Cook Book Club: Cranberries!!

Preston's grandmother makes cranberry sauce from scratch. I know that many people probably do this, but seeing as I have only ever had cranberry sauce from the can, or from Luby's, and have not had anyone else's scratch made, I think it's amazing. 

This Thanksgiving, I had to make this cranberry sauce for my side of the family. I called Nannie for the recipe and realized that I would need a sieve. My first mental image of this device in was a jail break scene where a prisoner uses a handmade tool to attack a prison guard, but I decided that was not correct. I asked Nannie if a sieve was similar to a strainer. After a long pause, she suggested that I ask Preston's mom to help me when I started making the sauce, just in case.

Making banana ice cream

Instead, I solved this dilemma by using my Champion Juicer rather than a sieve. I bought 4 bags of cranberries, expecting to botch this project once or twice. I did, and although the third try was not perfect, it was acceptable. The juicer gets a lot more out of the cranberries than a person and a sieve, so I had to adjust the sugar to water to cranberry goo ratios for the correct flavor and consistency.

Cut to the week after Thanksgiving, and I've still got this bag of cranberries sitting in my fridge. I decided to make a cranberry upside cake, because I was craving pineapple upside cake, and some cranberry muffins, because I still had cranberries after that. Both recipes are from the cookbook classic, Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 14th Edition, however, the actual recipe for the cake is for pineapple upside cake. I broke some Cookbook Club rules and got creative. I think the only substitution I would make to the cake would be to use granulated sugar instead of brown sugar for the topping, or bottoming, because it was too thick. Also, I would use many many more cranberries... they all drifted to the sides.