Hi Meilin, well that's good to know! Thanks for telling us. I guess you would have to be careful about not overblending it, maybe just a few pulses, or you would have fresh cranberry puree, not relish.

My mother used to make this relish and I could not find her recipe after she was gone. I tried to make but something was not right. This one made it. Thanks!

Mom's cranberry salad

1 16 oz. can whole cranberry sauce
1 8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sifted powdered sugar

Combine and mash cranberry and pinapple together. beat sour cream and powdered sugar; add to fruit mixture and mix thoroughly. Line 8 or 9 inch pie dish with aluminum foil. Pour in friut mixture. Freeze until firm.
To serve, turn out salad and let stand for a few minutes. Remove remaining foil and cut into wedges.

My husband's mom made a relish that starts like yours but then puts everything in lemon jello. It is wonderful but makes way too much for the 4 of us and is limited to turkey. I can't wait to try your recipe. Yum! I think it will be good with pork too. Good to know I can still get the old fashioned grinder; ours is worn out. I've used the food processor and the grinder attachment for the mixer, they just don't chunk it right. Thank you.

Thank you for the Cranberry Relish recipe. I've just posted our version which we have used year after year. It's basically the same idea (with a couple additions) as the one you posted, although ours is sweetened with orange marmalade and brown sugar.

Here's the link if you'd like to view it:

http://girottifamily.typepad.com/mountain_musings/2005/11/cranberry_relis.html

I made the relish yesterday and it is now my holiday favorite! Fabulously good!

I would love to know how to can it for longer storage, since cranberries are so seasonal.

MWAH!

I made the cranberry relish for Thanksgiving. Delicious. i did have to cut down on the sugar though.

I have a grinder but the only setting I have is too small, so it was time to try something else.
After some experimenting I discovered a very good substitute.
I used the top blade on a food processor. The key to making it work was to fill the feed tube with cranberries and push them so they're packed in tightly. Then use the "pulse" setting. It does a nice job on the cranberies.

I had to cut the apples and oranges into cubes first before adding them to the food processor to have them come out about the same size as the berries

I made this recipe and did not use a grinder. I did not have a grinder so I used my Pampered Chef chopper. It is just a hand chopper that you push the handle up and down on. Now days you can buy them at Walmart. Anyway it worked out great. I also peeled my orange and only put in a small amount of orange peel.

Hi Elise! Thanks for sharing all these wonderful recipes. Ditto on the question on using the Kitchen Aid grinder. Also, what kind of apples do you suggest I use? Many THANKS!

I just made cranberry relish last night. It's nearly the same recipe as yours (it adds a lemon), but I got it from an old cookbook I have. I did change the recipe slightly. I hate citrus pith (the white part) so I made sure to zest the citrus, then cut out the fruit (and some of the membranes), with very little pith. Then I pulsed it all in a mini-prep (I don't have a grinder). It's sitting in the fridge now the sugar mixed in. My version of the recipe says to make it at least a day in advance so that the flavors will blend.

For Bill, with the orange allergy: Are you allergic just to oranges? My recipe has a variation using tangerines instead of oranges. Use 3 tangerines and be sure to seed them instead of 2 oranges. There is no other change in the recipe.

Try looking for a meat grinder at your local Goodwill or thrift store. That is where cooks unload what they no longer use and non-cooks tend to unload wedding gifts: small kitchen appliances, pots, pans and cooking tools. Great place to find a huge turkey roaster, ricer, spring form pans. It is where I found my best Le Crueset pot! Don't forget to donate the meat grinder back to Goodwill when you are finished!!

I've been making a similar recipe for the past few years at Thanksgiving (thanks to the back of the ocean spray bags of fresh cranberries). I cut down on the sugar some, only use an orange not an apple, and add in some cinnamon and cloves to taste. I really like those spices with the fruit!

My partner also likes it with some chopped walnuts stirred in, which can help cut down on the acidity of cranberries and oranges.

I have been making a similar relish for years (I got the recipe from my mother). The relish will keep in the refrigerator until a little after Christmas -- if you have not been sneaking big spoonfuls and eaten it all by then. I think the acid and sugar content keeps the molds, etc. out.

My mother's version uses just the orange zest, and the orange pulp. I use less than a cup of sugar, and grind it in the blender, leaving a little chopped apple for texture.

The picture does not do justice to the incredibly luscious color --this is really pretty food.

I wonder if this would work with a Foley food mill? Perhaps the cranberries would need to be quickly parboiled first...? I don't want to buy any new equipment, and have neither a meat grinder nor a food processer. But I do have one of those old Foley food mills (which look like a saucepan with holes in the bottom and grinder arm/blade assembly rotating from a central point). They're SO easy to use, and so cheap, and require no setup, very little cleanup, and no more storage space than a saucepan.

Hi! Canberry relish has been a tradition in my family for over forty years (I can't believe I'm that old!) You can find the basic recipe on the back of a bag of fresh canberries found at your local grocery store. Here's our's:

- 1 12-16oz bag fresh cranberries (washed)
- 1 seedless orange (quartered)
- 1/2 cup rasins
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup sugar

Traditionally, we used the old meat grinder, but be warned to put a pot under the table/counter where you connect it in order to catch the juices (there is a lot). Place a handfull of berries in grinder, then a slice of orange, berries, some rasins, berries, etc. Catch everything in a bowl, add the sugar and walnuts and mix well. We found chilling overnight enhanced the flavor greatly.

In the past 10yrs, we also found that using a food processor worked well also, although the finished product is completly different. Process small amounts at a time using the chop blade and a few pulses until evenly choped (and not pureed). The oranges do not chop as well and we would chop by hand into small pieces.

Where the traditional method results in a "juicy" product, the food processor version is dryer. Both, however, are great!

For those watching their diets, you can substitute your favorite pho-sugar instead, but start with 1/2 the rate and work up as needed.

Final note. As I said, this has been a tradition in my family for some time. I can remember looking forward to this task as a kid. I think it was the facination of watching everything get smashed through the grinder. It was pretty cool! Now as a Dad of three, my boys help me each year, and you know what? It's still cool!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Hello,

I have made a Cranberry Relish using the recipe published on the Simply Recipe site. I used old-fashioned meat grinder, but the whole relish was quite watery. Looking at the picture provided for this recipe, the relish looks as I wanted it to be for me. It created a lot of juices from the apples, orange and even cranberries and I wish it was a little drier. Is it suppose to be this wattery?

Thanks,

Tanya

I made your recipe with a food processor and it filled 2 cute glass jelly jars. I took it to my mom's, where we had Thanksgiving dinner and everyone LOVED it and said it tasted just like the holidays! So refreshing to the palate whether on sandwiches or just to eat along with hot food. I am making a huge batch for Christmas to give to friends. Thanks for sharing!

This has been a long-time favorite for us and I often get requests to make it for others. I don't have a grinder so I freeze the cranberries. I then use my food processor to chop them. (lots of noise but it works well) Just be careful not to chop them into mush, leaving some pieces a bit large is ok. I do the orange (chop this fine so no large chunks of peel) Last is the apple so I can make each the right consistency. Peel and all, just not the seeds. Personally, I like to let the relish sit for 3 days in the fridge before we use it.

I use orange zest and juice, and lime zest and juice, red delicious apples and less sugar. My friends who practice a raw food diet LOVED this. "Hooray! One thing at the family holiday table we can eat!"

Also really tasty with heavy cream poured over it. Or mixed into plain yogurt, for those who do not like commercial fruit yogurt's over-sweetness.

Cran-in-a-can is just wrong. Cranberry "stuff" should not have can ridges when it plops onto a plate. This cran relish has been on our table for forever, and it will be on mine as long as I can open a bag and push a button on the food processor.

Note from Elise: When it's July, and neither a fresh nor frozen cranberry is to be found, and you are craving cranberries, then it's great to have those cans. Glad you like the relish, it's probably the only raw food thing on this site.

I tried a cranberry sauce recipe at work that had onions, apples..... I'm not sure what else in it. Maybe it was more like a chutney. Has anyone tried this, or have a recipe for it?

Every year I make this cranberry relish (less the apples) for Thanksgiving just like Mom used to do when we we growing up. It's always been a favorite. I freeze half the batch to serve with our Christmas dinner. The cranberry relish freezes well, just thaw in the refrigerator the day before serving. Although apples were not used in our recipe, they could be added to the second batch thawing.

I recently discovered that this is delicious frozen and then partly thawed. I made it for last Thanksgiving, froze the extra and have recently discovered it as a dessert. It's like a very exciting and cheerful sorbet... Hm, I wonder if blended, it'd make a good sorbet base.

What a wonderful idea, thank you! ~Elise

As far as cranberries being seasonal goes, will dried cranberries work? I found some at whole foods that are organic. I like cranberries year round but not the canned ones.

No, only fresh or frozen whole cranberries will do for this recipe. ~Elise

I make this same recipe but I omit the apples and I cook the mixture with some extra OJ to make a delish cranberry relish. The leftovers are fabulous on a turkey sandwich with some sharp cheddar cheese!

I was wondering if you have ever heard of using cherry Jello to sweeten the relish instead of sugar? Does this work?

The main ingredient in Jello is sugar, so what you are doing is just adding artificial cherry flavoring to the cranberry relish. ~Elise

Love this relish! I use one bag cranberries, 1 navel orange ( cut into large chunks with all the peel and seeded) 1 small apple, and very little sugar to start. You can add anything -- I did jalapeno and a bit of ginger powder this year. (You can try tangerine for a different taste, if you like) and any of the additions other people mentioned above.

But... you have to start in advance and let the ingredient marry overnight or longer in the fridge. It becomes more mild over time which is why I start with not more than 1/4 C of sugar and add to taste later on.

Really good for you. Tons of vitamin C.

Think of balancing sour, sweet, bitter and "hot." And don't judge final flavor by the first taste-- it will mostly be sour in the beginning.

OMG SOOOOOOOOOO good! I made this for tomorrow and I just tried it and it is delicious. The 45 min has not even elapsed for the sugar to melt and I can already tell you that this is by far the BEST cranberry accompaniment to turkey. Elise- I think I love you! Because of this site I seem to know how to cook .... all the time :)

I couldn't find my copy of the recipe my dad and his mom have made for thanksgiving 'time out of mind'. We add chopped walnuts. Gives it a little more crunch. Enjoy!

Ditto on the sugar. I started with one cup and am glad I didn't add any more. But this is a great antitode to all the heavy food! Thanks for giving us a great recipe to tinker around with.

Elise,
I made this for the first time last week for Thanksgiving, exactly as written, and it is DIVINE. Even people who don't like cranberry just devoured it. I love the way it sets up from the pectin in the fruit...I don't have an old-fashined meat grinder so used my KitchenAid grinder attachment. It worked okay, I think it might be better with the hand grinder but I can't say for sure. Thank you for such a delicious recipe, it's now on the "roster" for every Thanksgiving to come!

I've been making an older version of this recipe for about two years. The old recipe didn't call for tart apples or leaving the peel on and it was still delicious. My family loved it. I'll try this recipe next time. Though, it's hard to beat the old one.

I'd be cautious about using two cups of sugar. One cup appears to be plenty. (Perhaps because I didn't use tart apples.)

I made this last year, and loved it so much I ended up eating most of it myself before Thanksgiving and had to make a second batch! I experimented with dried pitted dates as an alternative sweetener because I do try to avoid refined sugar. I prefer things less sweet than most other people do, but for those guests who do like more sweetness, you could use turbinado sugar or palm sugar if you are looking for a more natural choice. I can't wait to make it for Thanksgiving again this year ... doubling the recipe of course :)

I was very hard hearted when it came to getting rid of unnecessary cooking untensils when I moved here to Washington a few years back. However, I kept the old grinder that had been passed down to me because it gives a texture I don't think you can get other ways (e.g., meat for chili) and it just gives me pleasure using something not plugged in. In this case, the grinder is leaky so, as pointed out in the recipe, there's juice that runs down the grinder base. You definitely will need something to catch it! However, that might explain why some cooks using other equipment felt that it was too runny and drained the mixture. Thanks, Elise, for sharing your recipe and I appreciate the comments of everyone else. I'm in my sixties and this is the first time I've ever made uncooked cranberry sauce. Your praise of this approach helped me make the decision and it is, indeed, delicious.

I make this every year, with no apples, but cranberries and whole tangerine and whole - yes - lime. YUM! It is so zingy and fabulous. I've never made it more than a day in advance, but I see here that some people make these relishes to sit for weeks, so I think I'll be good if I make it tonight to get it out of the way.

Thanks for this great recipe. A food chopper works well. (My electric grinder has too small of holes with the blade.) Some folks in Texas add chopped pecans to cranberry relish. Also can be made without sugar and then stirred into Jello. ;-)

I'll give this 10 yums :). Made some and then had a hard time not eating it all on its own. Should be really refreshing with turkey dinner.
Thank you for this.
Catherine

What are some useful and creative ways to serve this relish? My friend makes this for us every Holiday, but I wondered if there are other ways to serve it, other than with Turkey?

Add some chopped fresh or pickled jalapenos to it and it becomes a salsa for tacos. ~Elise