We love your blog and featured you in our top budget bloggers list! http://makeitsimplesister.com/2012/05/08/must-read-list-budget-bloggers/
you guys are all making me feel like i NEED CRANBERRIES, and i don't have any!!! so now i wish i had overbought and hoarded them so i can make all the amazing sounding treats you are all talking about. : (
the food i have way too much of is special vegan food mixes. at one point i ordered a big food order from a vegan store (vegan jello, hamburger mix, etc) - and it turns out that i am not a huge fan of those foods. so they are all just sitting!! i keep meaning to use them up, but it hasn't happened yet.
This condition worsens by living overseas. It is called "Chronic Food Hoarding". How many packets of Good Seasons Italian Dressing, bouillon cubes and Mac n' Cheese are too many you ask? There is no known number.
Yes... I'm preparing for an assignment right now, and the "stocking up" has reached ridiculous proportions. For us it is diapers, wipes, seasonings, and medicines (especially children's tylenol and the like.)
And hoarded cranberries make marvelous jam. (Don't ask me how I know that)
I did that for a while with orange and yellow bell peppers. Every time they'd go on sale for $1/pepper (as cheap as they get around here), I'd buy a bunch (like 8-10), cut up one or two to eat raw, then cut up the rest to freeze - slices for fajitas, chunks for a few other recipes. One day I realized I had something like 20 baggies of frozen peppers! One baggy is what I need for one meal using peppers. I'm still working on going through them all, but at least now I'm down to one baggy of strips and one of chunks!
I am amused to see that I'm not the only one who kinda' freaked out about the pumpkin shortage a year or two back and then overbought the following season. Pumpkin bread for one and all!!! 🙂 Still have a few cans left to use up . . .
Here in Sweden cranberries are really expensive - I wish I could have that much in my freezer! Something that cranberries are really good for is to make a juice/lemonade (it prevents you from getting urinary tract infection, so now that I'm pregnant I have some every morning).
Yes, of course I have 2-3 bags of cranberries in the freezer! And a couple of cans of pumpkin in the cupboard, just in case I can't find them if I want to make pumpkin or cranberry bread (with your recipe!) some other time during the year! As you say, I don't get that urge except during the holidays, but I'll be prepared if I would for some reason!
Pumpkin Upside-Down Cake with Cranberry Pecan Topping
http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/ild/2003/1103/cake.html#axzz1uPTR6opv
I make this once a year its very rich but good. The cranberries end up tasting like cherries, its good hot and cold. I cook it in my cast iron skillet just like when I do pineapple up side down cake. This recipe will take care of all those pumpkin and cranberries savers, of which I'm one.LOL
I wish I had more cranberries! I brought home 4 pounds from the harvest festival last fall and bought about 3 pounds more at the grocery store and now they are all gone. I make a jam with them--very easy and tasty. Put some cranberries in a pot and add 1 cup of sugar per pound of berries. You can add more sugar if you want, and I have used less, but I like things tart! Add water about halfway up the cranberries and stir everything together. bring to a boil, turn down the heat and let it simmer for 15 minutes or so until thickened. Put in a jar and refrigerate. This is great on toast and stirred into oatmeal. It is also really good on turkey/chicken sandwiches and wraps! I am thinking that if you wanted this to be a little sweeter without adding more sugar, you could substitute fruit juice for the water. I have not tried this, but I don't see why that wouldn't work. You could also dress it up with some citrus peel or cinnamon or whatever, but I like it plain. I just used up the last bit the other day so I guess I will be waiting until fall to have more. I will appreciate it all the more then 🙂
Oy Vey! After hurricane Katrina hit, I sort of went a little bit nuts and decided that I needed to stock the house with enough food to last 6 months (hurricanes are such a big problem here in Denver don't you know...) Anyhow - that was what - 6 years ago? - no wait... I think it was 7.
Anyhow - now I have a pantry full of expired cans of spinach and other things I will never eat... UG. But you know... at the time I was thinking that I might NEED vegetables. Heaven help me.
My favorite recipe for cranberries is to mix them with either cut up apples or pears (or both), sprinkle with cinnamon, and bake in a glass dish in the oven. We usually bake at 400 or 425 degrees, until they look piercable.