Recipes for Moms - Quick Easy Recipes

Fresh whole cranberries are so easy to work with and the payoff is worth your time.  In addition to some great tasting goodies you also get the nutritious benefits of cranberries.  Did you know that cranberries are loaded with antioxidants? This can help protect against heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Here are two simple cranberry recipes to make this holiday season or anytime during the year.

 

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

This is so simple to make and I actually like the taste of this. The canned stuff I never have liked. I promise anyone can make this.

1 1/2 bags of fresh cranberries
1 cup orange juice
zest from an orange
2 cinnamon sticks
1 to 1 1/2 cups brown sugar (to your taste)
water

Place cranberries, orange juice, zest, cinnamon, and brown sugar into pan and stir. Add enough water to just cover everything. Turn on high and heat until boiling. As soon as it starts to boil turn it down to low. Be careful because you will have the cranberries bursting, best to do this on the back burner. Keep the pan simmering on low for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. After the first hour you can give it a taste to see if it sweet enough for your taste. You can let it stay on the heat longer if you like; it will just continue to reduce a bit more. Once you are happy with it, remove from the heat and pour into a bowl and let cool. It will set up and get much thicker when you do this. After it cools, cover and keep in the fridge until you are ready to use. Stir gently with a spoon before serving.

Cranberry Muffins

We used to always eat out for Thanksgiving at the same place. Each year the restaurant had cranberry muffins and that was my son's favorite. Knowing I was cooking this year his big request was cranberry muffins with no orange. This is what I came up with, very simple and makes a ton. Muffins freeze easily so I always make extra to throw in the freezer.

Baking spray
1/2 bag fresh whole cranberries (about 2 cups)
4 cups Bisquick
1 cup white sugar
2 cups milk
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 375°F. Liberally spray muffin tins with baking spray. Chop cranberries in food processor. In 2 different batches preferable so you can have one batch very coarse and another batch a finer chop. This gives nice texture to the muffins. In a large bowl combine the Bisquick, sugar, milk, and eggs. Stir well to combine everything. Now fold in your chopped cranberries. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake. For mini muffins it takes 12-14 minutes, regular size muffins about 18-20 minutes. Just keep an eye on them the last minute few minutes so they don't burn.